The nature and conduct of the McCarran committee were about as distant from those of the Tydings panel as could be imagined. The main resemblance was that McCarran in his way was just as much a Senate lord as Tydings. A long-time leading figure in Nevada politics, McCarran was first elected to the Senate in 1932 and so had two decades of seniority to undergird his legislative powers. As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, he also had leverage over court nominees and high-level appointments at Justice, and was thus a major Senate presence. He was, however, a staunch conservative of a type then still found in the Democratic Party, and often at odds with its reigning New Deal faction.
McCarran’s unusual mix of clout and independence would be crucial to his new subcommittee, which was by and large impervious to the executive pressures that had shaped the work of Tydings. The McCarran group was also of bipartisan nature, consisting of conservative Democrats and Republicans who generally saw eye-to-eye on security issues, and all of its reports and findings would be unanimous—this also in sharp contrast to what occurred with Tydings. The panel had another advantage also, not always enjoyed by such committees: It was able to get access to the files of the IPR—running to tens of thousands of pages—and would wield these in effective manner.
Like congressional interest in the IPR as such, the acquisition of these papers owed a lot to Joe McCarthy—whose staffers discovered the location of the files at the New England farm of Edward Carter and shared this information with McCarran, who then obtained them by subpoena. The files included correspondence between IPR officials and their multitude of contacts, internal memos, minutes of meetings, and records of dealings with U.S. officials. Armed with these materials, carefully sorted out and studied, the subcommittee and its staff were able to ask probing questions of IPR spokesmen and their State Department soul mates and elicit some astounding answers.
While McCarran was running his high-profile investigation, a similar but quieter inquest was being conducted by the FBI. This too, at least chronologically, was a follow-up on McCarthy’s efforts. The IPR had previously been on the radar screens of the FBI because of the Amerasia tie-in, but Bureau interest in the group would ramp up sharply in the wake of McCarthy’s charges. The Bureau, too, obtained and studied the files of the IPR, and its inquiries often tracked, and went beyond, the public efforts of McCarran. In the end, both probes would be massive undertakings: some 5,000 pages of public hearings run by McCarran, plus 1,000 pages of exhibits; 24,000 pages of now-declassified records available in the Bureau archives.
These parallel inquests revealed a wide-ranging, intricate operation that assiduously worked to guide official and public thinking, and hence the course of U.S. policy, concerning the world-changing events unfolding in the Far Pacific. The main focus was on China, where Chiang Kai-shek would be locked in mortal combat with the Yenan comrades, but Japan, Korea, India, Indochina, Indonesia, and other Far Eastern nations were on the docket also. The scope of the group’s interests and activities, and their sophistication, were impressive.
The IPR exerted its leverage in divers ways, aided by the fact that it specialized in a field where there were few competitors to challenge its expertise and influence. The Far East was terra incognita to most Americans, and virtually nobody other than the IPR made it the subject of ongoing, intensive study. The group pumped out innumerable books and pamphlets, published two supposedly authoritative journals, and was successful in getting its materials used by schools, civic groups, and government bodies as allegedly impartial sources on affairs of the Pacific.
A prime example was the Institute’s work in World War II, when U.S. officials bought three quarters of a million of its pamphlets for American troops in Asia. In addition, the group provided to the armed forces lecturers, documents, and books pertaining to the region. IPR materials also enjoyed circulation on the home front, where its pamphlets were widely used in schools and its staffers were available as speakers on radio programs, discussion panels, and lecture platforms.
While IPR pamphlets and journals discussed many issues, two themes especially were salient: the upstanding character of the Soviet Union and the merits of the Reds in China. The group’s admiring view of Moscow was, for instance, disseminated to American schoolchildren in a pamphlet called “Land of the Soviets.” In this work, U.S. youngsters were instructed that “while the Russians are quick to condemn those who display ambition for personal power, they have no praise too high for the person who devotes himself to the common good.” And further: “A motive peculiar to the Russian system is the pride of ownership of the Soviet workers. They have a voice in running the factories…Each of these has its own village soviet, chosen at a village meeting not unlike our New England town meeting.”7
A like view of the Communists in China was provided in a 1946 IPR pamphlet concerning the alleged “peasant party” headquartered at Yenan. This publication asserted that, “when we speak of the Chinese Communists, we should remember that they stand for something rather different from what is ordinarily meant by the term ‘Communist’…They maintain the right of private property and enterprise in the areas under their control…They have established a system of popular elections…They have long declared that they would support a democratic republic in which not only they themselves but all other Chinese political parties would be represented…”8
IPR-connected authors were prolific in producing books and essays that echoed these opinions. Israel Epstein, Owen Lattimore, Guenther Stein, Edgar Snow, Lawrence Rosinger, and others churned out volumes that reflected the perspective. Many of these authors wrote for the popular press as well—including such outlets as the Saturday Evening Post, the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times, and the New York Herald Tribune. A specialty of such writers was reviewing one another’s books. As the McCarran report concluded:
For some years, the IPR family held a near monopoly on the reviews of books on the Far East published in The New York Times, The New York Herald Tribune, The Saturday Review of Literature, The New Republic, and The Nation…the IPR stalwarts constituted for the American reading public during those years [1945–50] a virtual screening and censorship board with respect to books on the Far East and the Pacific…a major preoccupation of the reviewers was the launching of each other’s books.9
As might be guessed from the above, books and articles by IPR-connected writers took a harshly negative view of Chiang Kai-shek. It was in fact, as noted by McCarthy, an article by Soviet intelligence asset T. A. Bisson in IPR’s Far Eastern Survey in 1943 that signaled a switch from the previous line of “united front” accommodation with Chiang when he was pinning down a million Japanese who might have threatened Russia, to a stance of all-out opposition. This message would be amplified manyfold when it was picked up by more prominent writers and echoed in more mainstream journals.
IPR did more, however, than write and publish. It was also a main epicenter of the extended network of activists and groups that held rallies, sponsored meetings, and took hard-left positions on China and other Asian issues. The McCarran panel identified a half-dozen outfits closely linked to IPR by common directors, officers, and staffers. These included the Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy, the China Aid Council, the American Friends of the Chinese People and its magazine China Today, and the American Russian Institute (all officially cited Communist fronts).
By far the most significant of such overlaps were with Amerasia—a link stressed often by McCarthy. In his early speeches and other public statements, he held forth on the personnel who served both with Jaffe’s journal and with the IPR—including such as Lattimore, Chi, Field, and Bisson. Everything McCarthy had to say about this was confirmed by the inquiries of the FBI and McCarran. In fact, not only were there overlaps in terms of staffers, editors, and writers, but numerous other linkages also. As one FBI memo reported:
In 1945, Kate Mitchell, associate editor of Amerasia, said material furnished by IPR was used in editing Amerasia. IPR documents reflected Edward
C. Carter favored a merger of Amerasia and IPR…IPR and Amerasia maintained headquarters in the same building and shared a common switchboard from 1937 through 1943. Review of IPR publications and all issues of Amerasia reflects approximately 115 individuals who contributed articles to both….In July 1947, when Amerasia ceased publication, subscription lists filled by Far Eastern Survey.10
Thus, though Amerasia was more militant and IPR allegedly more scholarly and restrained, the two groups for all intents and purposes were one. The differences in shading were nonetheless important, as IPR’s cloak of respectability gave it entrée to policy-making circles where Amerasia’s more blatant pro-Red stance might have been offputting. Aiding the process were IPR-connected U.S. officials Vincent, Hiss, and Currie, their efforts supplemented by IPR associates and contacts in other federal billets.*220 In particular, during the hurly-burly of hiring for World War II, numerous IPR personnel would be added to official payrolls. The volume of these pickups was so great the FBI made several compilations, periodically updating the lists and adding other relevant data. There appeared to be a constantly active revolving door between the IPR and U.S. agencies dealing with Far Eastern matters.
Before it became the better part of valor to downplay it, IPR was proud of its presence in the federal workforce and bragged about this to supporters. Thus, on November 4, 1942, Edward Carter highlighted for one of his contacts the involvement of IPR in official wartime posts both in the United States and overseas, plus the doings of IPR personnel in other aspects of the conflict. Excerpts from this letter are of interest in view of later revelations about some of the people mentioned:
“Lattimore is at the moment back in Chungking as a political adviser to Chiang Kai-shek, but goes shortly to San Francisco to be Pacific Coast head of the Office of War Information…. Bob Barnett has just returned from a short visit to Chungking. Michael Greenberg has just joined the Board of Economic Warfare…Jessup is at Columbia training naval officers for reoccupation service in the Pacific, Chi is acting secretary general of the American British Chinese currency stabilization board in Chungking. Chen Han-Seng and Elsie Cholmeley were prisoners in Hong Kong, but they and some of their friends managed to escape and are now in Free China.”11
There is more to be said about the IPR and its leaders, but these comments are perhaps enough to suggest the major points at issue. The Institute was a kind of plexus through which the notions brewed up in Amerasia could be filtered, given more respectable mien, and conveyed to IPR familiars in the State Department as policy options for Asia—a great many of which were then adopted. The unanimous conclusions of the McCarran panel supply a good provisional wrap-up:
The IPR has been considered by the American Communist Party and Soviet officials as an instrument of Communist policy, propaganda, and military intelligence. The IPR disseminated and sought to popularize false information including information originating from Soviet and Communist sources. A small core of officials and staff members who controlled IPR were either Communist or pro-Communist…the names of eminent individuals were by design used as a respectable and impressive screen for the activities of the IPR inner core, and as a defense when such activities came under scrutiny…
Over a period of years, John Carter Vincent was the principal fulcrum of IPR pressures and influence in the State Department. It was the continuous practice of the IPR to seek to place in government posts both persons associated with IPR and other persons selected by the effective leadership of IPR. The IPR possessed close organic relations with the State Department through interchange of personnel, attendance of State Department officials at IPR conferences, constant exchange of information and social contacts…The IPR was a vehicle used by the Communists to orientate American Far eastern policy toward Communist objectives.12
Considering the global reach and high-level contacts of the IPR, it’s questionable whether the schoolhouse it was running could properly be called “little.” But, based on the findings of McCarran and the FBI, there didn’t appear to be much doubt about the redness.
CHAPTER 29
“Owen Lattimore, Espionage—R”
THERE were many notable characters linked to IPR, but none more so than its chief ideologue and master wordsmith, Prof. Owen Lattimore of Johns Hopkins University, OWI, Pacific Affairs, Amerasia, and several other significant venues. As that résumé suggests, Lattimore was a versatile sort who wore many hats and did so in rapid sequence. He moved back and forth among the academy, government, and press corps, writing books and essays, editing journals, making speeches, and networking with fellow Far East pundits. If there was anything much that needed doing in the way of Asian expertise, Lattimore was the man to do it.
He was also, according to Joe McCarthy, a Soviet agent—one of the most important in the land. Before the Tydings panel, in executive session, McCarthy had branded Lattimore, indeed, the “top Soviet espionage agent” in the country, an allegation that, when leaked to the press, did considerably more damage to McCarthy than to the professor. Subsequently, McCarthy backed off from the espionage angle but still insisted that Lattimore was a leading Moscow agent, and set out to prove it before the Tydings panel and in speeches to the Senate.
Lattimore, McCarthy charged, had been the point man for the Communist line on China, belittling the cause of Chiang Kai-shek and building up the Yenan rebels. This pro-Red outlook, said McCarthy, had suffused the air in Foggy Bottom and fatally influenced our stance in Asia. “In view of his position of tremendous power in the State Department as the ‘architect’ of our Far Eastern policy,” McCarthy charged, “the more important aspects of his case deal with his aims and what he advocates; whether his aims are American aims or whether they coincide with the aims of Soviet Russia.”1 McCarthy left no doubt he thought the answer was the second.
In the judgment of the Tydings panel, as ever, such charges had no merit. Its report would echo Lattimore himself on his supposed lack of influence (merely “a writer and a scholar,” “the least consulted” of all Asia experts), saying “it is ridiculous to suggest that Lattimore was the principal architect of our Far Eastern policy, or, indeed, that he had any effective influence whatever thereon.” As to the alleged pro-Moscow nature of his views, said the report, “we do not find that Mr. Lattimore’s writings follow the Communist line or any other line, save as his very consistent positions on the Far East may be called the Lattimore line.”2
So deposing, Tydings gave short shrift to data brought forward by McCarthy. On the question of policy leverage, for instance, McCarthy said Lattimore “had a desk” in the State Department, this indicating obvious access to the halls of power. Lattimore denied it, John Peurifoy of State concurred in the denial, and Tydings treated these statements as facts of record. Likewise, the testimony of Louis Budenz was again shrugged off as “hearsay” and in essence treated as false and perjured. “In no instance,” said the panel, “has Mr. Lattimore on the evidence before us been shown to have knowingly associated with Communists.” The case revealed, according to Tydings, “the danger of promiscuous and specious attacks on private citizens and their views.”3
As with other aspects of the IPR dispute, later investigation would paint a contrasting picture of the bespectacled professor. For one thing, even a cursory survey of his career suggests that, in disclaiming any policy clout whatever, Lattimore was much too modest. Vide his role as adviser to Chiang Kai-shek, high-level job at OWI in World War II, and stint in 1944 as traveling mentor to Vice President Henry Wallace. Add to these his role in late 1945 and early ’46 with an official mission to Japan and drafting its report on measures allegedly needed in that country. Thereafter, in October 1949, he was a major figure at a State Department confab charting the further course of U.S. policy in Asia. And, in 1950, at the time of the Tydings hearings, he was off on a mysterious foreign junket at the behest of U.N. official David Weintraub. All in all, a pretty active official life for a supposedly cloistered, unconsulted scholar.
All that, how
ever, was minor stuff compared to the McCarthy charge that Lattimore’s influence, whatever its scope, was deployed in behalf of Moscow. This wasn’t an espionage allegation, but in its way was just as bad, and as outrageous to McCarthy critics. It was also, ironically, an aspect of the Lattimore case that could readily be checked by anyone who wanted to make the effort, as his writings often touched on matters involving the USSR, its foreign policy, and its character in general.
Especially helpful in gauging Lattimore’s views were two like-titled books published in the early phases of the Cold War, one in 1945 (Solution in Asia), the other in 1949 (The Situation in Asia). These books, though devoted to the Far East, were replete with comments on the Soviet Union as an Asian power, its challenge to the U.S. and other Western nations, and related topics—mostly the civil war in China. No one reading these volumes with any care, or knowledge of the issues, could have been in serious doubt about the Lattimore perspective.
By far the most obvious aspect of these books—and many other Lattimore writings—is that he was an indefatigable shill for Moscow, slanting discussion of just about any conceivable subject in favor of the Soviet interest. Other facets of his work were convoluted or opaque, but this part couldn’t have been any clearer. A second obvious feature, linked to the first, is that he was an equally strong promoter of the Reds in China, and handled matters relating to them in pretty much identical fashion. The net effect of Lattimore comments on these topics, though approached by indirections, was about as subtle as a chainsaw.
A main Lattimore thesis, much repeated, was that the Soviet Union was a dynamo of political-economic progress that dazzled the people of Asia with its achievements, thus exerting an immense “attraction” that pulled them toward the Moscow orbit. In so arguing, he invariably wrapped the Soviet despotism in familiar buzzwords of the West—“democracy” being most often used, though “freedom” occasionally popped up also. (Nor did he omit respectful bows to Stalin.) Here is one somewhat famous passage, taken from Solution in Asia:
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