In a Seedy Twist, America’s Drug Czar Supplied McCarthy with His Vices
Joseph McCarthy was an out and out serious alcoholic. By the early 1950s, he consumed more than a quart of liquor a day. His staffers often worried about what he might say, especially after his highly liquid lunches. The booze explains many of the seedy senator’s reckless speeches. The wild assertions made before reporters about an America overrun with communist spies, or that he possessed lists with the names of hundreds of Soviet agents, begin to make sense. They were often simply the rantings of a loaded drunk.
McCarthy was also addicted to morphine. The fact that he used illegal drugs was well known to Harry J. Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, predecessor of today’s Drug Enforcement Agent (DEA). Anslinger hated drug addicts, and had gone on a crusade to destroy blues singer Billie Holiday for her morphine addiction. As such, one might think that he would have felt obligated to arrest McCarthy. Luckily for the senator, America’s drug czar was his personal friend. Rather than place him in handcuffs, Anslinger supplied McCarthy with drugs.