Ike and McCarthy

by David A. Nichols

Meanwhile, at 4:30 that afternoon, Eisenhower sat down to discuss politics with Henry Cabot Lodge. There is no record of the meeting, but Lodge’s memorandum to the president the following day reflected the discussion. The agenda had been what Eisenhower had brought Lodge into the White House to do: advise him on the politics of the 1954 congressional elections. However, Lodge was not thinking just about 1954; he wanted the president to exploit the congressional campaign to set the stage for running for a second term in 1956.

  Lodge headed the memorandum “Basic Position of the President Concerning Congressional Elections.” His message was replete with implications for dealing with McCarthy and other fringe elements in the party. Lodge urged Ike to avoid being sullied by the partisan wars. He attached a draft statement for use with the press, stating the president’s belief in the two-party system, his obligations “as titular leader of his Party,” his commitment to his program, and his belief in the separation of powers in the government. He recommended an above-the-fray posture that would underline “the dual responsibility of the President” to serve as both “party leader and constitutional President.”

  In a confidential note, Lodge concluded, “If you are asked whether you will campaign in the 1954 congressional elections, you can say that you expect to take part in the spirit of the above statement.” That would mean “no wholesale presidential support of all GOP nominees”—a recommendation with implications for McCarthy’s allies. Though the Republicans might not win in the fall, Lodge advised, “if you stay within the spirit of the above, it should be possible for you to come through the campaign with unimpaired prestige, regardless of the outcome, and at the same time, discharge your full duty as titular head of the Republican Party.” Lodge implied that such a strategy would set the stage for 1956.30

  The mood at the White House that morning was upbeat. At the January 20 cabinet meeting, the president commented on the GOP senators who opposed the administration’s program. Perhaps recalling Lodge’s advice the previous afternoon, he said he saw “no reason getting anyone elected who is trying to double-cross us.” He would treat any of those double-crossers “as a prodigal son and kill [the] fatted calf for him if he changes—if not I have need for my own beef.” By that time, Eisenhower almost certainly knew about McCarthy’s threat the previous day to subpoena members of the army loyalty boards.31

  A COUNCIL OF WAR

  At 4:00 p.m. on January 21, Herbert Brownell convened a meeting in his office. A Who’s Who of presidential advisers was present: Sherman Adams, Eisenhower’s chief of staff; William Rogers, the deputy attorney general; Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., the UN ambassador and presidential political adviser; Gerald Morgan, a presidential assistant and congressional liaison; and John Adams, the army counsel. Missing were Jerry Persons and Fred Seaton, the latter perhaps to keep his role under the radar. The most notable absences were army secretary Stevens, still traveling in the Far East, and defense secretary Wilson, who, despite his position, was not a close Eisenhower confidant. The gathering would be a seminal moment in the conflict between President Eisenhower and Senator McCarthy.32

  Who really caused the meeting to take place? Arguably, it was Joe McCarthy, by virtue of his deadline the next day for the issuance of subpoenas for loyalty board members. Herbert Brownell chaired the meeting. That was no accident. His subsequent account puts Eisenhower front and center in the origins of this gathering. He revealed that “the ostensible purpose of the meeting was to discuss Senator McCarthy’s request to subpoena members of the army’s loyalty and security board regarding their actions in the case of one of the individuals under investigation at Fort Monmouth.” The subpoena issue transcended what Eisenhower and Brownell had addressed in Executive Order 10501 in November protecting confidential records. Brownell disclosed that he had discussed the projected get-together with the president, saying that Eisenhower had “asked my advice as to his constitutional powers to order the army personnel to honor the subpoenas.” Eisenhower felt strongly, he wrote, that McCarthy could not violate the constitutional “separation of powers between the two branches of government” or deny the president’s “implicit right” to invoke executive privilege. He had shared a lengthy memorandum with Eisenhower, tracing that privilege back to George Washington.33

  So this was Dwight Eisenhower’s meeting, although he was not present. As was his practice, he had talked with the key members in advance. By meeting in the Justice Department, not the White House, the participants maintained the appearance that the Oval Office was not involved.

  The memorandum Brownell had shared with the president was the first item on the agenda on January 21, spawning an in-depth discussion of McCarthy’s threat to subpoena loyalty board members. Brownell recalled, “We decided that it would be improper to respond to McCarthy’s subpoena.” The discussion of executive privilege spilled over into a discussion of Roy Cohn and G. David Schine. John Adams noted that “in each instance where McCarthy made a demand on us for loyalty board members, it was almost immediately preceded by a flare-up between us and Roy Cohn over the New York assignment requests for David Schine.” Brownell later called the news a “bombshell.” Sherman Adams remembered the account as “strange and incredible” and traced it back to Cohn’s agitation for a special commission for Schine in July 1953. In retaliation for denial of that request, Cohn had apparently pressured McCarthy into investigating the army.34

  Without a doubt, Eisenhower already knew about the privileges sought for David Schine. Fred Seaton had almost certainly discussed them in his January 13 off-the-record meeting with the president. Ike had known that, in July 1953, the agitation on Schine’s behalf had invaded the White House, with Roy Cohn pressuring Jerry Persons into calling naval personnel. Therefore, the expressions of shock were a bit contrived; the real “bombshell” was the realization that, just possibly, the scandal could be used against Joe McCarthy.

  On January 21, in response to John Adams’s narrative, Sherman Adams asked the army counsel, “Have you a record of this?” Adams did not. The chief of staff snapped, “Don’t you think you ought to start one?” He confirmed in his memoirs that he had ordered the army counsel to “draw up a detailed chronological account of the whole affair.”35

  The meeting ended about 5:30 p.m. As the men left the attorney general’s office, they knew that their political world had changed. Brownell recalled, “Following the meeting, I gave my opinion to the president that he was justified under the Constitution in resisting McCarthy’s demand.”36

  Herbert Brownell characterized the meeting as “the first time the administration mobilized its forces on a broad front.” Years later, Henry Cabot Lodge stated that the January 21 meeting “marked President Eisenhower’s first move against McCarthy and led to McCarthy’s ultimate downfall.” Brownell concluded that, thereafter, “the executive branch was prepared to fight.”37 In other words—so was Dwight Eisenhower.

  CHAPTER 7

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  “NOT FIT TO WEAR THAT UNIFORM”

  On the evening of January 21, Joseph McCarthy addressed the annual National Association of Manufacturers dinner in Chicago. When reporters asked, “Will you be a Presidential candidate in 1956?,” McCarthy responded, “Ike is my candidate. Under no circumstances would I be a candidate in 1956.” Eisenhower’s key advisers in the White House, especially Henry Cabot Lodge, thought otherwise. The men at the meeting on January 21 in Herbert Brownell’s office now believed they were engaged in a battle with McCarthy for the integrity—and possibly the future—of the Eisenhower presidency.1

  Roy Cohn had no doubt how momentous that meeting had been. Years later, he stated in McCarthy that “the men who met in the Justice Department that day were among the masterminds behind the movement to stop Senator McCarthy.” He charged that they had eventually resorted to “successive degrees of coercion which did not stop at outright blackmail.”2

  “CROSSFIRE”

  Near the end of their discussion, the Brownell group had w
restled with what steps to take in preparation for the looming confrontation with the Wisconsin senator. The attorney general conceded that McCarthy, by announcing his intention to interrogate loyalty board members about misconduct and corruption—not just communism—“had effectively cornered us.” If the senator issued subpoenas, the administration would be forced to produce the board members but instruct them “to refuse to answer any questions directed at their participation in the loyalty program.” That was a fearful prospect; once the board members confronted the predatory senator, they might be badgered into revealing security secrets. The issue was how—both short and long term—to deal with this situation.

  The group settled on three options. The long-term tool was embodied in the memorandum that Brownell had carried into the meeting. That document reflected months of Justice Department study regarding “executive privilege” that would bar testimony by presidential advisers. However, that was a weapon guaranteed, once employed, to provoke a major confrontation with McCarthy, something they were not quite ready to consider.

  A second alternative was a draft letter John Adams had brought to the meeting, declining to provide the loyalty board members for testimony. Brownell suggested that the Justice Department edit that letter to be more of a “state document,” citing historic precedents and justifying a “blank refusal” to obey McCarthy’s subpoenas. The problem was that McCarthy had threatened to issue subpoenas the next day, January 22. The revised letter could not be available in time. With the subpoena deadline tomorrow, what could they do today?

  What they could do, even so late on January 21, was to fan out and personally lobby the other Republican members of McCarthy’s subcommittee. The emissaries would explain the situation to those senators and—especially important, according to John Adams—“emphasizing the abuses we had received in the matter of Private Schine.” Adams’s handwritten note on a copy of his memorandum for the record captured the verdict: “We should surround McCarthy.”

  Meetings were arranged immediately. John Adams and congressional liaison Gerald Morgan saw Everett Dirksen a half hour later. Adams recalled that Dirksen had pledged to try “to put a stop to McCarthy’s abuse of the Army,” seek to end the agitation for privileges for Schine, and retract “the improper threat of subpoenaing Loyalty Board members in retaliation.” Dirksen talked openly about the possibility of firing Cohn. Later that evening, Adams’s deputy, Lewis Berry, saw Senator Potter and set up a noon meeting the next day for William Rogers to brief Potter in greater detail. About that time on the twenty-second, Adams spent thirty minutes with Senator Karl Mundt.3

  Those conversations had the desired effect. At two that afternoon, McCarthy and his Republican subcommittee members convened a hurriedly called meeting. Following two hours of heated discussion, McCarthy made twin decisions designed to extricate himself, for the moment, from a direct confrontation with the White House. First, he announced that it “was not urgent” that he interview loyalty board members until Secretary Stevens returned from the Far East. Second, to appease the boycotting Democrats, he announced his willingness “to concede that any member of the subcommittee, at any time, had the right to ask for a subcommittee vote on the discharge of any staff member.” That concession had obvious implications for Roy Cohn. When reporters asked whether Cohn might resign, McCarthy responded, “Roy is one of the most brilliant young men I have ever met. He is extremely valuable to the committee. I would be very disappointed if he left.”4

  Nevertheless, Cohn soon felt the political landscape shudder beneath his feet. Senator Stuart Symington, a Missouri Democrat who had been boycotting McCarthy’s subcommittee, had apparently heard that trouble was brewing. He asked Cohn to come to his office. When the young attorney arrived, Symington motioned him to a chair, closed the door, and sat down. He leaned forward, looked Cohn in the eye, and spat out a single word: “Crossfire.” Then he slowly repeated the word. Cohn did not understand. Symington elaborated slightly. “You,” the senator said as he walked Cohn to the door, “have to worry about crossfire.”

  Cohn reflected on that strange conversation a few days later when the phone rang in his hotel room; it was Symington. The senator had another one-word message: “Resign.” Cohn asked why he should do that. Symington snapped: “Crossfire. Resign.” Years later, Cohn could not recall “a moment in my life when I was more thoroughly bewildered and uneasy.” Nevertheless, he was not about to permit an insinuation about his relationship with David Schine to determine what he did.5

  JOHN ADAMS IN THE LION’S DEN

  Given the fallout from the January 21 meeting in Herbert Brownell’s office, McCarthy wanted more precise information on what had transpired. Following the meeting with his Republican colleagues on January 22, he called John Adams and asked him to come to his home that night. Remarkably, Adams agreed to go.

  It was cold, with snow on the ground, when Adams knocked on the door of the McCarthy residence at 8:30 p.m. Once inside the door, the senator plied the army counsel with food and liquor (which Adams declined) and gave him a big package of Wisconsin cheeses to take home. Adams later summarized the subjects discussed in the three-hour meeting as “twofold”: the never-ending issue of assigning Private Schine to New York City and the senator’s request that loyalty board members be made available for interrogation.

  That night, McCarthy aggressively pursued the issue of Schine’s army assignment. Adams recalled that the senator “on at least ten occasions during the evening stated that he didn’t see why it wouldn’t be possible for the Army to give Schine some obscure assignment in New York and forget about it.” McCarthy warned that Cohn, upset over Schine, might launch a venomous “vendetta” against the army. Yet McCarthy characterized Schine as “useless, no good, just a miserable little Jew, who will never be of any help to [the] Army wherever assigned.” However, Cohn had “very powerful connections” with the right-wing press and could cause the army great grief.

  Although he had delayed issuing subpoenas, McCarthy had not given up on interrogating the loyalty board members. He told Adams he needed to “find a means of saving his face”; that made it “absolutely necessary” for him to interrogate the board members, without grilling them about the loyalty-security program. Exhausted, Adams responded that the matter should wait until Secretary Stevens returned from the Far East. About 11:15 p.m., Adams went home, sat down at his dining room table, and composed a memorandum to add to the stack of documents he was compiling for Sherman Adams.

  Adams had exercised atrocious judgment in spending three hours alone with the cunning senator. McCarthy’s motive was obvious; he was pumping Adams for information. The unanswered question in the situation is what Roy Cohn had on the senator that would impel him to continue to demand a special assignment for Schine, whom he clearly didn’t care about. At one point in the conversation with Adams, McCarthy had dropped his voice and said, “The walls have ears, and maybe my room is tapped.” The senator fretted that if Cohn resigned, he might accuse McCarthy of anti-Semitism. Cohn was in Florida that night. Afterward, McCarthy phoned him to report that he was “disturbed” because Adams apparently “had backing higher up.” In his autobiography, Cohn quoted McCarthy: “This has got to be coming from the top.”6

  In the next few days, McCarthy formalized the concessions he had granted to lure the Democrats back to his subcommittee. According to The New York Times, McCarthy “surrendered today much of his one-man authority over the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.” The Democrats could now hire their own counsel and, if they unanimously opposed a public hearing, the question would be taken to the parent Government Operations Committee for a majority vote. Above all, McCarthy capitulated on the linchpin of the walkout: his exclusive authority to hire and dismiss staff members without a subcommittee vote. Senator McClellan announced the Democrats’ acceptance of the agreement. McCarthy, reporter William Lawrence concluded, had “carefully avoided any new showdown with the Eisenhower Administration on the constitutional
right of the Executive Branch to keep secret its Government personnel loyalty procedures.”7

  THE NUMBERS GAME

  Demands continued for Eisenhower to explain the makeup of the 2,200 dismissed persons he had cited in his State of the Union address. At his January 27 news conference, independent reporter Sarah McClendon suggested that the president’s revelation made it appear “that if you are employed by the Federal Government and you suddenly leave or quit, your friends may think you have been fired for security reasons.” Ike danced around an answer, calling it “a very confused business” when there are “so many hundreds of thousands, millions of people employed by the Government, unusual and cloudy cases arise.” But, he concluded, “As I have told you before, our idea is here that we should not charge anyone with disloyalty or subversive activities unless that is proved in a court of law.” Another reporter noted that, according to the director of the Civil Service Commission, the authority to explain the 2,200 rested with the White House. “We are going around in circles, are we not, sir?” Eisenhower returned to ambiguity and dumped responsibility on a subordinate. He noted that “the Attorney General drew up this security order” and “was more intimately aware of the circumstances than I was.”8

  On February 3, much to the president’s annoyance, reporters again asked if there was “any more information about the 2200?” Ike joked that he had “found out some little time ago that you people have a very widespread interest in this thing.” He had “several groups” studying the question, and the information would eventually be made available. Eisenhower rejected guilt by association but was also determined to deny people “the privilege of government employment if they are security risks.” When asked if he would personally provide the report or defer to his subordinates, Ike quipped, to laughter, “Well, it could be both.”9