# Claim 856

Senator McCarthy said a way to spread material favoring Communism would be to misleadingly claim to have deserted the party and then use control of a newspaper to "attack and smear anybody who actually was fighting Communism," according to Reason magazine.

Published 2026-09-26. Last reviewed 2026-09-26. 1 source.

- Statement: Senator McCarthy said a way to spread material favoring Communism would be to misleadingly claim to have deserted the party and then use control of a newspaper to "attack and smear anybody who actually was fighting Communism," according to Reason magazine.
- Field: stated_justification
- Value: McCarthy's theory of covert Communist messaging
- About: [incident 1953-us-wechsler-mccarthy-subpoena](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1953-us-wechsler-mccarthy-subpoena)
- Source: McCarthy and His Friends (Reason). http://reason.com/archives/2008/02/14/mccarthy-and-his-friends
- Publisher: McCarthy and His Friends (Reason)
- Method: outlet report
- Checked: 2026-09-26
- Confidence: medium
- Status: current
- Source date: 2008-02-14

## Quotation from the source

> would be to claim that we deserted the party and, if we got in control of the paper, use that paper to attack and smear anybody who actually was fighting Communism.

Source page: https://thewaronnews.com/claims/856. The War On News, CC BY 4.0.