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The Rise and Fall of Senator Joe McCarthy

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by James Cross Giblin


  The Nagasaki bombing, following so closely on the destruction of Hiroshima and the Soviet invasion, finally compelled the Japanese emperor, Hirohito, to surrender. On August 14, he recorded the announcement of his decision, which was broadcast to the Japanese people and the world the following day. Hirohito said: "Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it could lead to the total extinction of human civilization."

  Although Joe must have been aware of these crucial developments in the war, his reactions were not recorded. He spent much of the summer of 1945 indulging his longtime passion for gambling, on a grand scale. He borrowed money to invest in the stock market, used his gains to obtain additional loans, and then made more investments. The profits he derived from the stock market would help to finance his Senate campaign, which was bound to be expensive.

  Joe took other steps in preparation for the election, which was more than a year away. In order to become more widely known, he resumed his prewar practice of seeking invitations to fill in for other circuit judges across the state. When he went to work in a new community, he sought out lists of local Republicans, tried to learn their nicknames, and then made phone calls asking for their support.

  Joe also befriended Loyal Eddy, the energetic president of the Young Republican Federation of Wisconsin. More than 300,000 men and women from Wisconsin had served in the armed forces in World War II, and Eddy's main job was to reach out to these veterans, ages 21 to 36, and persuade them to join the Republican Party. At 37, Joe was too old to join the Young Republicans, but he saw them as potential supporters. Whenever the organization held an evening meeting near Appleton, Joe did his best to be there. He'd shake hands with those attending, introduce himself, and give a brief talk about his campaign if there was time.

  Loyal Eddy welcomed Joe's visits, and afterward the two men often went to a local tavern for a drink. Eddy admired the way Joe commanded the attention of the tavern patrons. They'd flock around him, basking in his charm and good humor, and listen intently as he told stories of his wartime experiences in the South Pacific. But Eddy found himself questioning some of Joe's stories, especially the one about his severe leg wound. His friend appeared to be in excellent health, and never limped. One evening, Eddy asked jokingly if Joe had gotten the injury from a fall off a bar stool. McCarthy just laughed.

  Eddy was close to Thomas E. Coleman, a wealthy bank president in Madison and a powerful figure in Wisconsin's Republican Party. The party had long been divided into two factions, the more liberal Progressives and the staunchly conservative Stalwarts. Coleman had been the leader of the Stalwarts since the late 1920s, while members of the La Follette family controlled the dominant Progressives.

  The La Follettes were a true political dynasty. Robert M. La Follette, Sr., served as governor of Wisconsin from 1902 to 1906, and then as a senator in Washington from 1906 until his death in 1925. His wife, Belle Case La Follette, was a leader in the feminist movement and a fighter for the right of women to vote. Their two sons both followed in their father's political footsteps. Philip La Follette served twice as governor of Wisconsin. Robert M. La Follette, Jr., was elected in 1925 to fill his late father's vacant Senate seat, and was reelected as a Republican for a full term in 1928.

  Senator Robert M. La Follette, Jr. Wisconsin Historical Society

  The La Follette brothers shook up Wisconsin politics in 1934 when they broke away from the Republican Party to form their own Progressive Party. Now Wisconsin had four active political parties: the Republican, the Democratic, the Progressive, and—by far the smallest—the Communist. For the rest of the 1930s, the Progressives dominated the Wisconsin political scene. Robert La Follette was reelected to the Senate as a Progressive in 1934 and again in 1940.

  Unlike the Republicans, whose party he had left, Sen. La Follette supported President Roosevelt's New Deal domestic initiatives, such as unemployment insurance and Social Security. He differed from the president when it came to foreign policy. Faced with the looming threat of Adolf Hitler's Germany, Roosevelt believed that the United States should begin to rearm, while Sen. La Follette believed just as strongly that the nation should adopt an isolationist policy and stay out of any future European conflict.

  America's forced entry into World War II ended the discussion. La Follette, along with other prominent isolationists, abandoned his previous position and joined the rest of the country in backing the fight against Japan and Germany. But the Progressive Party had been badly weakened by La Follette's changing positions. By 1946, it had virtually disappeared in many parts of Wisconsin.

  The party's collapse presented a difficult choice for Sen. La Follette. He intended to run for reelection in 1946, but would he run as a Republican or a Democrat? Rumor had it that he leaned toward returning to the Republican Party—which meant that he would be Joe McCarthy's chief opponent in the Republican primary. However, La Follette faced another major hurdle: Would the Republican Party and its unofficial leader, Tom Coleman, want him back? It was well known that Coleman thoroughly disliked the senator because of his earlier rejection of the party and his support for President Roosevelt's New Deal.

  Joe was well aware of the complicated political situation he'd have to navigate on the way to the Republican nomination. He also knew how important it would be for him to obtain the endorsement of Tom Coleman. But that was by no means a sure thing.

  Loyal Eddy had talked up Joe to Coleman, and had arranged for the two men to meet. The meeting did not go particularly well. Joe was not the type of man Coleman was used to dealing with. Coleman was accustomed to socializing with wealthy upper-class Republicans at elegant fundraisers for the party. Joe came from a rural background, his education was limited, and his manners were somewhat uncouth. Moreover, he had been a Democrat—a serious drawback in Coleman's eyes. And he was relatively young, a disadvantage in an era when most senators were older men who had been rewarded for long years of service to their party.

  Joe must have sensed how Coleman felt about him, but that didn't stop him from continuing to campaign energetically. His efforts received a major boost in March 1946, when La Follette announced officially that he would run for reelection as a Republican and at the same time managed to alienate Tom Coleman. "True, we have had no invitation from the self-appointed boss of the Wisconsin Republican Party or from the Communist Party," La Follette said sarcastically. "But Progressives would be insulted if they received engraved invitations to join up with either Colemanism or Communism."

  Coleman responded in kind: "Their [the Progressives'] shift is not to the Republican Party. It is to the Republican primary. Pure expediency is the motive." In other words, Coleman was charging that La Follette had returned to the Republican Party only in order to enter and win the Republican primary and then the election.

  Joe joined the discussion with a statement calculated to appeal directly to Coleman and his Republican Stalwarts:

  The party history of the La Follette brothers (Robert and Phil) is one of successive and successful party destruction. Twelve years ago they temporarily wrecked the Republican Party. Then, by playing with the New Dealers in Washington, they wrecked the Democratic Party in Wisconsin. They now allow their own child—the Progressive Party—to die. And they are about to attempt their fourth wrecking job.

  The fight for Wisconsin's second Senate seat was on.

  7. Defeating a Legend

  EVEN THOUGH JOE had failed to win an immediate endorsement from Tom Coleman, Loyal Eddy arranged for him to give the keynote speech at the Young Republicans' state convention in Eau Claire in April. Joe seized on the invitation as an opportunity to state his position on a number of important issues. Sounding a familiar Republican theme, he accused the Democrats in Washington of assuming "that for every problem that arises, a new bureau should be created." The many war veterans in the audience cheered when Joe said they were "being plowed under a smothering mass of red tape" when all they
wanted "was the right to live under a sane, sensible form of government rather than a stifling type of bureaucracy."

  Joe's manner became even more intense when he discussed foreign affairs. A month earlier, in a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill had painted a dark picture of the postwar European scene. Referring to the Soviet domination of the formerly independent nations of central and eastern Europe, Churchill said, "An iron curtain has descended across the Continent." The description "iron curtain" would be frequently used in the years that followed.

  Joe picked up on Churchill's message, blaming the Soviet Union's empowerment on the weakness and indecision of two Democratic presidents, Roosevelt and Truman. "We retreated mentally and morally in Austria, in Poland, in the Baltic States, in the Balkans, in Manchuria," Joe said. It was a charge he would repeat over and over, and the Young Republicans in Eau Claire nodded in solemn agreement as he made it for the first time.

  Although Joe didn't win an official endorsement from the Young Republicans, his speech was enthusiastically received. Many of those applauding would be attending the Republican Stalwarts' nominating convention in Oshkosh two weeks later. Loyal Eddy obtained their names and learned they would comprise more than 20 percent of the voting delegates. On the last day of the Young Republican gathering, Joe threw a beer party for the future delegates, and almost all of those who came said they planned to vote for him.

  There was much more work to do, though, and only two weeks to do it in. As he had during his campaign for circuit judge, Joe bought a new car—perhaps for luck—and raced around the state from one political meeting to another, often driving at eighty miles an hour or more. At the same time, he somehow managed to perform all of his duties as a judge. Mike McMillin, a journalist and columnist in Madison, observed: "It is doubtful whether Wisconsin has ever seen a politician who is more ambitious politically or more untiring and unremitting in his campaigning. He never ceases to campaign. He seems to have no other interest than political power."

  As the day of the convention neared, Joe paid visits to potential rivals for the nomination and persuaded all but two of them to drop out of the race. With the holdouts, he employed stronger tactics. He threatened to make a campaign issue of one contender's divorce, which was sure to damage the man's chances in largely Catholic Wisconsin. The contender soon announced he was no longer in the running.

  Joe used a more indirect approach with the remaining rival. The evening before the convention, one delegate after another came up to the man in the lobby of the convention hotel and told him they planned to support him even though all the other members of their delegation were for McCarthy. After the man had heard the same story more than ten times, he withdrew his name from consideration. Only later did he learn that all of those who had approached him had lied. They were Young Republicans acting on instructions from Joe.

  One more person needed to be persuaded to support Joe's candidacy: Tom Coleman. Loyal Eddy made another strong pitch to Coleman on Joe's behalf. McCarthy was young, energetic, a war veteran who'd been commended for his heroism by Admiral Nimitz himself. All of these qualities added up to a man who could run a successful primary campaign and defeat Coleman's longtime enemy, La Follette.

  Coleman still wasn't convinced and told Eddy he wanted to think about it overnight. The next morning, just before the convention opened, Coleman sought the advice of a prominent Stalwart Republican donor who had had several meetings with Joe. The man told Coleman that he and a number of other important contributors were strongly behind the judge from Appleton. After hearing this, Coleman came to a reluctant decision. He told the donor he, too, would back the nomination, and the election, of Joe McCarthy.

  Once Coleman's endorsement became known in the convention hall, the voting itself was little more than a formality. On the first ballot, Joe received 2,328 votes to 298 for a little-known attorney from Milwaukee whom no one took seriously.

  In accepting the Stalwarts' nomination, Joe once again assumed a humble tone. "I don't claim to be more brilliant than the next man," he said, "but I have always claimed that I have worked harder. I am going to work even harder now. That's a promise." Then he gave the crowd a glimpse of his innermost feelings. "I have looked forward to this nomination for days and nights, weeks and months—yes, years!" Those listening gave him a standing ovation.

  Joe didn't waste any time mobilizing his campaign against La Follette. He assembled a team that included old friends like Urban Van Susteren and new ones like Ray Kiermas, a businessman from the small town of Stephensville, Wisconsin. Kiermas was assigned to head up a greatly expanded version of McCarthy's old favorite campaign activity, the sending of "personally written" postcards to potential voters.

  Kiermas began by collecting telephone books and city and county directories from all over Wisconsin. Next, he recruited help from the Appleton area, offering half a cent for each card written. It was a dull, repetitive job, but scores of retirees, homemakers, and college students applied. Kiermas hired more than a hundred workers and opened an office in Appleton to house the operation. On one side of each postcard was a photograph of McCarthy. On the other side was the handwritten message "Your vote will be greatly appreciated by Joe McCarthy," and space for the recipient's name and address. All of the messages were to be signed "Joe." One woman managed to write and sign 1,000 cards a day.

  Meanwhile, Joe himself was putting in one fourteen-hour day after another on the campaign trail. He was determined to meet and chat with as many Wisconsin residents as possible before the primary election, which was set for August 13. A day of campaigning in the northern part of the state saw Joe waking up in the town of Marinette after just a few hours of sleep. His ultimate destination for the day was the town of Superior, a 300-mile drive from Marinette. In Superior, he was scheduled to give a radio speech at five-thirty p.m. and make an appearance at a rally at eight-thirty. Those weren't the only items on his itinerary. He planned to stop in many towns along the way, meeting people and giving impromptu sidewalk talks.

  Accompanied by a young assistant to help with the driving, he set out after an early breakfast. But the poor condition of the roads, and three blown tires in the first hundred miles, slowed him down. At Rhinelander, he and his assistant left the car and got seats on a small plane headed for Superior. However, the plane developed an oil leak and had to make an emergency landing in a farmer's field. Joe and his helper hitchhiked to the town of Park Falls, where Joe hired a taxi to take them on to Superior. The taxi's engine sputtered to a stop in Ashland, though, so Joe had to charter a plane to take them the rest of the way. He arrived in Superior too late for the radio talk but managed to get to the rally.

  Fortunately, not every day of campaigning was that hectic. Joe often ran late, but he kept most of his commitments. Wherever he traveled, he carried stacks of campaign literature to hand out. The most popular item was a pamphlet titled The Newspapers Say. The title had been Joe's idea; he told his advisors no one would read the publication if it was called Joe McCarthy for Senator. The booklet contained lots of photos of Joe and favorable comments about him from Wisconsin newspapers. It highlighted his youth, his willingness to work hard, and his accomplishments as a judge and a Marine. It said almost nothing about his views on the issues except for his strong support of more federal aid to veterans and their families.

  Joe McCarthy relaxes in front of a fireplace in a log cabin during his primary campaign for the Senate in 1946. Wisconsin Historical Society

  Urban Van Susteren hired a polling firm to test the effectiveness of the pamphlet among voters in a number of small Wisconsin towns. Before the booklet was distributed, the better-known La Follette had enjoyed a two-to-one advantage over Joe in one town; afterward, they were running neck and neck. In another town, where La Follette's advantage had been three to one at the start, the booklet had helped reduce it to three to two. Tom Coleman was so impressed with these figures that he gave Van Susteren $30,000 to finance the printin
g and mailing of 700,000 more of the pamphlets to Wisconsin voters.

  As the date of the primary drew closer, Joe stepped up his attacks on La Follette. He accused the sitting senator of using his position and influence to benefit a radio station he owned. Joe contended, without supporting evidence, that "Senator La Follette's radio station made a 314 percent profit by virtue of a license granted it by a federal agency that depended on the Wisconsin's senator's vote for its appropriation." He added that La Follette "fought long and hard to give the FCC [the Federal Communications Commission] a larger appropriation than anyone thought it should have."

  Two days after making the accusation, Joe invited La Follette to a public debate: "I am ready to meet my opponent for the Republican nomination for the senatorship at any time, anywhere in Wisconsin." La Follette, busy with his senatorial duties in Washington, did not reply to the invitation, so Joe stepped up his attacks. This time he focused on the isolationist stand Sen. La Follette had taken before the war. "If those men who died in World War II could return," Joe said in a radio speech, "they would say, 'Forever sweep from power those of little minds, who, by their failure to see what even the blind could see, obstructed every effort to prepare us for war.'" At the end of the speech, Joe said again that he was willing to debate this, and other issues, with Sen. La Follette "anytime, anywhere."

  Brushing aside pleas from his aides, La Follette continued to ignore Joe's challenge. "I don't see why I should help him draw a crowd," the senator said. Earlier, in a radio talk to Wisconsin voters, La Follette had laid out his view of the election in his usual careful, unemotional style: "With twenty years of service spelled out in detail on the public record, I think you have an ample basis for making an appraisal of my candidacy, without numerous political speeches on my part.... I am running on my record."

 

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