Harvey Matusow and the Birth of Fake News

Actor Robert Cohen tells the extraordinary and unsettling story of Harvey Matusow – once one of America’s most notorious liars and a forgotten architect of the McCarthy era.

Born to Jewish immigrant parents in New York, Matusow drifted from wartime idealism into communist activism before reinventing himself as a professional anti-communist witness. In the 1950s, he became a star of the Red Scare - informing for the FBI, testifying before Congressional committees, helping fuel blacklists and making sensational (often fabricated) claims about communist infiltration in American life.

Then he turned on the machine he had helped to build.

In a dramatic act of recantation, Matusow admitted much of his testimony had been false, exposing the murky world of paid witnesses, political theatre and organised fear that shaped McCarthyism.

His confession brought notoriety, prison and years of exile – but also left behind a question that feels newly urgent.

Drawing on BBC archive, Matusow’s own recordings and interviews with historians, archivists, writers and those directly affected by the blacklist, Robert Cohen explores how fear becomes politics, how media amplifies paranoia, and how performance can overwhelm truth.

From television’s role in McCarthy’s America to the politics of outrage and accusation today, this is the story of a man who spent his life changing sides – and an exploration of what that life may reveal about the making of modern America.

Presented by Robert Cohen
Produced by Louise Orchard
Sound Design by Rowan Bishop
A 2 Degrees West production for BBC Radio 4