Ike and McCarthy

by David A. Nichols

  9. Stevens to Kyes, Feb. 20, 1954, FASP, Eyes Only, B5, Rhodes; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 203–5; J. Adams, Without Precedent, 131.

  10. Statement by Secretary of the Army, Feb. 21, 1954, CF/OF, B317, OF-99-U; also in Sherman Adams Papers, B10 (5), McCarthy Hearings—Memoranda C, Dartmouth College.

  11. Stevens to Hadley, Feb. 21, 1954, Phone Notes, Secretary of the Army, FASP, Eyes Only, B9 (17); Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 206; J. Adams, Without Precedent, 131; unpublished MS, Karl Mundt Papers, Dakota State College, Madison, SD.

  12. “Text of Statements on Peress Case,” The New York Times, Feb. 22, 1954; W. H. Lawrence, “Stevens Accepts Public Showdown Against M’Carthy,” The New York Times, Feb. 22, 1954.

  13. Potter to J. Adams, Feb. 22, 1954, Phone Notes, Secretary of the Army, FASP, Eyes Only, B9 (17); “Zwicker Denounces McCarthy’s Tactics,” The New York Times, Feb. 23, 1954; the directive Zwicker cited was based on Section 4 of Public Law 84, passed by the 82nd Congress and signed by President Truman.

  14. Anthony Leviero, “President Aloof in Peress Dispute,” The New York Times, Feb. 23, 1954.

  15. “Transcript of Zwicker Testimony,” The New York Times, Feb. 23, 1954; Phone Notes, Secretary of the Army, Feb. 23, 1954, FASP, Eyes Only, B9 (17).

  16. J. Adams, Without Precedent, 132–33.

  17. Phone Notes, Secretary of the Army, Feb. 23, 1954, FASP, Eyes Only, B9 (17); Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 208.

  18. Lodge to the President, Feb. 23, 1954, HCLP, Lodge-Eisenhower Correspondence, 1950–55, Reel 28; Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House Years: Mandate for Change (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963), 391–92; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 190.

  19. Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 209–11; Hagerty diary, Feb. 24, 1954, JHP, B1.

  20. Unpublished MS, Karl Mundt Papers, Dakota State College, Madison, SD; J. Adams, Without Precedent, 134–35; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 210–11, 214.

  21. Sherman Adams, First-Hand Report: The Inside Story of the Eisenhower Administration (London: Hutchinson, 1961), 126; Fred I. Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1982); Greenstein erroneously dates the Chicken Lunch as February 23; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 211.

  22. Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 212–13; J. Adams, Without Precedent, 135; S. Adams, First-Hand Report, 127.

  23. Lodge to the President, Feb. 23, 1954, HCLP, Lodge-Eisenhower Correspondence, 1950–55, Reel 28; Lodge mentioned the call from Eisenhower in his subsequent call to Stevens, but no transcript was found for the Eisenhower-Lodge conversation.

  24. Lodge to Stevens, Feb. 24, 1954, FASP, Eyes Only, B4, Lucas (2); Jack Lucas, the call transcriber, probably deleted a pithy Lodge expletive in “a good . . . thing;” Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 214–15; S. Adams, First-Hand Report, 126–27.

  25. Stevens to Mundt, Feb. 24, 1954, FASP, Eyes Only, B4, Stevens’ Calls; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 215.

  26. Phone Notes, Secretary of the Army, Feb. 24, 1954, FASP, Eyes Only, B9 (17); Stevens to Zwicker, Feb. 24, 1954, FASP, Eyes Only, B4, Lucas (2).

  27. Seaton to Stevens, Feb. 24, 1954, FASP, Eyes Only, B4, Lucas (2); Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 215–16.

  28. Senator Mundt continued to believe that if the army secretary had kept the agreement, the subsequent confrontation and hearings could have been avoided; unpublished MS, Mundt Papers, Dakota State College, Madison, SD; Hagerty diary, Feb. 24, 1954, JHP, B1.

  29. Arthur Hadley, Heads or Tails: A Life of Random Luck and Risky Choices (New York: Glitterati, 2007), 125–26.

  30. W. H. Lawrence, “Stevens Bows to M’Carthy at Administration Behest,” The New York Times, Feb. 25, 1954; Arthur Krock, “In the Nation,” The New York Times, Feb. 25, 1954; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 217–18.

  31. “Outcome ‘Shocks’ Stevens,” The New York Times, Feb. 25, 1954; J. Adams, Without Precedent, 139.

  32. Hagerty diary, Feb. 25, 1954, JHP, B1.

  33. Stevens to Dirksen, FASP, Eyes Only, B4, Stevens’ calls; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 218.

  34. Richard M. Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978), 142; W. H. Lawrence, “A Day of Parleys,” The New York Times, Feb. 26, 1954; Hagerty diary, Feb. 25, 1954, JHP, B1; Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency, 186.

  35. Hagerty diary, Feb. 25, 1954, JHP, B1.

  36. Phone Notes, Secretary of the Army, Feb. 25, 1954, FASP, Eyes Only, B9 (17); J. Adams, Without Precedent, 204; President’s App. Schedule, Feb. 25, 1954, Miller Center online; S. Adams, First-Hand Report, 127.

  37. Clay to Stevens, Feb. 25, 1954, FASP, Eyes Only, Lucas, B4 (2).

  38. Clay to DDE, Feb. 25, 1954, DDE diary, Phone Calls, B5 (2), DDEPL; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 220–21; Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency, 185–86.

  39. Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 221, 229; J. Adams, Without Precedent, 140.

  40. J. Adams, Without Precedent, 204; Nixon, RN, 142.

  41. Shanley diary, BSP, B2, V1 (4), 1453–54; J. Adams, Without Precedent, 139.

  42. Hagerty diary, Feb. 25, 1954, JHP, B1; W. H. Lawrence, “A Day of Parleys,” The New York Times, Feb. 26, 1954; S. Adams, First-Hand Report, 127–28; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 222; Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency, 186.

  43. Statement by the Secretary, Feb. 25, 1954, Sherman Adams Papers, B5 (10) McCarthy Hearings—Memoranda C, Dartmouth College; an earlier draft can be found in FASP, Eyes Only, McCarthy, B4 (4); W. H. Lawrence, “A Day of Parleys,” The New York Times, Feb. 26, 1954; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 222; J. Adams, Without Precedent, 139; Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency, 186; Irwin F. Gellman, The President and the Apprentice: Eisenhower and Nixon, 1952–1961 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 105–7.

  CHAPTER 9: EISENHOWER IN COMMAND

  1. Ann Whitman, notes in DDE diary, Feb. 26, 1954, DDEP, no. 741; William Bragg Ewald, Jr., Who Killed Joe McCarthy? (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), 222.

  2. Hagerty diary, Feb. 26, 1954, JHP, B1; W. H. Lawrence, “A Day of Parleys,” The New York Times, Feb. 26, 1954; James Reston, “Stevens Case Stuns Capital,” The New York Times, Feb. 26, 1954.

  3. Years later, the day after he issued the order to send troops into Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce a federal court order for school desegregation, Ann Whitman recorded that Ike “played 18 holes of golf and practiced putting, chipping and driving for almost two additional hours,” DDE diary, Sept. 25, 1957, Schedules, Sept. 1957, B27, DDEPL; John G. Adams, Without Precedent: The Story of the Death of McCarthyism (New York: Norton, 1983), 204.

  4. Arthur Krock, interview with Nixon, Feb. 26, 1954, Black Book Interviews, SGMML; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 223; Fred Greenstein con firms the importance of the Krock interview, Fred I. Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1982), 187.

  5. Stevens to Clay, Feb. 26, 1954, FASP, Eyes Only, B4, Lucas (2).

  6. DDE to Milton Eisenhower, Sept. 12, 1955, DDEP, no. 1583.

  7. J. Adams, Without Precedent, 142.

  8. DDE diary, April 1, 1953, DDEP, no. 118; Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House Years: Mandate for Change (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963), 278–85.

  9. DDE diary, Feb. 26, 1954, DDEP, no. 741; the complexity of the Bricker Amendment fight cannot be adequately addressed in this book; see Duane Tannanbaum, The Bricker Amendment Controversy: A Test of Eisenhower’s Political Leadership (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), 166–74.

  10. Tannanbaum, The Bricker Amendment Controversy, 175–90; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 224.

  11. Lodge to the President, Feb. 23, 1954, HCLP, Lodge-Eisenhower Correspondence, 1950–55, Reel 28.

  12. “Walking with the Devil,” The Washington Post, Feb. 26, 1954.

  13. W. H. Lawrence, “Both Parties Act to Curb M’Carthy,” The New York Times, Feb. 27, 1954.

  14. “President Presses Senators to Curb Role of M’Carthy,” The
New York Times, Feb 28, 1954; Conklin, “McCarthy Doubts President ‘Wants to Curb My Powers,’ ” The New York Times, March 1, 1954.

  15. Richard M. Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978), 149; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 238; Ewald’s succinct summary of Eisenhower’s method for handling adversaries is in William Bragg Ewald, Jr., Eisenhower the President: Crucial Days, 1951–60 (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice–Hall, 1981), 32.

  16. Legislative Meeting, March 1, 1954, DDE diary, B4, Staff Notes, DDEPL; a similar version is in—WHOSS, Minnich Series, B1, Misc.-C (3); The “did not even tell me” line is from WHOSS, Legislative Meetings, B2, March 1, 1954, Folder L-11, Minnich Series; Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency, 187–88; Shanley diary, BSP, B2, V1 (4), 1469–71; Sherman Adams, First-Hand Report: The Inside Story of the Eisenhower Administration (London: Hutchinson, 1961), 128.

  17. Nixon, RN, 143.

  18. President’s Appt. Schedule, Feb. 28, 1954, Miller Center online.

  19. Stevens to Hensel, March 1, 1954, FASP, Eyes Only, B4, Lucas (2).

  20. “Peress Says Hoodlums Stoned His Home,” The New York Times, March 1, 1954.

  21. Arthur Krock, Nixon interview, Feb. 26, 1954, Black Book Interviews, SGMML; Krock, “Senate to Investigate Investigating Methods,” The New York Times, Feb. 28, 1954; Roy Cohn, McCarthy (New York: New American Library, 1968), 120–21; Cohn erroneously lists the date of the Krock column as February 27.

  22. Knowles, “Five Congressmen Shot in House,” The New York Times, March 2, 1954; DDE to Rayburn, March 1, 1954, DDE diary, B5 Phone Calls, Jan–May 1954 (2), DDEPL; “Eisenhower Target for Fanatics Also,” The New York Times, March 2, 1954.

  23. Anne O’Hare McCormick, “Abroad,” The New York Times, March 3, 1954.

  24. Walter Lippman, “Today and Tomorrow: Terrorists and Spies,” New York Herald Tribune, n.d but approx. March 2 or 3, 1954, in Gruenther Records, B6, McCarthy News Clippings (3), DDEPL.

  25. “Atom Blast Opens Test in Pacific,” The New York Times, March 2, 1954; “The Bravo Test,” http://www.atomicarchive.com.

  26. “M’Leod Authority Is Cut by Dulles” and “Mr. M’Leod’s Demotion,” The New York Times, March 2, 1954; “Drafts Letter to Dulles,” The New York Times, March 3, 1954.

  27. Robert Kieve diary, March 2, 1954, provided to the author by Robert Kieve.

  28. “Chairman of G. O. P. Rebukes M’Carthy on Stevens Fight,” The New York Times, March 3, 1954.

  29. Lodge notes about meeting with Eisenhower and memorandum, March 2, 1954, HCLP, Lodge-Eisenhower Correspondence, 1950–55, Reel 28.

  30. DDE to Rogers, DDE diary, March 2, 1954, B5, Phone Calls (2), DDEPL; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 239.

  31. A. M. Sperber, Murrow: His Life and Times (New York: Fordham University Press, 1999), 429–30.

  32. James Reston, “Other Cheek Is Struck,” The New York Times, March 4, 1954

  33. DDE, News Conference, March 3, 1954, PPP; Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency, 189–91; S. Adams, First-Hand Report, 128–29; Irwin F. Gellman, The President and the Apprentice: Eisenhower and Nixon, 1952–1961 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 109.

  34. William Ewald shared Edwards’s account of rushing to McCarthy headquarters and unsuccessfully trying to talk McCarthy out of making a hot response. As he put it, “the American people had seen the kick in the groin, and they would not forget it.” To Edwards, that was “the day McCarthy died.” Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 242.

  35. “Texts of Statements by President and Senator McCarthy’s Reply,” The New York Times, March 4, 1954; Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency, 191–92.

  36. Reston, “Other Cheek Is Struck,” The New York Times, March 4, 1954; W. H. Lawrence, “President Chides M’Carthy,” The New York Times, March 4, 1954

  37. “Turning the Other Cheek,” The Washington Post, March 4, 1954, in Gruenther Records, B6, McCarthy News Clippings (3), DDEPL.

  38. Herblock, The Washington Post, March 4, 1954, reprinted in Herblock’s Here and Now (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1955), 114; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 243.

  39. “The Chips Go Down,” Washington Star, March 4, 1954, in Gruenther Records, B6, McCarthy News Clippings (3), DDEPL.

  40. Hagerty diary, March 4, 1954, JHP, B1.

  41. John Crider to Sherman Adams, March 5, 1954, Adams Papers, B10, McCarthy Controversy (3), Dartmouth College.

  42. DDE to Cabinet, March 5, 1954, DDEP, no. 757; Cabinet Meeting, March 5, 1954, Cabinet Series, Minnich version, B3, DDEPL; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 244; Fred Greenstein noted all that Eisenhower had done the previous week to set the stage for confronting McCarthy, but he found the March 5 cabinet meeting remarkable in that Ike “barely mentioned the divisive McCarthy issue” but used “preventive medicine”; Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency, 193–94.

  43. Lodge to DDE, March 6, 1954, HCLP, Lodge-Eisenhower Correspondence, 1950–55, Reel 28.

  44. John Popham, “Stevenson Backs Army’s Red Fight,” The New York Times, March 6, 1954.

  45. Text of Stevenson Address, The New York Times, March 7, 1954; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 246; Gellman, The President and the Apprentice, 110.

  46. Hagerty diary, March 4 and 6, 1954, JHP, B1.

  47. “Eisenhower Pleased by New Song,” The New York Times, March 7, 1954; Donovan would eventually write the first sanctioned biography of Eisenhower prior to the 1956 campaign: Robert J. Donovan, Eisenhower: The Inside Story (New York: Harper, 1956).

  48. “Eisenhower Took Lead in Applauding Stevens,” The New York Times, March 9, 1954; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 245–46.

  CHAPTER 10: A POLITICAL D-DAY

  1. John Popham, “Stevenson Says President Yields to M’Carthyism,” The New York Times, March 7, 1954; Arthur Krock, “G. O. P. Seeks to Avert M’Carthy Showdown,” The New York Times, March 7, 1954.

  2. James Reston, “Washington: The President Plays the Waiting Game,” The New York Times, March 7, 1954.

  3. A. M. Sperber, Murrow: His Life and Times (New York: Fordham University Press, 1999), 430–33.

  4. “McCarthy Seeking Air Time to Reply,” The New York Times, March 8, 1954; Richard M. Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978), 144; William Bragg Ewald, Jr., Who Killed Joe McCarthy? (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), 246–47; Fred I. Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1982), 194; Irwin F. Gellman, The President and the Apprentice: Eisenhower and Nixon, 1952–1961 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 111.

  5. Hagerty diary, March 8, 1954, JHP, B1; DDE diary, March 8, 1954, B5, Phone Calls (2), DDEPL; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 246–247; Nixon, RN, 144.

  6. Hagerty diary, March 8, 1954, JHP, B1; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 247; the typed version of the Hagerty diary entry reads that Ike was “dead set against stopping McCarthy,” clearly a typing error, given the context. Ewald appropriately rewrote it as “dead set [on] stopping McCarthy.”

  7. Hagerty diary, March 8, 1954, JHP, B1; DDE diary, March 8, 1954, B5, Phone Calls (2), DDEPL; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 246–47; Nixon, RN, 144; the Hagerty-Shanley-Eisenhower encounter almost certainly took place in the late afternoon.

  8. Streibert to McCarthy, March 8, 1954, Sherman Adams Papers, B10, McCarthy Controversy (3), Dartmouth; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 247.

  9. Lodge to DDE, March 6, 1954, and DDE to Lodge, “eyes only,” March 8, 1954, HCLP, Lodge-Eisenhower Correspondence, 1950–55, Reel 28; also DDEP, no. 759; Eisenhower eventually did the logical thing, offering the job as White House political strategist to Lodge, but Lodge declined, arguing that he could not get along with the “top men” on the White House staff; Lodge to DDE, March 22, 1954, and DDE to Lodge, March 24, 1954, HCLP, Lodge-Eisenhower Correspondence, 1950–55, Reel 28.

  10. Symington to Stevens, March 8, 1954, FASP, Eyes Only, B4, Stevens’ Calls; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 248–49.


  11. Hagerty diary, March 9, 1954, JHP, B1, DDEPL; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 249–50; John G. Adams, Without Precedent: The Story of the Death of McCarthyism (New York: Norton, 1983), 143; according to Ewald, Struve Hensel later told him that he believed that Seaton had prodded Charlie Wilson to call Potter and ask for the letter. John Adams incorrectly concluded that the letter had been sent on March 10, but Potter apparently had a copy when he and other Republicans met with McCarthy.

  12. W. H. Lawrence, “Nixon to Answer Stevenson on Air,” The New York Times, March 9, 1954; “Senator Plans a Fight,” The New York Times, March 9, 1954.

  13. DDE to Helms, March 9, 1954, DDEP, no. 762; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 251.

  14. Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 250–51.

  15. Flanders speech on Senate Floor, Monday, March 9, 1954, Congressional Record, 2nd session, 83rd Congress; Ralph E. Flanders, Senator from Vermont (Boston: Little, Brown, 1961), 255–56; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 250; W. H. Lawrence, “M’Carthy Strives ‘to Shatter’ ” G.O.P, The New York Times, March 10, 1954.

  16. Hagerty diary, March 9, 1954, JHP, B1, Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 250.

  17. DDE to Flanders, “Personal,” March 9, 1954, and Wire Service Report, March 10, 1954, both in CF/OF, B317, OF-99-R, McCarthy; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, 250.

  18. Script, See It Now, March 9, 1954, www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/murrowmccarthy.html; Sperber, Murrow, 436–39.

  19. Sperber, Murrow, 434.

  20. Hagerty diary, June 7, 1954, JHP, B1, June 1954; Lodge to DDE, Feb. 23, HCLP, Lodge-Eisenhower Correspondence, 1950–55, Reel 28; Lodge call to Stevens, Feb. 24, 1954, FASP, Eyes Only, B4, Lucas (2).

  21. Hagerty diary, March 10, 1954, JHP, B1.

  22. DDE, News Conference, March 10, 1954, PPP; Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency, 194–96.

  23. Hagerty diary, March 10, 1954, JHP, B1, Jan. 1–April 6, 1954; Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency, 196; Hensel to Stevens, March 10, 1954, FASP, Eyes Only, B9, Phone Notes, Secretary of the Army (18); also in FASP, B5, Pike; Seaton to Stevens, FASP, Eyes Only, B4, Lucas (2).