AGITATION FOR HEARINGS
By March 15, the New York Times reporters had figured out that “the key men in the Army’s fight with Senator Joe McCarthy” were John Adams, Fred Seaton, and Struve Hensel; Seaton was “calling the signals,” and Hensel “is planning strategy for the expected hearings on Capitol Hill.” Adams, identified as potentially “the key witness” in any hearings, was a busy man that day. On orders from Seaton and Hensel, he was plowing through McCarthy’s eleven memoranda line by line, refuting their assertions in detailed memoranda to Hensel.17
Meanwhile, Hensel and Seaton kept Stevens on a short leash. In a phone call, Hensel warned him to “say nothing to the press.” Hensel had just received “two hundred–odd pages of undigested testimony” about Schine’s and Cohn’s behavior at Fort Dix—especially Cohn’s persistent pressure for weekend passes and exemptions from KP duty for Schine. “It is a bad story,” he told Stevens. “It is the story of demoralization of at least one company by these two brash kids.” Hensel urged Stevens, before speaking to the press about the Fort Dix report, to “check this with Fred Seaton.”18
William Ewald provided a vivid description of the situation in mid-March 1954: “So there at the moment the Great Debate rested: The Army’s meticulously expurgated list of facts, in chronological order; the eleven McCarthy memos—self-serving, crudely written, questionably dated rejoinders; Stevens’ innocuous, wordy, always amiable, frequently irrelevant recollections; Adams’ fact-engaged, detailed retorts, descending at times into niggling quibbles over who paid the bills and why a single private should do Sunday KP. The controversy often turned on the Army’s undocumented word against McCarthy’s purportedly contemporaneous written evidence.”19
Amid growing agitation to hold hearings, the question became whether the Senate Armed Services Committee would stage them—a solution preferred by the administration—or whether McCarthy’s own subcommittee would do it. However, Republican Leverett Saltonstall of Massachusetts, the Armed Services chairman, was up for reelection and wanted nothing to do with the controversy. The members of the subcommittee’s parent committee, Government Operations, had no stomach for the fight. Eisenhower’s decision to keep William Knowland out of the loop proved costly. Hensel told Stevens that “the present disposition of the Majority Leader in the Senate seems to be to start in this committee—the McCarthy one.”20
A DECISION ON HEARINGS
On March 16, the stage was set for a stormy, three-hour meeting of McCarthy’s subcommittee. McCarthy stated his willingness to step down as chairman and testify under oath but was adamant that he be granted the right to cross-examine other witnesses—an issue that would remain unresolved for the moment. He got his way on most matters. The seven-member subcommittee would be reorganized as a “special committee” to conduct the investigation. McCarthy would step down from the chair in favor of Karl Mundt, the man whom cynical reporters had labeled “the Tortured Mushroom” or “The Leaning Tower of Putty.” All other subcommittee matters would be set aside while the hearings were held. Roy Cohn was not formally suspended, but the group agreed that new counsel should be secured for the hearings. The New York Times editors asserted that this plan was “a little like saying that Mr. McCarthy has now graciously agreed to investigate himself.”21
The issue, much debated, was whether the hearings would be closed to the public. McClellan and Symington insisted on open hearings. Dirksen was reluctant, arguing that the inquiry could have only two outcomes—the termination of Roy Cohn or John Adams or both—and open hearings were not essential. But Charles Potter joined with McClellan, justifying public hearings on the grounds that “somebody has committed perjury and I don’t know who.” Ironically, the formal motion for public hearings was offered by McCarthy.22
Almost immediately, the decision to hold public hearings dictated that the sessions would be televised. Minority Leader Lyndon Johnson had instructed McClellan, the subcommittee’s senior Democrat, to insist on televised hearings, no matter what else they conceded. Subsequently, Hagerty would confide to his diary, “Ike wants hearings open and televised.”23
The next morning, the newspapers reported the decisions made by the McCarthy subcommittee, especially to televise the hearings. The spotlight was shared by Jim Hagerty’s planted story that the USIA had rejected McCarthy’s books on communism as “not suitable reading” to include in the holdings of overseas libraries. Once again, the Eisenhower operation got under the senator’s skin. “If I was really interested in getting these books into the libraries,” McCarthy grumbled to the press, “I presume I could accomplish that by joining the Communist Party.”24
Hagerty’s operation continued to roll out negative McCarthy-related stories. The New York City selective service director revealed that Roy Cohn had been deferred from military service twice, in 1945 and 1946, and had avoided induction until the government ended the draft in 1947. Two days before the draft was resumed on June 24, 1948, Cohn had enlisted in the National Guard, which made him no longer subject to the draft.25
At his March 17 news conference, Eisenhower was questioned about whether he believed McCarthy’s charge that “your Secretary of the Army made threats against the Senate committee and offered to turn in the Navy and the Air Force if he could get a favor from the committee.” He responded with military crispness, “Now, when you ask me whether I believe Secretary Stevens, of course I do. If I didn’t believe him, if I didn’t have faith and confidence in him, he wouldn’t be where he is; I believe in him.”
When asked if the controversy was damaging the morale of army officers, Ike drew on his own experience to assert that army leaders, when unjustly accused, experience “a mixture of anger, resentment, and rather a great deal of sadness.” He delivered a subtle dig at McCarthy: “They are not articulate; they are not around making speeches in commercial clubs or all that sort of thing.” But such officers “are people to whom I think we owe a lot.” He called for distinguishing between “anyone we think may have made a mistake and may have made a blunder, and these great armed services.”
Near the end of the news conference, Eisenhower was asked if he thought a time would ever come “in which events do not require us to ask a question about unwise investigators?” Responding to laughter, he countered that he had told an “associate” (probably Hagerty) that morning, “You know, if one name comes up I am going to ask permission whether we couldn’t have one press conference without this particular subject coming up.” That line generated more laughs. Ike had still managed to avoid mentioning the name of Joe McCarthy.26
A STORY “HALF-TOLD”
John Adams and Joe Alsop had agreed in February that the report Adams had shared about David Schine was off the record. However, Alsop titled his March 15 column “McCarthy-Cohn-Schine Tale Was Half-Told.” He reported that Cohn’s “disgusting obscenities” had been deleted, as had intimations as to the nature of the McCarthy-Cohn-Schine relationship. Struve Hensel told Stevens that Robert F. Kennedy, the counsel for the Democrats and brother of Senator John F. Kennedy, had tried to pump him about what had been “half-told.” “Either Joe’s memory is awful damn good,” Hensel muttered, “or Joe has a copy—no matter what John Adams says.”27
Adams himself no longer had a copy of his original documents. He recalled how, right after the release of the Schine report, “Fred Seaton appeared in my office and demanded that all the copies of my diary of the Schine pressure be handed over to him on the spot.” Adams had called Sherman Adams twice, trying to get his original documents back, but the chief of staff had put him off, saying they were deposited “in a good safe place.”28
Seaton was now on the Washington hot seat; key people knew that he had been the field general in the distribution of the Schine report. After reading Alsop’s “half-told” column, Senator Symington called Seaton to seek the real “dirt.” Symington had heard that Seaton had “heavily censored” the report, and he demanded “the uncensored version.” Seaton smoothly sidestepped t
he question, asserting that he had not censored the report since “in fact there actually was not a report. There was a collection of memoranda and papers—some totally unrelated to the subject.” However, he confessed, “there was some unpleasant language taken out.”
Symington was not persuaded by Seaton’s verbal footwork, so Seaton resorted to the strategy he had employed with McCarthy on March 11, promising to relay the senator’s request higher up the chain of command. “As far as I am concerned,” he said, “anything the committee asks for that is within my power to get, the committee gets.” That “within my power” phrase provided the shrewd newspaperman with an escape hatch. Symington persisted, “I would like to get it all.”
Symington gave up. “Telling you how to act on the Hill is like trying to tell a Grandmother how to suck eggs,” he said to Seaton. “If they ask you something and you don’t know the answer, tell them you don’t know but will be glad to get it.” Symington noted that newspaper editorials thus far indicated that the public response to the Army’s revelations “might not be bad for you.”29
Seaton handled the press with comparable skill. A few days later, the New York Times’ “Random Notes” reported that “the White House is not complaining” about the release of the Schine report. “Just to keep the record straight,” the article continued, “the White House neither approved publication of the report nor knew anything about it.” The Times noted that when the army had submitted the report to the Defense Department, it had “left the decision to Fred A. Seaton, Assistant Secretary of Defense. Mr. Seaton took the decision on his own, without checking at the Executive Mansion, and he has not heard from anybody there about it yet.” That, of course, was pure fiction, probably propagated by Seaton himself. Notably missing in this account was any mention of Defense Secretary Charles Wilson. By denying that he had checked at “the Executive Mansion,” Seaton had avoided mentioning the president’s name. The newspaper did not ask the obvious question: “Who granted Fred Seaton that authority?”30
“SIT IN JUDGMENT ON HIS OWN CASE”
The morning of March 20, C. D. Jackson was “hot and bothered about McCarthy” and the plan for the senator to be “both investigator and investigated” in the upcoming hearings. Jackson persuaded National Security Advisor Robert Cutler to join him in accosting the president about the issue. In their presence, Eisenhower called Karl Mundt and asked him how long he expected the hearings to last. Mundt, in what would prove to be a remarkable miscalculation, responded that, once they secured staff, “less than a week.”
Ike, labeling the question “confidential,” wondered aloud about the propriety of having someone on the hearings committee “involved as deeply as the Senator?” McCarthy had insisted on remaining a member, but Mundt promised that the army could interrogate him. Eisenhower cautioned him that he, Dirksen, and Potter “must not let anything be put over on them.” Mundt thought the Democrats would help to keep the process honest by insisting on televised hearings. Ike’s final caution: “Push; & remember there’s honor & decency at stake right now.”31
Following his phone call to Mundt, Eisenhower agreed with Jackson and Cutler to send a follow-up letter to him. Jackson composed a draft and showed it to Herbert Brownell, who “gloomed” on the idea, but Fred Seaton was “all for it.” Meanwhile, Ike had second thoughts; he had allowed agitated aides to push him into violating his principles for handling McCarthy.
When Jackson showed the president his draft, he was shocked to discover his boss “had pretty well made up his mind not to send it and got very angry when I told him that this time he was morally involved.” Eisenhower had outsourced the matter, calling William Knowland “to ask what progress [is] being made in [the] McCarthy matter.” Knowland informed the president that he had urged Mundt and Potter that “McCarthy not be allowed to vote or question in the Army-McCarthy inquiry.” The majority leader said he would issue a statement saying that “Senator McCarthy should voluntarily withdraw” from such a role and keep the hearings “completely impartial.” Ike responded, “Everybody in the United States will approve what you said.” He called Jackson to inform him that Knowland would make “an appropriate statement on this subject.” Jackson grumbled to his diary that only Symington had spoken out, endorsed by Knowland, “and later the Pres. will do a me-too. Not pretty.”32
Nevertheless, Eisenhower would do it his way. His hand was evident in GOP chairman Leonard Hall’s statement that Senator McCarthy “should not participate in the hearings.” “The Senator,” Hall stated, “should step down and should not examine witnesses.” It was rumored, according to William Lawrence, “that President Eisenhower was ready at his news conference tomorrow morning, to put new momentum behind the drive to divorce the Wisconsin Senator from any active role in investigating himself or his counsel, Roy M. Cohn.” Jim Hagerty encouraged reporters to ask the president about the issue at his press conference. However, that morning a New York Times editorial conceded that McCarthy would probably win his demand for the right of cross-examination. In that event, there would be “no doubt that he is still master of the McCarthy subcommittee that is investigating McCarthy.”33
The morning of the news conference—March 24—Hagerty had “a bitter argument” with Jerry Persons over whether the president should take a stand on McCarthy’s presence on the subcommittee and his right to cross-examine witnesses. Persons called that a “matter for the Senate” and urged that the president not “get into it.” Persons was so angry that he refused to attend the staff meeting. An argument ensued, even without Persons present; C. D. Jackson called that discussion “bitter.”
In that quarrel, Hagerty muted his comments because, he noted in his diary, “I knew how [the] Pres[ident] felt.” He, Cutler, and congressional liaison Gerald Morgan went into the Oval Office to brief the president. Eisenhower, the press secretary recalled, “stopped them dead in [their] tracks,” saying “Look, I know exactly what I am going to say. I’m going to say he can’t sit as a judge and that the leadership can[not] duck that responsibility.” Ike articulated the resolve that had governed his actions since January: “I’ve made up my mind you can’t do business with Joe and to hell with any attempt to compromise.” Afterward, C. D. Jackson called his “let the dust settle” colleagues “criminally negligent.” “There is a killer abroad in the streets,” he confided to his diary, “and they say to the President, ‘This is an unpleasant passing political incident.’ ”
Eisenhower was not about to indulge in Jackson’s kind of hyperbole. However, as he and Hagerty walked to the press conference that morning, the president laughed and said to his press secretary, “The two Jerrys”—meaning Persons and Morgan—“didn’t look very happy this morning.” When Hagerty hesitated to comment, Eisenhower stated, “I know, Jim. Listen, I’m not going to compromise my ideals and personal beliefs for a few stinking votes. To hell with it.” Hagerty responded, “Mr. Pres[ident], I’m proud of you.”34
At the press conference, Merriman Smith, probably prompted by Hagerty, asked about the president’s “feelings” regarding McCarthy’s participation in the hearings and the senator’s insistence “on the right of cross-examination in an investigation of the dispute between his committee and the Army.” Eisenhower, denying he was talking about “a particular situation,” crisply delivered his prepared statement: “I am perfectly ready to put myself on record flatly, as I have before, that in America, if a man is a party to a dispute, directly or indirectly, he does not sit in judgment on his own case, and I don’t believe that any leadership can escape responsibility for carrying on that tradition and that practice.” Everyone in the room knew who “he” was.35
Eisenhower’s growing self-assurance aside, there were dangers in the course he had chosen. Swede Hazlett, Ike’s boyhood friend, fretted in a letter that, although Ike made “light” of the Wisconsin senator, “your most dangerous foe is our demagogic friend (or should I have omitted the ‘r’?).” “I have no doubt,” he continued, “that, when it s
uits his purposes, he will attack you directly. He’ll paint you redder than red (I understand he is stocking ammo from that Russian ‘good-will era’ when you were in Berlin).”36
Such warnings had become commonplace. About a week later, Ike’s brother Milton reported on a dinner conversation with Symington. The senator claimed that he had seen “documents which he says would prove that McCarthy in good time will directly attack you. First, he will go after CIA and try to discredit the two Dulles brothers. Then he will go after many who served under you in the German occupation task.” The senator had concluded, “There is bad stuff in the [McCarthy] files on both.” Eisenhower was suspicious of Symington’s motives. He scribbled a note stating that Symington’s message constituted “an artificial buildup to urge me to act in a personal way.” That was something the president did not intend to do. He was committed to battle and was not about to second-guess his course of action.37
ANOTHER “CHICKEN LUNCH”?
In such a situation, rumors abound. On March 25, Jim Hagerty was “boiling mad.” The Washington Post reported that the army had waived requirements and promoted David Schine to investigator’s school at Camp Gordon. Hagerty called Fred Seaton, who labeled the story, if true, “deliberate sabotage, and if I can find out the Pentagon source of [that] story, he won’t be with us any longer.” Later, Seaton called back to tell the press secretary that the army was “flatly denying” the story. Hagerty was appreciative, noting in his diary, “Good job by Fred—lot of guts.”
Ike and McCarthy Page 23