He visitied USSR many times and knew Russian well. He rejected communism after he saw the Warsaw Pact intervention in Czechoslovakia. The intervention took less than 300 hundred lives on both sides, but McCarthy choose to support republicans, a fascist regime responsible for thousands of victims all over the World.
Edit: Wikipedia says: “he distanced himself after making visits to the Soviet Bloc, which led to him becoming a conservative Republican.” but it seems that this particular intervention changed his mind, not the earlier multiple visits in Soviet Union. Wikipedia is biased as fuck.
I agree. And his writing in that one letter is so brief that while it does portray what was maybe an important moment in the evolution of his views towards the USSR, it really doesn’t give much insight into his political thinking overall.
I understand leaving behind something you were inculcated into growing up, especially the dominant culture wherever you are. We all pick things up as kids that we drop as soon as we really think them through.
But I really don’t understand that kind of hard swing to the right later in life, especially for private citizens.