The Rise and Fall of Senator Joe McCarthy

by James Cross Giblin

  As the train moved on toward Milwaukee, where Eisenhower was scheduled to deliver his major speech, Governor Kohler approached the general's chief aide, Sherman Adams, to make a final plea on Joe's behalf. Kohler began by reminding Adams how strongly the American people felt about Communist subversion in government, and how they looked to the Republican Party to deal forcefully with the problem. In light of that, he said, including the paragraph in defense of George Marshall, who some believed had been "soft on Communism," could jeopardize Republican candidates' chances for success, nationally as well as locally.

  Adams was impressed by Kohler's argument and took him to Eisenhower's private car. Accompanying them was another trusted aide of Ike's, Major General Wilton B. Persons, who also agreed with Kohler. At first Ike stood his ground, but after hearing the trio press their case for deleting the paragraph, he reluctantly accepted the political realities of the situation. "Take it out," he growled.

  That evening a crowd of 8,500 filled the Milwaukee Arena to hear Eisenhower speak. Many of them wore "I like Ike!" buttons on their lapels, and some had two.

  Much of what Eisenhower said could have been lifted from speeches Joe had made about the Communist menace. The general raised the alarm that Communism had "poisoned two whole decades of our national life" and had "insinuated itself into our schools, public forums, news channels, labor unions, and—most terrifyingly—into our government itself." He continued in the same vein, blaming Communists and Communist sympathizers in the government for the "fall of China and the surrender of whole nations in Eastern Europe to the Soviet Union."

  At the end, the standing-room-only crowd applauded and cheered Ike just as similar crowds had so often cheered Joe. A few listeners may have wondered why Eisenhower never mentioned McCarthy in his remarks. They had no way of knowing of the clash of wills that had so recently taken place between the general and Joe.

  But many reporters knew. Advance copies of the original speech had leaked to the press, and the reporters were waiting to hear Eisenhower defend George Marshall. When he didn't, they assumed—rightly—that Joe and his supporters had put pressure on Ike to delete the paragraph in question, and had succeeded. After news stories to that effect appeared in the New York Times and other papers, Eisenhower, Sherman Adams, Governor Kohler, and Joe all said it wasn't so. A top aide of Ike's, who asked not to be identified, went so far as to claim that McCarthy had not seen the general's speech until it was in its final form.

  Adlai Stevenson made much of the story. In a speech before an enthusiastic crowd in Waukesha, Wisconsin, the Democratic candidate accused Eisenhower of deliberately changing his views on George Marshall in "an opportunistic grasping for votes." He called the Republican Party's right wing "the most accomplished wrecking crew in this country's history," and charged that Ike had given it "a first, second, and third mortgage on every principle he once held."

  Eventually, though, the story of the deleted paragraph left the front pages, replaced by fresh incidents in the ongoing presidential campaign. Eisenhower traveled on to Minnesota while Joe resumed campaigning in Wisconsin. Some reporters had heard rumors that Eisenhower treated Joe disdainfully in their meetings. They confronted Joe about it, hoping to evoke an angry response that could lead to a hot new story. Joe laughed off any suggestion that he and Ike didn't get along, calling the notion completely false. Why shouldn't he put a good face on things? After all, Joe had set out to persuade a determined Ike to change his mind about defending George Marshall. And he had gotten exactly what he wanted.

  17. "I Can Investigate Anybody"

  JOE STILL HADN'T RECOVERED completely from his surgeries, but that didn't stop him from keeping his promise to campaign for other conservative Republicans around the country. In the month before the November 4 election, he traveled to Arizona, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, and Washington state in the West, and to Missouri, Michigan, and Indiana in the Midwest. Sometimes he made as many as four speeches a day, warning his audiences of the internal Communist threat and urging them to vote for staunch anti-Communist candidates.

  One Republican McCarthy didn't campaign for was Henry Cabot Lodge, the moderate senator from Massachusetts. Lodge, a man of wealth and high social position, had tended to look down on the upstart McCarthy. But that wasn't the main reason Joe chose not to support him. Lodge was running for reelection against Representative John F. Kennedy, a bright young man with tremendous personal appeal. And Joe had a long-standing special relationship with the Kennedy family, especially its patriarch, Joseph P. Kennedy.

  The elder Kennedy had made a fortune in the bootleg liquor business when alcoholic beverages were outlawed during the 1920s and early 1930s. He was a conservative Irish American Catholic with strong right-wing views. Although a lifelong Democrat, he had often warned of the Communist menace and had expressed his support for McCarthy's position on the matter even before the senator's Wheeling speech. After McCarthy came to Washington and met Joe Kennedy's eldest living son, John, he was a frequent guest at the Kennedy familycompound on Cape Cod. He dated John's sister Patricia and was also fond of another sister, Eunice. He once joked to his friend Ray Kiermas that if worse came to worst, he could always marry a Kennedy girl.

  Rumors circulated in Washington that Joe Kennedy had persuaded McCarthy not to involve himself in the contest between Lodge and John Kennedy. Joe Kennedy was known to have contributed $10,000 to McCarthy's own reelection campaign. McCarthy may not have needed much persuading, since he and John Kennedy, a Democrat like his father, shared many political views. As far back as 1949, the young Kennedy had attacked the policies of Owen Lattimore, the agreements with the Soviet Union that President Roosevelt had reached at the Yalta Conference, and the role George Marshall had played in the Chinese civil war.

  Now, in 1952, the fall election campaign was heating up. In Wisconsin, Joe's Democratic opponent, Thomas Fairchild, had received strong support from the state's labor unions. The unions affiliated with the two large union coalitions, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), spent almost $100,000 on the 1952 election, a very large sum at the time. Most of the unions' money went to the Fairchild organization to bolster its efforts to defeat McCarthy. The AFL also published a brochure, Inside McCarthy, that contained a slashing attack on the senator. Not to be outdone, the CIO issued its own pamphlet titled Smear Incorporated: The Record of Joe McCarthy's One-Man Mob Operations.

  Both publications were mailed to thousands of voters throughout Wisconsin. However, they lacked the impact they might have had because they focused mainly on Joe's conservative voting record, steering clear of any serious discussion of his anti-Communist tactics. Like candidate Fairchild, the unions feared that such a discussion would stir up an unwanted controversy. While Wisconsin voters might have doubts about McCarthy the man, a majority of them favored his campaign to get the Communists out of Washington.

  The Republicans, on the other hand, didn't hesitate to exploit the Communist issue for all it was worth. A main theme of their national campaign was "Korea, Communism, and Corruption." In Maryland, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, J. Glenn Beall, said, "We have got to slug it out, toe to toe, with the parlor pinks and so-called 'liberals,' who call themselves Democrats." Beall went on to challenge his Democratic opponent "to identify one charge that Joe McCarthy made that he's ever been wrong on."

  Senator William Jenner, engaged in a tight race in Indiana, picked up on the Korean part of the Republican theme. "If the Democrats win in November," Jenner warned, "the bodies of thousands more American boys will be tossed on Truman's funeral pyre in Asia." Should Stevenson become president, he said, "the Red network will continue to work secretly and safely for the destruction of the United States."

  In Connecticut, William F. Buckley, Jr., a recent graduate of Yale and an ambitious young conservative, headed a committee to drive Communists out of government. Buckley's immediate target was Senator William Benton, who had inspired the ongoin
g Senate investigation of Joe and was running for reelection. Buckley used his considerable wealth to run a series of anti-Benton ads in Connecticut newspapers. The ads, which Benton denounced as "scurrilous," were intended to prove that the senator held "Communistic" views.

  But no Republican outdid the vice-presidential candidate, Richard Nixon, in milking the anti-Communist issue. In one speech, Nixon called President Truman "spineless" and "soft on the Reds." In another, he described Adlai Stevenson as "Adlai the Appeaser" who boasts "a Ph.D. from Dean Acheson's Cowardly College of Communist Containment." He told a Minnesota audience that he would rather have a "khaki-clad President" like Eisenhower than "one clad in State Department pinks." And in Superior, Wisconsin, Nixon made a point of endorsing the reelection of "my good friend Joe McCarthy."

  After leaving Wisconsin and Joe's unwelcome company, Gen. Eisenhower sounded more like himself. In his speeches on the campaign trail, Ike often mentioned his dislike of "witch-hunts" and those who indulged in "character assassination." He told a friendly crowd in Salt Lake City, Utah, "We cannot pretend to defend freedom with weapons suited only to the arsenals of tyrants." At the same time, he took pains to avoid any suggestion that he wasn't solidly anti-Communist. In Billings, Montana, he vowed, "We will find the men and women who may fail to live up to our standards [of patriotism]; we will find the pinks; we will find the Communists; we will find the disloyal."

  When polls showed that the Korean War was the main concern of more than half of registered voters, Eisenhower addressed that issue. In speech after speech, he charged that the Truman administration had left South Korea "wide open to Communist aggression." He often cited the rising toll of American casualties and condemned the stalemate in the fighting that had persisted since the previous summer. As the campaign progressed, Ike promised voters that he would go to Korea to survey the situation in person as soon as he was elected.

  On the Democratic side, Adlai Stevenson tried to fend off Republican accusations that he was soft on Communism by asserting his own firm belief in the anti-Communist cause. "The Communist conspiracy within the United States deserves the attention of every American citizen and the sleepless concern of the responsible government agencies," he stated in a New York City speech. Stevenson went on to praise J. Edgar Hoover's FBI: "In all this effort we have had the faithful and resourceful work in national protection of the Federal Bureau of Investigation."

  Stevenson was careful to emphasize, however, that his support of the fight against Communism did not imply an endorsement of McCarthy and his methods. In one of his final campaign appearances, at a rally in Cleveland, Ohio, the Democratic candidate offered an implied criticism of McCarthy: "I believe with all my heart that those who would beguile the voters by lies or half-truths, or corrupt them by fear and falsehood, are committing spiritual treason against our institutions. They are doing the work of our enemies."

  Stevenson's eloquence and clear thinking were not enough to turn the tide of the election. On November 4, Eisenhower defeated him in 39 of the 48 states, including Wisconsin, and won the presidency by a decisive 10-percent margin, 55 percent to 45 percent. Ike's victory returned a Republican to the White House for the first time since 1933, when Franklin Roosevelt was inaugurated. The Republicans also regained control of both houses of Congress. The margin in the Senate was a razor-thin 48–47 (there was one Independent), the margin in the House of Representatives a slightly wider 221–213.

  Joe rode the Republican tide to victory, winning reelection with 54 percent of the votes, 870,444 to Thomas Fairchild's 731,402. After celebrating with friends and backers in Appleton, Joe spoke with reporters around one in the morning. "The election of Eisenhower and a Republican Senate and House more than justifies my faith in the intelligence of the American people," he said. "This is a new day for America."

  In Connecticut, William F. Benton, Joe's nemesis, was soundly defeated in his bid for reelection. Later, McCarthy couldn't resist gloating a little. "How do you like what happened to my friend Benton?" he asked an interviewer. Benton's defeat, coupled with the earlier departure of Millard Tydings, meant that two of McCarthy's most vocal and influential Senate foes would no longer be around to challenge him. No wonder Joe felt confident as he looked forward to his second term.

  Several important political developments took place before that term began. The first affected Joe directly. Senator Carl Hayden, outgoing chairman of the Rules Committee, knew that the incoming Eisenhower administration was likely to drop the investigation of McCarthy that was under way. So Hayden pressed the members of the subcommittee to issue a report on its findings before the Truman administration came to an end.

  The bipartisan subcommittee submitted the report with only twenty-four hours to spare. It was not the bombshell some had predicted. In their haste, the subcommittee members had sidestepped the serious questions about the methods Joe had used in his campaign against Communists in government, and had focused instead on his questionable financial dealings. The 328-page report laid out in detail all the old charges—the tax problems in Wisconsin, the Lustron fee in Washington—but in the end failed to prove McCarthy guilty of any illegal conduct.

  Although the document was little more than a slap on the wrist, Joe still reacted angrily when he got his copy. He claimed the Privileges and Elections Subcommittee had sunk to "a new low in dishonesty and smear," and called its chairman, Thomas Hennings, and the chair of the parent Rules Committee, Carl Hayden, "lackeys of this [Truman's] corrupt administration." Then, buoyed by his reelection victory, he added, "They should know by this time that they cannot scare me, or turn me aside."

  The other development began to clear the way for at least a partial resolution of the Korean War. On November 29, 1952, a little more than three weeks after the election, Dwight Eisenhower fulfilled a campaign promise by flying to Korea to find out what could be done to end the conflict. Sometime later, India offered a proposal for a Korean armistice that was accepted by the United Nations. The parties involved finally signed a cease-fire on July 27, 1953. At the same time, the border between North and South Korea was established along the 38th Parallel, with a demilitarized zone (DMZ) around it. The zone was defended by North Korean soldiers to the north and South Korean and American forces to the south.

  While the Eisenhower administration was taking shape, Joe had his pick of Senate committee assignments because of his seniority. He chose to be chair of the Committee on Government Operations and told reporters he would also serve as chairman of that committee's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. "Some people don't realize it," he told a friend, "but that committee [and subcommittee] could be the most powerful in the Senate. I can investigate anybody who ever received money from the government, and that covers a lot of ground."

  Most of the Republican members of the committee were conservative friends of his, like Karl E. Mundt of South Dakota, so it looked as though Joe would have few challenges as chairman. The Democratic members weren't likely to present any major problems, either. The Democratic minority leader, Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, appointed moderates and conservatives like John F. Kennedy, who had won his race against Henry Cabot Lodge in Massachusetts.

  Johnson didn't particularly like McCarthy or his methods, but he had an instinct for what would be good for the Democratic party in the long run. He was well aware that Joe's anti-Communist crusade was popular with a majority of the American people, including many Democrats, and he did not want to arouse Joe's ire unnecessarily. Johnson told a confidant, "I will not commit my party to some high-school debate on the subject, 'Resolved that Communism is good for the United States,' with my party taking the affirmative."

  Joe expressed great optimism about what the new administration could accomplish in the next four years. "I don't think we'll run into any whitewashes or coverups after Eisenhower takes over," he told reporters. He also affirmed his support of the new secretary of state, John Foster Dulles. "I think he's a good American," Joe said, and he promised t
o hand over to Dulles "every particle of evidence I've collected."

  McCarthy was delighted when his friend Scott McLeod, a former FBI agent, was chosen as chief security officer of Dulles's State Department. McLeod would be responsible for confirming the loyalty of the department's personnel. Right-wingers cheered his choice. Many liberal commentators feared what would happen when McLeod gave Joe and his committee access to the State Department's files.

  Meanwhile, Joe was busy planning new investigations for his committee. He announced that three senators, whom he didn't name, had asked that he inquire into Communist influence at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Several weeks later, he said he planned to "root out Communist thinkers from

  Senator Lyndon B. Johnson. The National Archives

  the nation's colleges." He admitted the latter would be "an awfully unpleasant task," and predicted that "all hell will break loose, and there will be screaming of interference with academic freedom." But he told an interviewer he was determined to proceed anyway.

  To support his ambitious plans, Joe set about building a strong backup staff for the committee's work. Joseph P. Kennedy suggested that McCarthy consider his younger son, Robert, for the post of chief legal counsel. Robert Kennedy had graduated from the University of Virginia Law School the year before, and had helped run his brother John's Senate campaign. Robert, called Bobby by his friends, shared many of McCarthy's views and was known to be extremely ambitious. He hadn't had time to build much of a resumé, though.

  Joe wanted someone with an established reputation for the job in question, but at the same time he didn't want to offend the elder Kennedy. So he offered Robert a position as assistant to the committee's general counsel, Francis Flanagan, instead. The younger Kennedy accepted the lesser job after Joe promised that in time he would succeed Flanagan.