The Redhunter

by William F. Buckley

  “Did I tell you, Harry, that I usually pick a winner?”

  “No,” he said. “But if you can guarantee me a winner, I’ll bet on the same horse. You know, Jean, you remind me of a horse.”

  “I what?”

  “I mean, the way you like horseplay.” This was an office barb. Jean was fastidious and ruled the office as she might a war center. Everything had to be done, no—horseplay. His taunt got from her what he knew it would, that broad smile with the lit eyes, and the slight, shy giggle.

  Jean Kerr had worked in advertising before matriculating at George Washington. After three years there, she entered the journalism school at Northwestern, where she studied political science. Back in Washington again, she continued to live with her mother. Mrs. Kerr was a widow and lived in the same house Jean’s father had helped to construct as a carpenter and later superintendent in the construction business. Jimmy Kerr (dead in 1946) had railed against the Communists ever since August 23, 1939, when Joseph Stalin signed the non-aggression pact with Adolf Hitler. Jimmy Kerr had for many years, beginning in the Depression, hailed the socialist experiment in the Soviet Union—”They’ve got to be able to find something better than what we have, Elizabeth.” Elizabeth agreed; but then she always agreed with Jimmy, and did so when he denounced the Communists at the Labor Day party. His scorn for Stalin was uninterrupted by Hitler’s subsequent attack on Russia in June of the following year, and Jimmy was soon active against the Teamster faction led by Erik Hattersley, an apologist for the Communists. Hattersley, vice president of public affairs in the Teamsters Union, had defended Stalin when he signed up with Hitler and defended Stalin when he fought Hitler. In the forties, after his first heart attack, Jimmy Kerr was reconciled with the Catholic Church. He wrote to Jean at Northwestern that she should be in touch with the Catholic chaplain there to take belated instructions. Jean had been a formal churchgoer to placate her mother. But in Chicago she began to take her faith seriously, and was powerfully influenced by the Catholic chaplain, a follower of Monsignor Fulton Sheen, who, like his mentor, spent much time in the pulpit invoking sympathy for the victims of Communism and moral indignation for the perpetrators of life under the Communists. When Henry Wallace made his move on the presidential scene, she did volunteer work for the Republican Party.

  Pretty soon Joe came out and, while talking to Harry, who followed him, or tried to, approached at his customary pace, a near jog. He kissed Jeanie on the cheek, ushered her into the rear passenger seat, and inserted himself alongside.

  “You may proceed, James.” Joe was acting the squire, giving directions to his chauffeur. Harry moved the car forward, first picking up Robin, then heading down to Route One toward Laurel Park, ten miles away in Maryland.

  “Kick her up, Harry,” instructed Joe. “I’ve got to bet on the first race. There’s a winner there. Name? Tidings!”

  “Tidings!” Jeanie burst in. “You must be crazy, Joe. I mean, crazier than we know you are. I am going to bet against Tidings.”

  Joe was delighted by the opportunity to tease her.

  “How do you go about betting against a horse?”

  Jeanie was cornered. She turned to Harry, at the wheel, who was enjoying it all, for help. Robin was smilingly silent.

  “Well,” he ventured, smoothly wending the car past a huge REO truck, “I suppose if you bet on the other eleven horses—how many starters, Joe?”

  “Nine—”

  “—Bet on the other eight horses, you could say you were betting against Tidings. Give up, Joe?”

  McCarthy laughed and put his arm around Jeanie.

  “Nice try. Now let me tell you about Tidings.”

  He had been studying the morning sheet and began a practiced recitation of the record and the pedigree of his horse of the day. “Number seven started racing in 1949, two wins. Placed second in Brendon Cup, twenty-five-thousand-dollar stake. Sire, Out of Town—ever see him run, Jeanie? I caught him in California when I was stationed at El Toro in the Marines. Dam, Silky Stuff. Silky stuff like you, Jeanie,” he ran his hand over the back of her blouse and love-tapped her behind the neck.

  “So what do I make out of the name Tidings running in a horse race on the third anniversary of the Tydings Senate hearings? Not that the poor horse should remind us of that little creep—correction, big creep—we spent our working hours with. No, it’s a name fortune has stuck in our face so we can avenge ourselves! Make money off Tidings! You like that, Jean?”

  When he called her Jean he was in his command mode. (“Jean, get the file on Hanson.”)

  “All right, all right, Joe. I’ll put two dollars on him.”

  “Which reminds me, Jeanie. You got some cash?”

  “Don’t tell me you are out of cash again” Jeanie groaned, opening her pocketbook. “I’ve got forty-two dollars.”

  “How much you got, kid?” Joe said. “Mr. Phi Beta Kappa. And don’t skimp on me. Give me everything you’ve got. You can always borrow on that huge salary I am paying you.”

  “Fifteen or twenty dollars,” Harry said at the wheel. “But I happen to know that Robin has a twenty also.”

  “Of course, it doesn’t much matter how much we have now. We’ll be rich after the first race. The odds are six to one. That makes—my ten, Jean’s forty, Harry’s twenty, and Robin’s twenty—ninety dollars. Times six, five hundred and forty dollars. We’re rich!”

  They arrived in time for a hurried lunch. Joe gobbled down his steak, Jean, Harry, and Robin their tunafish sandwiches. Joe asked for a beer but was told no liquor was served at the track. “That’s terrible news,” he said. “That will throw me off stride.” He looked out at the tote board. The odds on Tidings had reduced to five to one. He turned, saying with mock sternness, “Harry, have you been giving out the word that Tidings is going to win?”

  He looked out again anxiously at the board. Steady at five to one.

  But Tidings had a bad day, and the track ended up with ninety McCarthy, Inc., dollars. Joe was unbothered. This kind of thing had happened to him since he began playing poker with Billy back in Appleton. He looked around for a familiar face. It didn’t take long. He knew it wouldn’t. Over there, form sheet in hand and walking in his direction, was Henry Inker, paper tycoon from Neenah, Wisconsin. Joe thrust out his hand. One minute later he had borrowed $150—”Jeanie, remind me to send Henry a check on Monday—Henry Inker. Oh. Sorry, Henry. This is Jean Kerr and Harry Bontecou from my staff. And Harry’s friend Robin. That Bontecou, Henry, is spelled c-o-u but pronounced k-e-w.”

  Jean, Harry, and Robin shook hands with Henry and sat down again in the box seats lent to Joe by Urban Van Susteren of Appleton, a hearty McCarthy booster who had the box for the season.

  In the third race Joe was triumphant—”How’m I doing?” he beamed at Jeanie—and on the last race he lost it all.

  “How’d you do on the day?” Jean asked, back in the car.

  “Oh, I don’t know, Jeanie. Win some, lose some. That’s life.” He sighed noisily, intending to draw attention. “Life. What’s life without Jeanie? Tell me how much you love me, Jeanie.”

  “Shut up, Joe. I’m too smart to love you.”

  “Besides,” Harry got into the act, “Jeanie belonged to the Soviet-American Friendship League when she was six.”

  “You making fun of my work, kid? Communist kid. Remind me to fire him when we get in, Jean.”

  But now the races were behind him. He fell silent as the car came into Washington. They stopped to let Robin out.

  “Tell you what, Harry,” Joe said. “Drop me at the office. I got some work to do.”

  Jean sighed. “Okay, okay. I’ll go on up with you.”

  “Can I help?” Harry said.

  “No. You’re working on the Philadelphia speech, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. I’m batting away at home.”

  “Good. See if you can work into it something about a lousy racehorse called Tidings.”

  44

  Harry and the intrud
er, 1951

  They were together at Washington National Airport, headed for San Antonio, when Senator McCarthy was paged. Harry, briefcase in hand, waited outside the telephone booth.

  Joe came out, a shimmer of sweat on his face. He had not been exercising; he had been eating, and drinking, more. He leaned his increasing bulk against the booth.

  “That was Don. There’s been a subpoena from Drew Pearson.”

  Pearson’s complaint filled many pages and held that McCarthy had defamed his “professional and personal” life. McCarthy had hired a young, flashy lawyer named Edward Bennett Williams as his counsel. “Surine called Ed Williams, and he says we can’t be late on this one, so Don has to pull out of the preparation for the Gillette committee hearings—which means, my boy Harry, that you have to do the Gillette-Monroney work. You’re the only man on the staff other than Don who can handle that one. We have to furnish an account of every activity undertaken by me or my staff in the Maryland campaign, can you beat it!”

  The Gillette-Monroney Committee had been impaneled, after the Tydings Report was filed, to investigate charges against Senator McCarthy that his tactics in the Tydings campaign had been unethical and illegal.

  Joe patted Harry on the shoulder. “I’ll have to handle the San Antonio speech on my own. I’m going to let Harry Truman have it tomorrow.”

  “I know that, Joe. I wrote the speech.”

  “Yes, of course, sure. But I told you what to say.”

  “And I tried to say it your way. But I hope you won’t use the word impeach.”

  McCarthy put his elbow on the counter. “What other word would you use? Look: Chiang Kai-shek offers to send Nationalist military units to Korea to help solve the mess created by the Truman administration. What does Truman do?

  “He stalls.

  “I think I’m right; if he continues to refuse Nationalist aid, we have a duty to ask whether he shouldn’t be retired as president. We have to view his performance as a whole. That, coming on top of the firing of General MacArthur—”

  “But Joe, dammit, it just isn’t that obvious. General MacArthur writes a letter to Joe Martin, Republican Minority Leader in the House! MacArthur backs, in that letter, the Martin position on the war—that we should bring in the Nationalist troops. He is in effect urging a different military, in fact a different geopolitical strategy in Korea from that of the commander in chief. I mean, if I gave a speech outlining a mistake I thought you were making, you’d have every right to can me, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yeah, sure. But if the Senate thought I was really abusing my authority, they’d have the right to censure me. Or even to throw me out.”

  “But my point is, you wouldn’t have been abusing your authority if you did something comparable to what Truman did to MacArthur.”

  “You’re a bright kid, Bontekow. But I have to reason it my way. No offense.”

  “Okay,” Harry said. “Now Joe, on the speech you’re taking with you.—Don’t alter that speech. It’s right the way it is.”

  “Waal, Harry … I won’t. But I might just give it a little … color.”

  If Joe McCarthy had decided to change it, Harry said to himself, then it would be changed. He let it go. The airplane boarding had begun.

  “Good luck. Say hello to San Antonio. And remember the Alamo, Senator.”

  McCarthy smiled broadly and waved his hand, first at Harry, and then at two or three passers-by who had spotted him and begun to cheer and clap. Harry took a taxi to the office, picked up the bulky file he’d have to go through to answer the queries from the Gillette committee, and set out on foot to his apartment.

  The nine-block walk had become a part of his daily regimen, important to him now that he had so little time for the tennis and bicycling he had done while a student at Columbia. Walking down from the Senate building he passed Buster Jensen, aide to Senator Gillette. He was walking with his own heavy briefcase up toward the hill. Jensen stopped.

  “Tell you what, Harry. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours!”

  Harry laughed. “Buster, if you tell me what specific questions you’re going to ask my boss on Thursday that would sure lighten my workload.”

  Jensen was a wag. In a dark whisper: “We’re going to find out whether a Communist has infiltrated Senator McCarthy’s staff. But that’s top secret, Harry.”

  Harry mock-cuffed him on the chin and resumed his walk. “See you Thursday, Buster.”

  Harry walked up the two flights to his apartment, pulled the key from his pocket, and opened the door on Tracy Allshott. Tracy, dressed in khaki trousers, sport shirt, and sweater, stood there in the interior hallway, papers strewn over the back of the couch.

  Neither of them spoke.

  Harry closed the door quietly. He contrived to find the door lock behind his back. With his left hand he felt for the door key in his pocket. He wheeled around, inserted it, and locked the door from the inside. The click seemed loud as a bullet shot.

  “You will see, Tracy, that I’m extending your visit.”

  Allshott remained standing. Standing awkwardly, with papers in either hand. He hadn’t changed, the near-assertive blondness, the blue-blue eyes. His shirt was open, but then Harry had never seen Allshott with a tie on. He appeared gaunt.

  The question flashed through Harry’s mind: Was Tracy armed? If he was, Harry would not succeed in putting through an emergency call to the police. If he was not armed, Harry, three inches taller and a graduate of infantry training in hand-to-hand combat, would probably prevail. Whichever, he had best start up an exchange.

  With some deliberation, he walked over to the chair behind his desk on the right and sat down.

  “So what’s up, Tracy? I haven’t seen you for a few years.”

  Tracy let down the papers on the couch and leaned back on the bookshelf. He remained standing. He was breathing heavily.

  “What’s up is that your boss McCarthy is trying to turn the United States into a fascist dictatorship so we can have another world war.”

  Harry didn’t know whether soft reason would work. He might as well try.

  “Why would he be doing that, Tracy? Sit down. Just move those papers behind the couch out of your way.”

  “Don’t try to sweet-talk me, Harry.”

  “Okay. I can always call the police. But shouldn’t we, maybe, try to talk a bit?”

  “I don’t see how you can stand yourself, working for that man.”

  “Who do you work for, Tracy?”

  Tracy looked to the window and said in a solemn tone, “I try to work on the side of history.”

  “Was it history’s idea to break in to my apartment?”

  “It’s a historically responsible thing to do to expose the crazy mind and doings of your boss McCarthy.”

  “Well, I’ve got no answer to that, Tracy. I mean, if you can do—on behalf of history—anything you want to do, how am I supposed to defend, like, the privacy of my apartment? Or my own papers?”

  Suddenly it was Tracy Allshott whose voice was that of reason, reason struggling amiably to get out.

  “Harry, you just don’t understand. Like back at Columbia. You don’t understand. We’re headed toward the great global renunciation of capitalism and war and imperialism.”

  He pointed to Harry’s open file drawer. “What you and—McCarthy—are doing is trying to find everybody who shares my vision of a new history. Let me tell you something, something I never told you at Columbia. My father was a factory owner in Iowa. In 1943—I was seventeen—the union struck. Dad had three hundred workers. Older people, mostly, everybody under thirty-five was off to the war. Dad’s factory made bicycle wheels, so there was no wartime antistrike weapon he could wheedle out of Washington. So after the third week we got the goons. The strikers had barricaded the office. Mum heard them. She told me in French—she’s French—that Dad had ordered the strike broken: Two days later they were there. Fifteen of them. There were pictures in the paper. They came with clubs. Great big c
lubs. Twenty-seven workers were hospitalized, two dead. Dad told the press he knew nothing about the strikebreakers, he thought they had come in from a rival union.

  “But the striking union people read the signals. They went back to work. One week later Dad fired twenty-five of them, the union cadre. That’s the world some of us—a lot more of us than you think, Harry, never mind how poorly Henry Wallace made out—want to do something about, and a good start on that is to expose your,” Tracy’s voice now resumed its earlier stridency, “your lying fascist boss.”

  Allshott moved. His stance was now that of the boxer.

  If necessary, Harry calculated, he’d use the brass lamp on his desk as a weapon.

  He said calmly, “Well, Tracy, I’m sorry about all that. We’ll just have to go our separate ways. I think you’d better go now.”

  He reached in his pocket for the door key. As he did so, Allshott lunged at him, his head low. With his right hand Harry grabbed the lamp and smashed it as hard as he could—harder than he supposed he could—on the back of Allshott’s head.

  He called first the ambulance, then the police.

  Would he recount the words Tracy had spoken? Or, instead, leave the whole episode as the work of a deranged former roommate. Turned to petty larceny.

  Anything, he thought quickly, anything to keep Joe McCarthy from emerging as the central figure in an Allshott-Bontecou drama.