Joseph Welch testifies in the afternoon session June 9, 1954, when he engaged in a bitter verbal battle with Sen. Joe. McCarthy. "Have you no sense of decency, sir? Welch asked McCarthy. | AP Photo Sen. Joe McCarthy assailed by Army counsel, June 9, 1954



On this day in 1954, Joseph Welch, chief counsel for the U.S. Army, which was being probed for Communist infiltration by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, confronted Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-Wis.), the panel’s chairman.

The exchange, which came on the 30th day of the nationally televised Army-McCarthy hearings, curbed McCarthy’s ability to further pursue his “Red Scare” tactics. Some historians view the verbal duel as the downward turning point in McCarthy’s political career.


Welch challenged Roy Cohn, the committee’s counsel, to provide U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. “before the sun goes down” with McCarthy’s alleged list of 130 Communists or subversives working in defense plants.

McCarthy interceded and said that if Welch was so concerned about persons aiding the Communist Party, he should check on a man in his Boston law office named Fred Fisher, who had once belonged to the National Lawyers Guild, which Brownell had cited as “the legal mouthpiece of the Communist Party.”

Welch dismissed Fisher’s association with the left-wing group as a youthful indiscretion.

“Until this moment, senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness,” Welch said. “Fred Fisher is a young man who went to the Harvard Law School and came into my firm and is starting what looks to be a brilliant career with us.

“Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad. It is true that he will continue to be with [Boston-based] Hale and Dorr. It is, I regret to say, equally true that I fear he shall always bear a scar needlessly inflicted by you. If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty, I would do so. I like to think that I am a gentleman, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me.”

When McCarthy renewed his attack, Welch interrupted him: “Senator, may we not drop this? We know he belonged to the Lawyers Guild. Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

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When McCarthy tried to ask Welch another question about Fisher, Welch cut him off:

“Mr. McCarthy, I will not discuss this further with you. You have sat within 6 feet of me and could have asked me about Fred Fisher. You have seen fit to bring it out. And if there is a God in heaven it will do neither you nor your cause any good. I will not discuss it further."

The gallery erupted in applause.

Frederick George "Fred" Fisher Jr. (1921-1989) went on to become a partner at Hale and Dorr. In 1973–74, he served as president of the Massachusetts Bar Association.

SOURCE: “WITHOUT PRECEDENT: THE STORY OF THE DEATH OF MCCARTHYISM,” BY JOHN ADAMS (1983)

