Feared "Conservatives" Often Die Hard
That Darn History. Again.
With Rudy Giuliani possibly at death’s boor, and his deadbeat one-time boss and not-really friend not looking too good, let’s look at the passing of two “conservatives” who once ruled with fear.
The first is Roy Cohn, our alleged president’s once-upon-a-time lawyer, mentor and the person who essentially installed the POTUS’s political operating system.
The second is Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who through having no shame and living a life of lies, just like his assistant and minion Cohn, met a rough end.
Roy Cohn, was a poorly closeted gay man who hated gay men, and who was once feared by a who’s who of society and politics.
Cohn became famous prosecuting accused spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1952–1953. He was Joseph McCarthy’s chief counsel during the Army–McCarthy hearings in 1954. Cohn assisted McCarthy’s investigations of suspected communists.
Cohn survived McCarthy by several decades, and in the 70s and 80s, was a prominent legal and political fixer and society figure in New York City.
Cohn was disbarred in 1986, by the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court for unethical conduct. He attempted to defraud a dying client by forcing him to sign a will leaving his fortune to Cohn.
Cohn died of AIDS, 2 August 1986, at age 59. Alone.
He vehemently denied that he was HIV positive, living out his lies to his last breath.
Sen. Joseph McCarthy, Cohn’s one-time boss, was also feared through his 1950s red scare tactics that ruined thousands of lives.
He was an alcoholic, had cirrhosis, and was frequently hospitalized for alcohol abuse. Numerous eyewitnesses, including Senate aide George Reedy and journalist Tom Wicker, reported finding him drunk in the Senate.
He was addicted to morphine. Incredibly, Harry J. Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics at the time, secretly gave McCarthy morphine from a Washington, D.C. pharmacy. The Federal Bureau of Narcotics actually paid for the morphine.
McCarthy died in the Bethesda Naval Hospital on 2 May 1957, at age 48.
Even his cause of death, listed as “hepatitis, acute, cause unknown,” was a lie. Alcohol ate his liver, and morphine helped things along. Some observers at the time considered his death a suicide.
Yet, McCarthy was given a state funeral attended by 70 senators, and a Solemn Pontifical Requiem Mass was celebrated with more than 100 priests and 2,000 mourners in attendance at Washington’s St. Matthew’s Cathedral.
When he was buried in his home town of Appleton, Wisconsin, more than 17,000 people paid their respects.