Based on this information and close questioning of the men who gave the affidavits, the memo reached a thumbs-down verdict on both depositions. Of one affiant it stated: “On the basis of his own admissions to subcommittee investigators…this sweeping certification has been shown to be inaccurate.” Of the other: “The accuracy of his affidavit is placed in question by the testimony of five other witnesses who were present during the delivery of the speech [about its impromptu nature]…It is difficult to reconcile [the] affidavit with this testimony.” Thus, according to the Senate memo, the affidavits on which Tydings-Benton relied went the way of Desmond’s story.7
• The foregoing, of course, is of a purely negative nature—suggesting that the alleged proofs of what McCarthy said at Wheeling weren’t proofs at all, per the investigative findings. Also significant, however, were interviews with several witnesses as to what McCarthy did say, as best they could recall it. Granted the imperfections of memory and inevitable variations of detail, these witnesses were generally agreed in what they remembered. A colloquy with William Callahan reads as follows:
CALLAHAN:…McCarthy definitely talked about two different figures. I have the impression there was a smaller group, which by his information were known Communists, or known to have Communist connections. The other group, while he did not have the information to pin it down, he thought that they could be or probably were in a similar group or connection. What did McCarthy say he said?
[DANIEL] BUCKLEY [one of the investigators]: He said he used the figure 57 concerning Communist suspects and possibly 200 or 205, which figure he got from the Byrnes letter.
CALLAHAN: The language you just used sounds more familiar…it would be my impression that if McCarthy used 200 or 205 and then the smaller figure of 57, which he said he used, that would be more in line with what I believe [occurred].8
Like testimony came from former Congressman Love, who had met McCarthy at the airport and was at the dinner. His recollection was that “there was certainly another figure mentioned other than the 205 and I think was stressed more than 205. I am not sure if 205 was mentioned. It seems to me he talked about another number.” Gieske of the Intelligencer stated: “I questioned the ‘205’ which Desmond used in the story and I pressed him closely as to whether he heard it used. I questioned the authenticity of it. My own recollection is that I did not hear ‘205’ though I was there. My recollection is that Desmond said he was depending on the McCarthy manuscript which was issued tentatively and subject to change…”9
Strikingly similar to these comments were the statements of three other witnesses who heard the speech and who shared their distant memories of it with the author in March 2000, shortly after the fiftieth anniversary of the meeting. These were Eva Lou Ingersoll, Douglas McKay, and Ben Honecker, all young political activists in Wheeling when McCarthy came to visit. Naturally, after so great a lapse of time, total recall of exact details was not to be expected. Also, on such a notorious topic, the possibility had to be considered that feedback from other sources might have mingled with firsthand recollection. That said, these interviews jibed with the above, and also, on a most critical matter, with one another.
Most notably, all three of these attendees said McCarthy had spoken impromptu and definitely didn’t appear to be reading a text verbatim. Again, the consensus was that he may have read some of his remarks, ad-libbed others, seemed to consult his text from time to time but would then make statements off the cuff. All this reinforced the testimony of witnesses in the Gillette inquiry and thus reconfirmed the central point that the supposedly conclusive radio affidavits had to have been in error.
As to what McCarthy said exactly, given the lapse of fifty years, the testimony of these latter-day witnesses was understandably mixed, as was that of the Gillette committee subjects. By far the most detailed and vivid account was supplied by Mrs. Ingersoll, who was explicit in saying McCarthy’s version of what he said was right, and the Tydings-Benton thesis thus mistaken. The exchange about this went as follows:
QUESTION: In the summer of 1950, Senator Tydings and other critics of Senator McCarthy contended that here in Wheeling he had said “I have in my hand a list of 205 Communists,” or something like that, “in the State Department.”
ANSWER: That was wrong.
QUESTION: Would you just address what you remember him saying with respect to the 205?
ANSWER: He spoke of the 205—as I recall, they were being investigated…and then he said, “Of the 205, 57 were found to be card-carrying members of the Communist Party.” I remember that. And someone told me later that they weren’t carrying cards at that time. But I am telling you what he said anyway.
QUESTION: That’s what I want. So, he did not claim to have, in your recollection, a list of 205 Communists?
ANSWER: No.10
The question of course arises as to how Mrs. Ingersoll remembered so distinctly details so hazy in the minds of others. Her answer was that she had definite reason to recall the figures. She said she was so astounded and alarmed by what she heard that she scribbled down the numbers, borrowing a pen from a friend to do so, making notes on a page from her phone bill. Some weeks later she found these in her purse, and remembered them very well thereafter. What she had written down, she said, was first the number “205” and then “57 cc”—the letters standing for “card-carrying Communists.” The first was the larger number referred to by McCarthy, the second the list he claimed to have in his possession.*99
The two other attendees at the event, McKay and Honecker, while confirming that McCarthy spoke ex tempore, were much less certain about the numbers. Asked about them, McKay said he did recall McCarthy saying he had a “list” of Communists in the State Department and using the figure “205” in this connection. When McKay was asked about the Ingersoll statement, the dialogue went as follows:
QUESTION: I have just interviewed another person who said the following, and I would ask you to comment about this: That what he said—what she remembered him as saying, and she said she had notes on it—was that there had been a group of 205, and that of these, 57 were card-carrying Communists. You don’t recall that?
ANSWER: I don’t recall that. He could well have said that, but I do not recall.11
Ben Honecker, when asked about the numbers, referred to “200, 205, 55,” in that order, but when questioned further didn’t recall what numbers were used how. These exchanges went as follows:
QUESTION: You mentioned the 205, and then you said 55. Do you remember 55 as a number [of suspects] at all?
ANSWER: I have never paid too much attention to the numbers that the politicians use because they can vary from one day to the next.
QUESTION: That is for sure. But you don’t specifically remember what he said about that—205, 57?
ANSWER: Nothing.12
On net balance—as to specifies and also as to imprecisions—these responses weren’t radically different from the replies the Gillette investigators got when they went up to Wheeling (in statements of which these modern witnesses had no knowledge). The chief similarity is the agreement on the impromptu nature of McCarthy’s talk; the main difference, the very explicit statement of Mrs. Ingersoll, who seems to have been one of the few people at the event, or perhaps the only person, who made notes of what McCarthy said there.
Beyond such personal reminiscence, there is further evidence bearing on the issue—namely, other press accounts about it. As it developed, the Desmond story was but one of three renditions of the McCarthy talk published in the Intelligencer, though the other two receive short shrift, or none, in the conventional histories. One of these was an editorial Herman Gieske wrote the day after the meeting, which not only differed from the Desmond story but closely tracked McCarthy’s version.
Gieske’s editorial, published Saturday, February 11, stated, inter alia: “Senator McCarthy shocked his audience when he charged there are over fifty persons of known Communistic affiliations still sheltered in the U.S. Department
of State…Senator McCarthy declared that Secretary Acheson cannot be unaware of this Communistic infiltration of which, he said, Alger Hiss was but one example.” This verification of McCarthy’s account of what he said was written, be it noted, within twenty-four hours of the event—not weeks or months thereafter.*100 13
THE GIESKE EDITORIAL, FEBRUARY 11, 1950
This Wheeling Intelligencereditorial, written the day after McCarthy’s speech at Wheeling, reports the senator as saying there were “over fifty” suspects of Communist affiliation in the State Department, confirming his version of the numbers used at Wheeling.
A third rendering of the speech, passed over in the usual histories, also appeared in the Intelligencer, and this, too, sharply differed from the Desmond version. The Friday-morning paper, on page 12, printed extensive excerpts from McCarthy’s talk that did in general follow the rough draft, but with two major deviations: (a) the erroneous population figures were corrected; and(b)—more significant yet—the passage about the 205 was conspicuously omitted. The obvious implication of the latter is that the statement on the 205 was in fact not uttered by McCarthy.14
The neglect of this highly visible feature in the Intelligencer by the Tydings panel and historians of the era is extremely puzzling, since it is by far the most extensive media version we have of what McCarthy said that evening. Evidently, the draft was checked over by someone who followed it as McCarthy spoke and who corrected it for errors or changes in the light of what was actually said. The resulting text is obviously a better proxy for the lost recording than the garbled, unpublished, and totally uncorrected draft that Myers-Whitaker said had been declaimed verbatim.
Also, as noted in the Gillette inquiry, there are supplementary sources that recount what McCarthy said in the immediate wake of Wheeling. As he hedge-hopped West by air for other speeches, he made stops at which he met reporters and offered further comment on his charges. Of note was a stopover Friday afternoon in Denver, Colorado, where he talked with a reporter from the Denver Post. This encounter is somewhat famous, as it receives a fair amount of play in the usual write-ups. The reason for this is that the Post ran a picture of McCarthy peering into his briefcase, with a caption saying: “Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy—Left commie list in other bag.” This mocking caption is too much for anti-McCarthy writers to resist, so they have often used it.15
However, curiously absent from such accounts is the headline on the story accompanying the photo, in much larger type than the sardonic caption and thus impossible to miss. This reads: “57 Reds Help Shaping U.S. Policy: McCarthy.” (See Chapter 15.) Anyone who read the caption on the photo would also have seen this headline, but it is nowhere mentioned in the standard treatments. So, though our historians have somehow failed to notice, the first independent story we have about McCarthy’s comments in the aftermath of Wheeling clearly shows him using the number 57 in referring to his list of suspects—not 205. (Indeed, the same story goes on to give his explanation about 205 as a statistic, not a McCarthy list, much as he would elsewhere explain it.)*101
THE DENVER POST, FEBRUARY 11, 1950
Various McCarthy biographies quote the caption on the photo with this story but omit the much larger headline saying that McCarthy used the number “57” in discussing Reds in the State Department—the number he always claimed he used in making his original charges.
From Denver McCarthy went to Salt Lake City, where he would attend a Republican dinner with Sen. George Malone of Nevada and take part in a radio show, all this still on Friday. This stop produced two further newspaper accounts relating to the numbers—in both of which McCarthy was again quoted as expressly saying he had the names of 57 suspects.†102 Likewise, when McCarthy and Malone appeared Friday evening with Salt Lake radio personality Dan Valentine, McCarthy said: “Last night I discussed the ‘Communists in the State Department.’ I stated I had the names of 57 card-carrying members of the Communist Party.” Thus, McCarthy’s stopover at Salt Lake produced three separate media versions of what he said there, all echoing what he said in Denver.16
The story would be much the same on Saturday when McCarthy arrived at Reno, where he was to give an address that evening. On the afternoon of that day, he sent a telegram to Truman using the identical figure appearing in the Denver/Salt Lake stories: “In the Lincoln Day speech at Wheeling Thursday night, I further stated that I have in my possession the names of 57 Communists who are in the State Department at present.”17 That evening, in a speech at the Mapes Hotel, according to the Reno press accounts, he once more made the claim that he had the names of 57 people who were “card-carrying” Communists on the rolls at State.
Finally, the Reno visit provided some further detail pertaining to the rough-draft issue. In the Nevada State Journal coverage of the talk appearing on Sunday, February 12, reporter Edward Connors wrote: “Sen. McCarthy who had first typed in a total of 205…scratched out that number and mentioned only ‘57 card-carrying members…’” From this phrasing it would appear that Connors had a copy of the same rough draft supplied at Wheeling but with the numerical changes penciled in.18
It will thus be observed that, in repeated instances immediately following the speech in Wheeling—numbering at least half a dozen—McCarthy invariably claimed to have a “list” of 57 Communists at State, not 205. So far as the available records disclose, there are no exceptions (other than recycled AP accounts) to this consistent usage. Likewise, when he did use the figure 205, he explained that this was a statistical calculation and not a McCarthy “list.” McCarthy would make the identical explanation many times thereafter, in many different settings. However, these early instances are of greater evidential value, as they occurred in the immediate aftermath of Wheeling.*103
From all of which, the question inevitably arises: Why would McCarthy have claimed on Thursday evening to have a “list of 205” Communists at State, then instantly turn around on Friday and repeatedly say, on so many occasions, something so entirely different? And the self-evident answer has to be that he would not have done so. The plain inference from the data canvassed, mixed with a little common sense, is that what he was saying on Friday must have been what he had said the night before, just as he contended. That verdict is in turn congruent with the findings of the Senate staffers who found no credible evidence he had ever uttered the statement about a “list of 205” in Wheeling to begin with and much evidence to the contrary.
One further point about newspaper treatment of the Wheeling speech is worth brief notice. At the height of the later uproar about the subject, in June of 1950, McCarthy wrote to Herman Gieske asking if he could locate someone who had a recording of the speech as broadcast on WVVA. McCarthy said he was willing to pay up to several hundred dollars for such a recording, but asked the editor not to publicize the fact that McCarthy was the buyer. Gieske complied with this request, running a notice on the front page of the Intelligencer on July 6 saying such a recording would be worth considerable money as a “collector’s item,” not saying McCarthy was the would-be collector.19 As it turned out, no such recording was discovered. However, McCarthy could not have foreseen this, and by having this item run all but ensured that such a recording would surface if it did exist, and would do so in a public manner. As the Gillette investigators noted, he would hardly have gone to these lengths unless he were confident such a recording would support his version of the numbers.
An instructive gloss on the above is the reaction to the Gillette committee memo by one of McCarthy’s severest critics—Senator Benton’s aide and confidant, John Howe. As Howe would later write to Benton: “I lost my enthusiasm for the ‘perjury’ charge when I got a chance that evening, two years ago, to read the report of the committee staff. Now there isn’t any doubt that the 205 card-carrying Communists in the State Department appeared in the rough draft. But there is grave doubt that McCarthy actually said it, to the audience or on the air. He ad libbed a great part of the speech, roaming over the stage, and occasionally walking back to
glance at his notes. He used at least two figures (doubtless 205 and 57). You’ll remember that the next night—where we had the recording [of the Salt Lake broadcast]—he announced that on the previous night he had spoken of 57 card-carrying Communists. The 205 figure, I would then assume, he used in its proper context—based on the letter from Byrnes to Sabath.”20
Howe then summarized further data from the staff report—Desmond’s admission that he had written his story from the draft, the Gieske editorial saying “over fifty,” and the business of the depositions. From this overview Howe concluded: “All this has considerably muddied the clarity of the perjury charge, don’t you think?” (Benton was less easily persuaded, arguing that the Senate staffers had been biased in McCarthy’s favor, but grudgingly acknowledged that the perjury charge was weakened.)
Based on Howe’s comments, as well as on its intrinsic merits, the memorandum put together by the Senate staffers was obviously a document of great importance in settling the issue of what McCarthy said at Wheeling. Which makes it of surpassing interest that this fact-laden memo was never printed for public consumption (only nine copies of it were made) and that when the subcommittee issued its final report these findings about the Wheeling numbers were not so much as mentioned. Rather, the whole perjury count against McCarthy—though it was Benton’s foremost charge—was simply dropped from the discussion. (This clearly wasn’t for reasons of space, as the panel did devote 266 pages of its final report to reproducing McCarthy’s financial records. See Chapter 32.)
All too obviously, the data the investigators brought back from Wheeling weren’t what the subcommittee’s higher-ups were after, so the resulting memo was stuffed in a drawer somewhere and conveniently forgotten.*104 Subsequently, the memo would all but vanish from chronicles of the era—ignored in most studies of McCarthy, referred to obliquely and not too accurately in a couple, and otherwise consigned to the oblivion of the archives (and hard to locate even there). Likewise, the misgivings expressed by Howe were kept discreetly private, and may be found today only by rummaging through ancient papers. By such devices do facts of record, for purposes of political history, become officially nonexistent.*105
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