Reconsideration McCarthy remains a controversial figure. Arthur Herman, popular historian and senior fellow of the Hudson Institute, says that new evidence—in the form of Venona-decrypted Soviet messages, Soviet espionage data now opened to the West, and newly released transcripts of closed hearings before McCarthy's subcommittee—has partially vindicated McCarthy by showing that some of his identifications of Communists were correct and the scale of Soviet espionage activities in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s was larger than many scholars had suspected. In Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies, journalist M. Stanton Evans similarly argued that evidence from the Venona documents shows significant penetration by Soviet agents.
Reconsideration McCarthy remains a controversial figure. Arthur Herman, popular historian and senior fellow of the Hudson Institute, says that new evidence—in the form of Venona-decrypted Soviet messages, Soviet espionage data now opened to the West and newly released transcripts of closed hearings before McCarthy's subcommittee—has partially vindicated McCarthy by showing that some of his identifications of Communists were correct and the scale of Soviet espionage activities in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s was larger than many scholars had suspected. In Blacklisted by History The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies journalist M. Stanton Evans similarly argued that evidence from the Venona documents shows significant penetration by Soviet agents.