by J. W Lateer
The problem soon arose, however that parties like the Communists advocated the violent overthrow of the government. With the horrors of the 1930’s and World War II still fresh in the minds of Americans, it seemed suicidal to allow such parties to threaten the government, regardless of how feeble they were in terms of numbers. In national elections, the Communists generally received about 100,000 votes out of tens of millions.
But despite the small following of the official Communist Party, there was a far more serious problem: Soviet spies. Hiding behind the Constitution, Communist spies and sympathizers had infiltrated the American government, political parties and other assorted organizations.
The
McCarthy Committee Is Born
The Congress already had experience with two committees that were set up to investigate Communists. One committee was run by Congressman Hamilton Fish, Jr. a notorious isolationist whose activities bordered on the criminal and later went down in disgrace. Another committee was that of a rabid Texas anti-Communist named Martin Dies. That Committee was known first as the Dies Committee and later as the House Un-American Affairs Committee, or HUAC. Martin Dies, like Fish, ultimately went down in disgrace.
These anti-Communist Congressmen were like watchdogs who went down because they had bitten a few too many people. Americans wanted watchdogs. They didn’t want constant political mayhem.
When one studies the history of these anti-Communist committees, it seems like the elected Presidential administrations such as that of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman secretly encouraged them. The Presidents found it convenient for these committees to do their dirty work for them, while they hypocritically expressed disdain for them. There were [during the 1950’s and 1960’s] from 530 to 535 members of Congress. 534 of these claimed they were largely unaware of and helpless in the face of an out-of-control individual like McCarthy. So one could say that the dirty work of the U.S. Government (against real or imagined Communists) was put on the back of the lone-wolf McCarthy at the height of his influence. It all depended on how one looked at things in the 1950’s and the days of the Red Scare.
By the acts and rules of Congress, Joseph McCarthy eventually became Chairman of a committee called the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. This Committee had a number of staff including lawyers and investigators. It was this Committee for which Robert F. Kennedy served as assistant counsel and later as counsel for the Democratic minority.
Following next in line after the Fish committee, the Dies committee (HUAC) and McCarthy’s PSI committee, came the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee or SISS. SISS will be discussed in a later chapter of its own. So we see that there was a whole array of committees engaged in the hunt of the pro-Communists in the U.S.
On February 9, 1950, Joe McCarthy gave his landmark speech delivered at Wheeling, West Virginia. It was then when he began his unsubstantiated charges, the most famous of which was a claim that there were 205 Communists in the State Department. This figure was examined over and over in various settings. It never came close to being substantiated.
The fiction is usually presented that Democrats such as Adlai Stephenson, and even moderate Republicans like Dwight Eisenhower were under attack by McCarthy but were helpless to do anything about it. Looking back now we can see that the alleged helplessness of the moderates was a major misrepresentation. In fact, it was the right-wing members of both parties (the Democrat-Republican conservative coalition) which supported McCarthy in his excesses. We will now expand on how this devious McCarthy-driven system really worked.
As a first step in this bi-partisan, anti-Communist campaign ,the Democrats picked a fairly conservative, non-Southern, Catholic Democrat named Pat McCarran (from Nevada) to head up the SISS committee. The SISS committee soon became known to many as the McCarran Committee. Next, they picked another fairly conservative, non-Southern, Catholic Republican named Joe McCarthy to lead the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
All of this anti-Communist activity in the Senate was on top of and in addition to the actions of the House Un-American Activities Committee. This whole superstructure of anti-Communist Congressional committees landed directly in the backyard of the Kennedy Administration. We will expand on this topic in later chapters.
This strategy bordered on the diabolical. In picking a conservative, non-Southern Democrat or Republican as America’s designated anti-Communist, the Democrats could avoid appearing as if they were adopting reactionary Republican tactics. They would not stand accused of following the same policies as arch-conservative Southern Democrats. The Northerners wanted to avoid this because these Southerners were tainted by such things as segregation, lynching and the KKK.
The key thing to understanding the anti-Communist system is to note that the membership of all these hand-picked committees only included ultra-conservatives drawn from both parties. Further, the northeastern “progressive” or “liberal” Democrats were usually led by big-city ethnic Catholic machine politicians aligned with Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago and other Northern machine bosses. These Northern Democrats would tend to unite around Catholic-backed anti-communists. We tend to forget that most of the Democratic voters of that era were ethnic Italians, Poles and Irishmen. Their respective voters were either consciously or indirectly in sympathy with worldwide Catholic anti-Communism. Communism was, of course, almost everywhere atheistic and aggressively anti-religious.
The HUAC committee in the House included only staunch anti-communists. For a short period, HUAC was identified with the well-known anti-Communist Congressman Richard M. Nixon. But because the House was much larger and more diffuse, there was no one person on HUAC who was set up as a “bad guy” like McCarran, McCarthy (or as Dodd was later) in the Senate. The Senate was much better suited to this scapegoating strategy because there were only a handful of powerful Senators who ran the Senate. This limited group could operate easily, speedily, informally, clandestinely and confidentially.
Philosophically, the Congress did not at first wish to openly outlaw the Communist Party. The Supreme Court might not even have allowed that to happen because of the guarantee of freedom of association in the Constitution. So sometimes, rather than calling Communism what it actually was, the Congress invented code-words like “Un-American Activities.” This particular phrase was mocked by the Supreme Court in at least one opinion. The Court asked “How could you make ‘un-American activities’ a crime? How could you possibly define it?”
Another legalism which became a code-word for Communism was “loyalty.” This word was used in combination with “security.” The dictionary defines “security” as a stock or bond. Or, alternatively, “the freedom from being threatened.” People can be threatened by many things. How does the word “security” directly point to Communism? And then there is loyalty. How do you define loyalty to the country and in its laws? What qualifies as disloyalty? Can someone be loyal to America and Communism at the same time? If not, why not?
The State Department Becomes Enemy #1
When in 1948 and 1949 McCarthy began his attack against Communism in the U.S., the battlefield was almost exclusively the U.S. State Department. The U.S. State Department was the only battlefield for one reason and that was, that one-third of the globe in 1950 was Communist. Further, another one-third (including countries like India or Indonesia) was “neutralist.” Those neutralist countries became so out of fear of the Communist countries, mainly China. That statistic looked ominous to many Americans.
Therefore two-thirds of the State Department around the globe would be either living in, or involved with countries that were not anti-Communist. And as President Kennedy said at one point, the White House does not, by itself, have the resources to create foreign policy. To do that, you need a bevy of experts and lots of resources. Only the State Department had those resources.
This worldwide situation was immensely frustrating to the American right-wing. Sending an ultra-conservative ambassador to the Soviet Union to disp
ense virulent anti-Communistic material and beliefs simply would not work. Almost by definition, anyone who had spent a career studying Russia or China could not walk away from his lifetime commitment just because his country of interest adopted Communism or fascism or any other such system. Expertise on a foreign country necessarily has to be transparent to the type of political system of that country. Otherwise, an expert, say a professor, would be out of work when a country like Russia or China either went Communist, or kicked out the Communists. A country such as China or Russia remains on the map even if parties and governments change hands. This is just reality in the world of career diplomacy and international affairs.
Let’s focus for a moment on McCarthy’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which will hereinafter be called the PSI. One of the first employees of his committee, as was mentioned earlier, was Robert Kennedy.
On November 9, 1949, McCarthy sent a 3000 word statement to Wisconsin newspapers which made reference to a HUAC list of subversives. This list resulted in unfair accusations against many on the list and damaged their reputations.
McCarthy’s biographer Thomas C. Reeves in The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy: A Biography, places the date on which McCarthy went rabidly anti-Communist as some time in late 1949. This date was a month before the supposed contact with the military intelligence agents.
In mid-October 1949, McCarthy inserted an article in the Congressional Record, accusing some of those involved with U.S. Far Eastern policy as being sympathetic to Communism. That included veteran Foreign Service officer John Stewart Service, who was a regular target of right-wing abuse. We will see the name of John Stewart Service show up in the climactic investigation of State Department employee Otto Otepka, which occured in conjunction with the JFK assassination.
Within a week of this article McCarthy hired a speech writer named Charles H. Kraus who had been working with Father Edmund Walsh at Georgetown University.
For some perspective on the alleged Communist problem, one can cite the vote received by the Communist presidential candidate in 1932. He received only 103,000 votes out of tens of millions. There was a more serious problem in the labor union movement. The Congress of Industrial Organizations, the CIO, was considered by most observers to be infiltrated by Communists to some degree.
In 1930 the Fish committee, mentioned previously, recommended that the CPUSA (Communist Party) be outlawed. In 1938, the House had created HUAC which compiled a file of 1 million cards containing information on the “loyalty” of those listed. HUAC was the very first permanent standing committee ever created by the House. All other committees had to be approved by vote every year. In 1945 and 1946, HUAC was dominated by John Rankin (D. Miss) and in 1947 and 1948, by J. Parnell Thomas,(R. NJ).
On March 13, 1948, Truman issued his Directive #9835 on Executive Privilege. This executive order was a prelude to a confrontation between the executive branch and Congress over foreign policy. This battle centered on policy regarding Communism and how to fight it. This battle was a major force among several factors which led to the assassination of JFK.
Executive order #9835 forbade any employee of the Executive Branch from delivering classified information to a committee of Congress. On August 3, 1948, appearing before HUAC, Whittaker Chambers (a Communist turncoat) charged that State Department employee Alger Hiss was a subversive. Hiss had begun to work at the State Department in 1936. On December 15, 1948, he was indicted on perjury charges. Hiss would have been charged with sedition, but the statute of limitations had run out.
During the 1940’s, the issue of China flared up in the Far East. China triggered the first Red Scare. Senator Pat McCarran (from Nevada and tied to gambling interests) became involved in the “China Lobby” debate. Soon after this came McCarthy’s Wheeling speech on February 9, 1950, which blasted the State Department.
As of July 26, 1946, James F. Byrnes was Secretary of State. Byrnes was a conservative Republican who had been appointed by the Democratic administration. Also at that time, there was a mass transfer of New Deal employees from discontinued welfare programs to the State Department. The anti-Communists hated the New Deal and at the same time, they hated the State Department, so 285 of these New Deal employees at state were soon banned from employment. They were allegedly suspected of subversion or homosexual practices. 79 of them had been fired after beginning work. The war against the State Department went into high gear.
In March 1948 Secretary of State Dean Acheson refused to turn over files of 57 alleged spies under Truman’s Order 9835. McCarthy attacked this as “sealing loyalty files.”
From the outset, there was a division in Congress between the Foreign Relations Committee and the conservative anti-Communist committees such as SISS and HUAC. Democratic party leaders met on February 21, 1950 with Tom Connally of Texas, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. They decided that McCarthy’s charges against the State Department should be investigated by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The Tidings Committee Fights Back Against
McCarthy
Senate Majority Leader Scott Lucas turned the McCarthy probe over to a Subcommittee with Sen Millard E. Tydings of Maryland, soon to be called the Tydings Committee. Chief Counsel was Edward P. Morgan, 36, a professional anti-Communist. Assistant Counsel was Robert Morris, N.Y. with close connections to the far right. Judge Robert Morris in 1963 was to be part of the JFK conspiracy.
J. Edgar Hoover was furious with McCarthy over the Wheeling speech. Hoover thought McCarthy’s speech was reckless. Hoover also supplied an investigator to the Tydings Committee. His name was Donald Surine. Surine had been with the FBI for 10 years, but had been fired for involvement with a prostitute. For the next several years, an informal group of three persons, (McCarthy, Surine, and an FBI man) met with J. Edgar Hoover every week regarding issues of Communism and subversion.
The Tydings Committee began in earnest to investigate the issues regarding Communist infiltration raised by Joseph McCarthy. Seth W. Richardson, chairman of the Civil Service Loyalty Review Board (for the entire Federal Government) testified and explained their procedures. At the Tydings Committee hearings, Owen Lattimore appeared. In a memo in August, 1949, foreign policy expert Lattimore had recommended that the U.S. stop support for Chiang Kai-shek and withdraw from entanglements in Korea.
On May 3, 1950, Truman allowed the Tydings Committee members to examine employee loyalty files without notes or copying. Truman complained that four committees of the 80th Congress had already examined them. (On June 21, 1950 John Stewart Service appeared before the Tydings Committee. As previously mentioned, John Stewart Service would be a name which would be debated in the fateful investigation of Otto Otepka which climaxed just a week before the assassination.
The Tydings Committee Report was pro-Democrat and ripped Henry Cabot Lodge and Senator Hickenlooper for failing to study the loyalty files. Henry Cabot Lodge and Hickenlooper refused to sign the Tydings Report. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 11-0 to end the Tydings investigation. The full Senate voted to accept the Tydings Report 45-37 on strict party lines. It was said “the debate was the most rancorous since Reconstruction.”
Don Surine, the investigator and close associate of McCarthy, dealt with General Charles Willoughby and General Douglas MacArthur. Willoughby (who was thoroughly discussed in his own previous chapter) was an extreme conservative and was influential in right wing circles well into the 1960’s. Like Judge Robert Morris, Willoughby would be a member of the JFK conspiracy in 1963. McCarthy and his staff received classified documents from the FBI, CIA and Army Intelligence. Money and tips on Communists poured in, as much as $125,000. McCarthy gambled some of the money at the racetrack.
Several wealthy Protestant Texans started to take an interest in McCarthy. Among them were Clint Murchison, H.R. Cullen and H.L. Hunt, names well known to Kennedy assassination researchers. At or near the same time, John Stewart Service was rehired by Dean Acheson and put on a personne
l board. Walter Winchell, the widely read investigative journalist, Fulton Lewis and Paul Harvey, both conservative radio broadcasters were all pro-McCarthy.
The
McCarran Committee Joins The Action Against Alleged Communists
The McCarran Act passed on September 23, 1950 over Truman’s veto. The Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (a.k.a SISS, or the McCarran Committee) was created on December 21, 1950 to help enforce the McCarran Act. We will devote an entire chapter later in this book to SISS and its almost certain involvement in the JFK assassination. The activities of SISS had a significant influence on the activities of the McCarthy Committee.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Lucas of Illinois, a Democrat, was challenged in 1950 for his Senate seat by Republican Everett Dirksen, a former Congressman. At this early stage in his career, Dirksen tended toward the extreme end of the conservative spectrum. In 1950, the Republicans gained 5 Senators and 25 new House members including Senator Dirksen. But the Republicans failed to gain control of either body. Dirksen would be the Republican Senator closest to the JFK plot, although he was never proven to be overtly involved as would be certain other powerful Senators.
John F. Kennedy once jokingly described his father, Joseph P. Kennedy as a “Taft Democrat.” This, or course, was a humorous contradiction in terms. The senior Kennedy termed American foreign policy to be “suicidal” and called for a withdrawal from Korea and Western Europe. For this stance, Joseph P. Kennedy was applauded by Republican Senator Robert Taft, the Hearst newspapers and former President Herbert Hoover.