"To try to sabotage the foreign policy of the United States is just as bad in this cold war as it would be to shoot our soldiers in the back in a hot war."
Now, the argument hinges on whether "sabotage" is equatable to "criticize." I'll agree that could be a stretch. And Mr Truman may not have intended his remarks to be construed as a general principle, but to refer very specifically to what was an overt attempt to sabotage the foreign policy of the US. (Although I don't think Mr McCarthy was trying to do that, really, he was just looking for something that would make a good issue to benefit his own re-election and the influence of his Party -- in which he appears to have had some short-term success, although what other factors contributed to it are open to debate). But Mr Truman is the one here making the argument that Mr McCarthy's actions amount to an attack on the foreign policy of the United States. Since I expect Mr McCarthy, if anything, wanted stronger measures than were currently being displayed, it is hard for me to see that as equating to an attack on foreign policy, unless we stipulate that anything that undermines confidence is an attack. Since anything that criticizes must necessarily undermine confidence, it's not a great leap to see a suggestion that criticism = an attempt to sabotage, hence treason.
Mr Truman may not have intended this (I strongly doubt he did), but I think it could be taken in that direction (and has been taken in that direction, ad nauseam, for most of my lifetime).
A problem does arise, though: when actions are clearly intended to undermine and attack policy (in time of war or otherwise), with the intent to undermine and attack the US itself. But how can such clarity be known? After all, those who protested the Vietnam war were accused of just such undermining and attacking, and well-deserved, since that's exactly what we were doing. But the undermining and attacking were not with intent to injure the US; in fact, they were done with the intent of strengthening the US and living up to our principles (well, where they were done with any intent higher than personally avoiding the draft). Similarly, the investigation of Mr Trump and his minions are not with the intent to destroy the US, but to preserve it.
But do you think Mr McCarthy hoped to destroy the US? His actions, IMO, were driven by cynicism and expediency, for purpose of deriving partisan political advantage; any attempt to ascribe greater significance to them would require evidence that has not, as yet, come to light. In short, I think Mr Truman was making more of Mr McCarthy's actions than they warranted, and possibly for the very same reasons of cynicism and expediency that were motivating Mr McCarthy. He would have been more to the point, IMO, if he had condemned Mr McCarthy for acting to lower the political discourse, undermine the principles of decency and rule of law that underpin our government, and subvert the democratic process by tactics of lies, innuendo, and hearsay, than to equate it with an attack on US Foreign Policy; but he couldn't do that since it would have been perceived as a personal attack on Mr McCarthy. Which is probably why he didn't send the draft letter in the first place.
-- Mal
= new reply since forum marked as read
