Joseph Welch
| Joseph N. Welch | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Joseph Nye Welch October 22, 1890 Primghar, Iowa, US |
| Died | October 6, 1960 (aged 69) Cape Cod Hospital, Hyannis, Massachusetts, US |
| Education |
Grinnell College (1914) Harvard Law School (1917) |
| Years active | 1956–1960 |
| Known for | Army–McCarthy hearings |
| Spouse(s) | Judith Lyndon (c. 1890–1956) Agnes Rodgers Brown |
Joseph Nye Welch (October 22, 1890 – October 6, 1960) was the chief counsel for the United States Army while it was under investigation for Communist activities by Senator Joseph McCarthy's Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, an investigation known as the Army–McCarthy hearings. His confrontation with McCarthy during the hearings, in which he famously asked McCarthy, “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” is seen as a turning point in the history of McCarthyism.
Welch was born in Primghar, Iowa, on October 22, 1890, the seventh and youngest child of English immigrants Martha (Thyer) and William Welch. He attended Grinnell College and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1914, then attended Harvard Law School and graduated in 1917, magna cum laude, with the second highest grade point average in his graduating class. Welch married Judith Lyndon on September 20, 1917. They had two sons, Joe and Lyndon.
Beginning in 1923, Welch was a partner at Hale and Dorr, a Boston law firm, and lived in nearby Walpole, Massachusetts.
On June 9, 1954, the 30th day of the Army–McCarthy hearings, Welch challenged Roy Cohn to provide U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. with McCarthy's list of 130 Communists or subversives in defense plants "before the sun goes down". McCarthy stepped in 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 called "the legal mouthpiece of the Communist Party". Welch had privately discussed the matter with Fisher beforehand and the two agreed Fisher should not participate in the hearings. Welch dismissed Fisher's association with the NLG as a youthful indiscretion and attacked McCarthy for naming the young man before a nationwide television audience without prior warning or previous agreement to do so:
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