In other early Cold War espionage news ...

... Morton Sobell confesses, this after a lifetime of denials. There are those who have argued in recent years that confessions like this one, and other evidence of espionage activities by U.S. communists before, during, and after World War II, vindicate Joe McCarthy and his campaigns. That is more than a little over the top. That there was communist espionage (mostly prior and during World War II), doesn't justify wildly throwing out accusations left and right, and it ignores the political opportunism which in McCarthy's case (and that of his party) was a major driving force also. A much more interesting question is how and why, during times of war and international crisis, the United States tends to get a little overzealous in its domestic handling of the situation. I'm not sure if it's just or even primarily an American phenomenon, but it has manifested itself in almost every crisis, from the Quasi War of 1798 to our current War on Terror.