Ike and McCarthy

by David A. Nichols

  Based on that conversation, Lawton decided he could suspend the personnel in question. On October 6, the army announced that Lawton had suspended several employees at the Signal Corps laboratories at Monmouth “for security reasons,” citing Eisenhower’s Executive Order 10450 from April embodying the principle that employment was “a privilege, not a right.” On October 8, as a result of Stevens’s order to Lawton, six civilian employees at Monmouth testified before Roy Cohn and twelve more were scheduled for the next day.25

  Sensing the chance to gain more headlines, McCarthy terminated his honeymoon and rushed back to take charge of the Monmouth investigation. Once back, he rolled out sensational charges every day. He was free to emerge from closed-door hearings and tell the press anything he wished, accurate or not, knowing that reporters would report whatever he said. On October 12, McCarthy announced that his subcommittee had unearthed a trail of “extremely dangerous espionage” at the Fort Monmouth radar laboratories that “will envelop the whole Signal Corps.” The espionage, the senator said, dealt “with our entire defense against atomic attack.” He had examined five witnesses in executive session, one of whom had worked with Julius Rosenberg during World War II; he announced plans to seek testimony from thirty more employees.26

  The next day, McCarthy revealed that an army officer had informed the subcommittee that “a sizeable amount” of “top secret” documents had disappeared from the Signal Corps. If those documents “got into the hands of an enemy they could be extremely dangerous to this country,” the senator declared. According to John Adams, the story of the stolen documents “was entirely hot air.” He traced the story to a nineteen-year-old East German defector who had falsely claimed he knew about the theft. Adams had informed McCarthy that the story was bogus “within two days after the story first appeared.” The senator ignored Adams’s revelation and dispatched an aide, James Juliana, to Germany to interrogate the so-called scientist, who now worked as a stock clerk in the Army Post Exchange. “He didn’t tell Juliana anything,” Adams recalled, “because he didn’t know anything.” Nevertheless, Juliana flew back to New York and was quoted as saying “I have interviewed this scientist and I have obtained from him and now have in my possession highly classified documents” that had been transmitted to the East Germans.27

  The pressure from McCarthy’s investigations tempted the Eisenhower administration to indulge in its own violation of civil liberties. Herbert Brownell had been asked to speak at the National Press Club on October 14 on the subject of the Fifth Amendment and “people who claimed immunity before congressional committees.” To assist him with that appearance, Brownell urged the president to expand Executive Order 10450, defining employment as “a privilege,” so that employees invoking the Fifth Amendment would not be immune to an employment or retention investigation. In response, Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10491, amending the criteria for launching an investigation of a government employee to include “Refusal by the individual, upon the ground of constitutional privilege against self-incrimination, to testify before a congressional committee regarding charges of his alleged disloyalty or other misconduct.” That action reflected the corrosive moral impact of McCarthy’s witch hunts; Brownell and Eisenhower, normally inclined to be more protective of constitutional rights, were now violating the spirit, if not the letter, of the Fifth Amendment.28

  On October 14, McCarthy announced that the army had suspended five additional civilians at Fort Monmouth for “Communist activities,” bringing the number to ten. The senator had also interrogated a “top scientist” and “close personal friend of Julius Rosenberg” who confessed that, in 1946, he had taken home forty-three “secret documents.” The next day McCarthy proclaimed that the wartime espionage ring Rosenberg had set up at Monmouth during 1942–43 “may still be in operation.”29

  On October 16, Stevens summoned the courage to resist this contrived panic about Fort Monmouth, saying that the army had “no evidence that any documents had been compromised or that files had been tampered with” at Signal Corps headquarters. Nevertheless, he insisted to Army Undersecretary Earl Johnson that “the Army is getting along fine with Joe. He is getting headlines and is entitled to them. Fundamentally, he has been fine with us.”30

  The day-by-day revelations continued. Following another executive session, McCarthy announced, “I have just received word” that an “important” employee at the Monmouth radar laboratories and a close friend of Julius Rosenberg “admits that he was lying . . . and now wants to tell the truth.” While being cross-examined by Roy Cohn, the witness broke down, began to cry, and was taken to another room to be treated by a doctor and a nurse.31

  THE MONMOUTH JUNKET

  Robert Stevens still nourished the illusion that he could personally persuade McCarthy to back off. On October 19, he did an extraordinary thing; he invited McCarthy and Cohn to accompany him on a trip to Fort Monmouth the following day. He expressed his hope to J. Edgar Hoover that the outing might make McCarthy “willing to turn this [investigation] back to the Army with the information he has so that we can take responsibility for following it from here in.”32

  At midmorning on October 20, the secretary’s plane took off; besides McCarthy and Cohn, the party included John Adams and administrative assistants to Everett Dirksen and Charles Potter, Republican senators on McCarthy’s subcommittee. David Schine had planned to go, but fog delayed his flight from New York. To implement Stevens’s plan to secure an agreement with McCarthy, John Adams had drafted a statement that he and Stevens hoped McCarthy might issue at the end of the day, affirming the senator’s satisfaction with the progress of security operations at Monmouth. When they arrived at the Monmouth County airfield, they were met by General Kirk Lawton, New Jersey Senator Alexander Smith, and Congressman James Auchincloss and were issued badges inscribed “secret” or “confidential.”

  On their way to the base, General Lawton asked the secretary to inspect some secret equipment; however, only those with the “secret” badges could enter the building. Though the restriction was waived for Senators McCarthy and Smith, it was not for Cohn. Cohn flew into a rage and demanded that Adams get him a car to take him immediately to New York. “This is the end; this is war,” he threatened. “We’ll really start investigating this place now; they let Communists in but they keep me out.” Later, over lunch, Cohn, still agitated, told Adams that there would be “no favorable press release by McCarthy that day.” Cohn followed McCarthy to the men’s room and urged him not to make a positive statement.33

  At the news conference afterward, Stevens announced that twelve more Fort Monmouth employees had been suspended; McCarthy said he would conduct a hearing with six or seven more the next morning. In spite of Cohn’s anger, McCarthy pronounced himself “very favorably impressed” with what Stevens and Lawton had done “to clear up this situation.” He emphasized that “an extremely bad and dangerous situation has existed here over the years” but expressed confidence that “the great majority” of employees at the fort were “loyal, true and doing an outstanding job for their country.” Stevens commended the “good evidence of the kind of teamwork between the Executive and Legislative Branches” and concluded, “We have made a lot of progress here today.”34

  Meanwhile, David Schine was scheduled to be inducted into the army in less than two weeks, so Roy Cohn was still pressing Robert Stevens for a special assignment for him. Schine called Secretary Stevens the day after the Monmouth trip to inquire about his status. “I have reviewed this whole situation with Mr. Wilson,” Stevens said. “Neither he nor I can see an appropriate way to avoid the basic training.” However, Stevens made a promise that would return to haunt him; once Schine completed basic training, “I think there is an excellent chance that we can pick you up and use you in a way that would be useful to the country and to yourself. Just what that would be, I don’t know.” With Schine’s training completed, they could develop a plan “that would work out satisfactorily for you and for the Governm
ent and for everybody.” “Everybody” clearly included Cohn. John Adams was “dumbfounded” when he learned about Stevens’s pledge.35

  However, Cohn frantically kept up the pressure. On October 27, he called Stevens from New York about “our young friend here.” Cohn argued that because the subcommittee was in the midst of an investigation, “we would like him around for a while.” One officer had suggested to Cohn that Schine “could be furloughed for a couple of weeks.” Cohn asked about a possibility he had apparently raised previously with Stevens, “this C.I.A. thing.” Cohn wondered if “the people over there pick him up right away?” Ever accommodating, Stevens offered to talk with Allen Dulles, and Cohn responded, “I would appreciate that.”36

  It is possible that Eisenhower vetoed that proposition. The next day, October 28, Stevens, after twice calling an unidentified person at the White House (not Allen Dulles), phoned Cohn with the news that the CIA could not use Schine because they “have to train people and want them for a long period.” However, Stevens had decided that he was “willing to assign him, after being drafted to [the] First Army,” and Schine’s first mission would be “temporary duty of two weeks” to complete his committee work, not to be extended.37

  Fred Seaton worried increasingly about Stevens’s tendency to cave in to what McCarthy wanted. An hour after Stevens made his promise to Cohn about Schine’s special induction privileges, Seaton called him. His purpose was once again to buck up Stevens’s resistance to McCarthy’s demands for loyalty board records. Standing firm against McCarthy’s demands, Seaton said, was “a matter of principle,” and he offered Stevens his help “in fighting that one.” Stevens blithely responded, “I am working well with McCarthy; and I will say yes to stuff that makes sense and no to what does not.” He planned to tell McCarthy “no” regarding the senator’s demand for those records. Though the issue might end up on the president’s desk, Stevens understood that “under existing Executive Orders we cannot give this stuff out.” Seaton cautioned Stevens, “If Joe gets into this situation, you play hell in getting anyone to serve on those boards.” “We can order them to serve,” countered Stevens. “But then,” Seaton warned, “you will always have [the] inclination to settle things the way he wants them settled.”

  Stevens turned defensive, maintaining that there was “nothing to worry about in my relations with Joe and that committee. We have a good working relationship” and “the fact that I am going to turn him down will be nothing that will upset me or the relationship.” Stevens’s naiveté troubled Seaton. He resorted to flattery to soften Stevens’s reaction, expressing his “complete admiration” for how he had handled the situation. Then Seaton counseled, “If Joe is sincere, then we have nothing to fear; but if he gets to be completely a demagog[ue] on this subject, then we will; but that is not your fault.” He shrewdly framed his counsel to the wishy-washy secretary as an accomplished fact. “I am tickled to death you have said no, you are not going to produce them,” he said, referring to the loyalty board records. “People are inclined if Bob Stevens says this is so, it is so; and you don’t need confirming evidence from across the river.” “Across the river” was Seaton’s euphemism for the White House—a not-so-subtle hint about the source of Seaton’s marching orders. His final warning oozed with manipulative flattery: “You are too smart to let [McCarthy] make a satellite out of you.” Stevens promised to talk with Seaton “the minute it looks like it is getting out of hand.”38

  SKUNK HUNTING

  Seaton knew that Stevens had rubber in his backbone. Two days after Seaton’s phone call, John Adams wrote Stevens about an intense conversation he had held with Seaton, Struve Hensel, and Assistant Attorney General Lee Rankin about the problem of “revealing security information and names of hearing board members.” Seaton and Hensel had reinforced the mandate that “you will not reveal the names of the members of screening, hearing or appeals boards” and “you will not permit members of these boards whose names are known to make revelations with reference to security hearings in which they participated.” Rankin had affirmed the Justice Department’s support for that position and promised to provide a draft statement in case “we find it necessary to make a public pronouncement” about the policy and the reasons for it.39

  Eisenhower’s October 30 cabinet meeting revolved around the same issue: what information could be released to congressional committees. In fulfillment of Lee Rankin’s counsel, Herbert Brownell presented a draft replacement for the existing Truman executive order, to be labeled Executive Order 10510. The new order reduced the categories for classifying documents to three—“top secret,” “secret,” and “confidential”—and eliminated Truman’s fourth category, “restricted.”

  Impatient with the situation, Eisenhower, walked into that cabinet meeting determined to get the issue behind them. When Dulles pleaded for delay so the State Department could draft its own regulations, Eisenhower snapped, “Now wait a minute,” and insisted that such work be done following the issuance of the order. When Secretary Wilson argued for keeping the “restricted” category, the president patronized him, saying “I know a good bit about defense” and calling “restricted” a “useless classification.” Besides, he grumbled, “Moscow has all our ‘restricted’ material” and “no one gets angrier than I when I see classified material in [the] papers.” The president was wound up now. “My own feeling,” he fumed, “is we’ve classified open things and leaked real secrets so much it’s sickening.” He confessed that “the proposed order is really a public relations matter and that the Administration will benefit greatly by putting it through.” Ike shut off further debate: “With all we’ve gone through on this, let’s make December 15 the effective date.” The cabinet acquiesced in a decision that had clearly been made before they entered the room.40

  After two months of McCarthy investigating the army, fear stalked the halls of the White House, the Pentagon, and army outposts. Earlier on the day of the cabinet meeting, John Adams phoned Stevens about a tragic case that resulted indirectly from McCarthy’s tactics. A witness named Louis Kaplan—the same last name as Raymond Kaplan, who had committed suicide in March—had been called; a former communist by that name had testified earlier, and “this particular witness has been plagued for about 15 years by having the same name.” Kaplan had been suspended at Fort Monmouth on October 22 due to “nothing but a mistake in identity.”41

  General Lawton continued to suspend Fort Monmouth employees. On October 27, The New York Times reported that twenty-seven persons had been suspended. By the end of the month, he had suspended thirty-three, with two others in limbo. On a Friday afternoon, Stevens shocked John Adams by handing him a stack of folders containing the dossiers of all the suspended employees. “He wanted to know how to dispose of them,” Adams recalled, “by Monday.” Adams was “thoroughly shaken.” He wanted to reinstate all the suspended personnel but feared that if he did, “McCarthy would come crashing down demanding blood, probably mine.” He was eventually able to restore twenty-five to duty, but the other eight had to wait five years before the courts cleared them.42

  Adams’s qualms were justified. McCarthy’s conciliatory demeanor on the Fort Monmouth trip lasted barely twenty-four hours. Stevens’s attempts to appease the senator had failed, vindicating Eisenhower’s strategy that it was smarter to ignore McCarthy than to engage with him. McCarthy had converted his Fort Monmouth investigation into a seemingly authentic discovery of espionage at a critical army establishment.

  The evening following his trip to Fort Monmouth, McCarthy responded to his critics in a speech in New Jersey. He roared to an appreciative audience, “You don’t go skunk-hunting in striped trousers and a tall hat while waving a lace handkerchief.” A few days later, he repeated that harangue in Chicago, declaring he was on “the most important skunk hunt ever” and adding that he did not “give a tinker’s dam what the bleeding hearts” said about his methods. “The closer we get to the nerve center,” he proclaimed, “the louder and louder w
ill be the screams.”43

  In spite of the anguish of the employees suspended in response to McCarthy’s agitation, Eisenhower steadfastly refused to “get down in the gutter” with McCarthy. He was surely acquainted with a World War II–era adage that perfectly captured his stated policy: “Don’t get into a pissing contest with a skunk.” Or, in this case, with a self-proclaimed “skunk hunter.” Yet, that was what Dwight Eisenhower and Herbert Brownell would soon contemplate doing.

  CHAPTER 5

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  THE TURNING POINT

  Dwight Eisenhower approached the anniversary of his election to the presidency with satisfaction. He had led his party, out of office for a generation, in learning how to govern again, working carefully with the Republican leadership to manage its fragile one-vote majority in the Senate. Domestically, by executive action, he had created the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) and had made marked progress in desegregating the District of Columbia and enforcing desegregation in the armed forces. In foreign affairs, he had successfully terminated the Korean War and implemented a “new look” in defense policy, relying more on nuclear weapons for deterrence. The president had also courageously signaled his willingness to seek peace with the Soviet Union in the wake of the death of Josef Stalin.1