The memos would be designed to answer and disprove each of the key charges against Cohn contained in the Army report. For example, the Army document related that, in December 1953, Roy Cohn increased the pressure on Secretary Stevens and Army counsel John Adams to get special favors for Private David Schine. However, one of the back-dated memos would show that it was John Adams, not Cohn, who was putting on the pressure.
In this hastily contrived memo to Joe, Francis Carr purportedly wrote, "I couldn't get you on the telephone. What I want to tell you is that I am getting fed up with the way the Army is trying to use Schine as a hostage to pressure us to stop our hearings on the Army. John Adams constantly refers to Schine as 'our hostage' whenever his name comes up."
The memos went so far as to suggest that Adams was trying to blackmail Roy Cohn for his own ends. January 14, 1954, was the day, according to the Army report, when Cohn threatened to "wreck the Army" if they didn't give him what he wanted with regard to Schine. But another memo from Carr to Joe conveyed a very different account of that day's events. Carr supposedly told Joe that John Adams had phoned Cohn on that date to say "this was the last chance" for Cohn to arrange for Adams to be offered a partnership in a New York law firm at a salary of $25,000 a year (a very large amount in 1954).
McCarthy, Cohn, and Carr finished writing the memos at a late hour, and Joe arranged for them to be typed and copied overnight. The next morning, March 12, when the Army report dominated the front pages of all the nation's newspapers, Joe called a press conference at noon to tell his side of the story. With Roy Cohn sitting beside him, McCarthy praised his chief assistant and said he would do everything he could to make sure Cohn remained in his job.
As Joe did when cornered, he responded to the attack with a bold counterattack. After denying to the press that he or anyone on his staff had sought special favors for David Schine, he claimed the Army had mounted a campaign against him and Cohn to get them to call off their investigations. Then he handed out copies of the eleven back-dated memos.
While most reporters from right-wing publications accepted at face value the memos and McCarthy's denials that anyone from the subcommittee had pressured the Army, many other journalists reserved judgment. The memos seemed almost too neat in the way they addressed the content of the Army report, and many were awkwardly written. The Army's strong response later that day cast further doubt. Army counselor John Adams stated forcefully that the memos' "blackmail charge was fantastic and false." Army Secretary Stevens asserted that everything in the memos was "utterly untrue."
Among those most upset by McCarthy's press conference were the Republican members of the subcommittee. Joe had told them nothing in advance about the conference, nor had he given them copies of the eleven memos he planned to hand out. Earlier, Senator Karl Mundt had been stunned by the Army report's account of Roy Cohn's extreme behavior. Now the senator was even more concerned about Joe's eleven memos, with their countercharges against the Army.
Mundt announced that he would make a motion to form an impartial Senate committee to investigate both the Army report and the McCarthy memos. He told reporters he thought it would be a bad idea for the subcommittee to initiate the inquiry. "I don't want to have it conducted by a committee on which the staff is involved and the chairman [McCarthy] is involved."
While the media were still hashing over the Army-McCarthy conflict, Vice-President Nixon went on network television and radio to present the Eisenhower administration's belated response to Edward R. Murrow's TV report on Joe. Nixon made the point that the "responsible leadership" of the Republican Party believed firmly that procedures for dealing with Communism "must be fair and they must be proper."
Then, in a clear reference to McCarthy (whom he didn't mention by name), Nixon said that some anti-Communist fighters believed that "Reds should be shot like rats." He agreed, he said, that "they're a bunch of rats. But just remember this: When you go out to shoot rats, you have to shoot straight, because when you shoot wildly it not only means that the rats may get away more easily, but you might hit someone else who's trying to shoot rats, too." He went on to make the point even more explicitly: "Men who have in the past done effective work exposing Communists in this country have, by reckless talk and questionable methods, made themselves the issue, rather than the cause they believe in so deeply."
After the Nixon speech, there could be no doubt in anyone's mind that the Eisenhower administration sided with the Army in its standoff with Joe. The meaning of the vice-president's remarks was certainly not lost on McCarthy. When he was asked to comment on Nixon's talk, Joe confined himself to saying he thought "the American people were sick and tired of the constant yack-yacking" about his being too harsh in his investigations. His anger emerged in private, though, when, according to his friend Urban Van Susteren, he called the vice-president "that prick Nixon."
Vice-President Richard M. Nixon discusses the McCarthy situation with President Eisenhower. The National Archives
Joe's subcommittee held a closed executive session on March 16 to decide what steps to take next. The meeting lasted more than two hours, and when Joe emerged, he was smiling broadly. Other participants said the discussion had been heated. Karl Mundt had tried to convince his colleagues to join him in proposing that a separate committee be set up to handle the investigation of McCarthy's clash with the Army. The other members felt it should be done by the subcommittee itself.
Since McCarthy obviously could not chair a probe that involved his own activities, Mundt was persuaded to accept the post of temporary chairman. The hearings would be public (a suggestion of Joe's), and the subcommittee would not undertake any other investigations until they were completed. A new counsel would replace Francis Carr, who was credited with writing many of the eleven controversial memos, and new staff members would be appointed also.
Joe joked with reporters as he discussed the plans for the hearings. He made a point of saying he was pleased by the appointment of Sen. Mundt as temporary chairman. When asked about his own role, McCarthy said he expected to testify under oath and participate in the hearings as a member of the subcommittee. But he wasn't sure he would vote on the subcommittee's final determinations.
If Joe was angry that hearings were being held at all, he didn't show it. He was a skilled-enough politician to realize that, given the heated feelings on both sides, hearings of one sort or another were probably inevitable. Perhaps he was confident that, once they began, he would be able to dominate the proceedings as he had done so often since he had become a power in the Senate.
As if to show how confident he was, Joe flew with Don Surine to Chicago on March 17 for the first of four speaking engagements. That evening he addressed a crowd of more than 1,200 that had gathered in the grand ballroom of the Palmer House Hotel for a St. Patrick's Day dinner. Before he even began to speak, shouts of support erupted from the audience: "Give 'em hell, Joe!" and "Pour it on—you're in your own ball park tonight!"
In return, he gladly gave the crowd what it wanted to hear. His confrontation with the Army, he said, had been stirred up by "Pentagon politicians appointed by the Truman-Acheson regime" who wanted to derail his search for Communists in government. He also charged that the subcommittee's vote to halt all other inquiries during the Army-McCarthy hearings was "a rather major, if temporary, victory for those who fear exposure of Communists."
Joe went on to affirm his determination to continue the struggle against subversion at whatever cost. He "did not give a tinker's damn," he said, about attacks on his anti-Communist methods, "no matter how high or how low my critics are, or from which political party they come." To emphasize the point, he repeated the phrase "no matter how high or how low," making it clear to his listeners that he defied everyone up to and including the president. He concluded the speech by stating that he had not initiated this clash with the administration, "but I might have to finish it." As he turned to step down from the podium, the ballroom resounded with applause.
In the days that followed, Joe repeated his performance at a gathering of 450 Chicago automobile dealers, and before large crowds in Milwaukee and Oklahoma City. Despite fatigue, an attack of laryngitis, and a nagging fever, he rose to each occasion and belted out his familiar themes. Portraying himself as a lone fighter against subversion, he implied that anyone who opposed him was either a Communist, a pro-Communist, or a Communist dupe—some naive individual who served the purposes of the Communists without knowing it.
Many Americans still bought McCarthy's arguments, but a growing number did not. While Joe was basking in the admiration of his Midwestern supporters, a chorus of voices spoke out against him. Among them was a respected and influential Episcopal bishop, the Very Rev. Francis B. Sayre, Jr., who delivered a highly critical sermon from the pulpit of the National Cathedral in Washington. "For the sake of ten guilty ones he [McCarthy] will damn an army. For the sake of twenty, he is willing to wreck a whole administration. For the sake of thirty or forty or fifty, he will divide a nation right down to its democratic roots."
Even more telling was the sudden drop in Joe's approval ratings in both local and national polls. The San Francisco News asked its readers in early March if they admired McCarthy. Influenced perhaps by the Murrow television exposé and the broad coverage the media were giving his conflict with the Army, 641 of the respondents said "No," they did not, and only 161 replied "Yes."
On the national level, a Gallup poll published on March 2 showed that Joe's approval rating had fallen four points since January. Three weeks later, on March 23, a new Gallup poll revealed that McCarthy's rating had fallen another eight points. Now only 38 percent of those surveyed gave him a favorable rating, while 46 percent, according to Gallup, had an unfavorable impression.
Back in Washington, Joe called a meeting of the subcommittee for March 24. He said the members would discuss new plans to investigate Communist infiltration of defense plants. Sen. Symington and the other members objected, reminding Joe of the agreement they'd reached not to launch any new investigations while the Army-McCarthy hearings were under way. Joe persisted, claiming he could work on other projects because the hearings weren't really about him. "This isn't my case," he argued. "This is a case involving my chief counsel and the Army legal counsel."
Sen. McClellan, a Democratic subcommittee member, refused to accept that reasoning. He emphasized to reporters that "McCarthy is indeed a party to the quarrel being investigated."
Now the focus shifted to another unresolved question: whether Joe would be allowed to participate as a member of the subcommittee during the hearings. In a meeting with the press, he said he had "given no thought whatsoever" to leaving the subcommittee for the duration. He went on to insist that he expected, as a member, to have the right to cross-examine any witness who testified against him.
President Eisenhower had other ideas. When asked at his weekly press conference if he thought McCarthy should take part in the hearings, the president adopted an objective tone, but his meaning was unmistakable. "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."
At that point, Sen. Mundt stepped in and suggested that Joe temporarily give up his membership. If he refused, Mundt said, the issue would have to be brought before the full Senate for a final decision. A three-hour, closed-door session of the subcommittee followed, at the end of which Joe agreed to step down. McCarthy won a major concession, though. He, Roy Cohn, and their new counsel, as well as Army Secretary Stevens, his associates, and their counsel, would have the same right to cross-examine witnesses that the members of the subcommittee had.
McCarthy in a clip from the film he prepared to be shown on Edward R. Murrow's TV program See It Now on April 6, 1954. The film was a reply to Murrow's criticism of the senator in an earlier broadcast. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
On April 6, Joe finally replied on See It Now to the charges Edward R. Murrow had directed toward him during the earlier broadcast. Joe did not appear in person. Instead, he was filmed seated at a desk, staring into the camera, as he repeated Don Surine's claims that Murrow had played a suspicious role in arranging an exchange of Russian and American professors back in the 1930s. Speaking of Murrow in the present, Joe called his TV host "the cleverest of the jackal pack which is always found at the throat of anyone who dares to expose Communists and traitors."
If Joe thought his appearance on the show would swing public opinion in his favor, he was mistaken. The next day, CBS officials reported that the initial response of viewers ran overwhelmingly in favor of Murrow and against McCarthy. Meanwhile, both the subcommittee and the Army were hard at work searching for new counsels. They didn't have much time; the hearings were scheduled to start on April 22.
After rejecting several candidates because they were either too pro- or too anti-McCarthy, the subcommittee announced that Ray H. Jenkins, a wealthy criminal lawyer from Knoxville, Tennessee, would be their special counsel. At a press conference, Jenkins said, "I have no record, publicly or otherwise, with regard to Senator McCarthy or what has come to be called McCarthyism. I have no prejudice, and no bias."
Earlier, the Army had named Joseph N. Welch, a native of Iowa who was now a lawyer with a prominent Boston law firm, to be its counsel. When asked his position regarding McCarthy, Welch refrained from naming the senator in his response. "I am a registered Republican and a trial lawyer," he said. "I'm just for facts." Welch said he would be aided at the hearings by two junior law associates from his firm, James D. St. Clair and Frederick G. Fisher, Jr. He added that all three of them would serve without pay.
Shortly before the hearings began, Welch disclosed that Frederick Fisher would not be taking part in them after all. The young lawyer had once been a member of the National Lawyers Guild, an organization that the House Un-American Activities Committee had labeled subversive. Joseph Welch knew what McCarthy might try to make of that association, so he had asked Fisher to withdraw from the case. In explaining Fisher's sudden departure, Welch told reporters, "I didn't want a diversionary affair."
24. McCarthy on the Receiving End
HUNDREDS OF MEMBERS of the public lined up in the corridor outside the Senate caucus meeting room on the morning of April 22, 1954. Each hoped to get one of the 400 seats allotted to spectators on the opening day of the Army-McCarthy hearings. Inside the room, more than a hundred reporters from all over America milled about while television technicians from the three major networks set up the cameras that would cover the hearings from start to finish. Preliminary estimates suggested that as many as 20 million people might watch the telecasts.
Joseph Welch, the recently appointed counsel for the Army, recorded his initial impressions of the hearing room: "It was utter confusion. Photographers leaped up and down to get pictures. Messengers crawled beneath chairs. The cameras turned to follow the action. People sat, stood, and moved in every inch of space, and the whole crowded room was bathed in the bright lights of television." Places had been set aside at one end of a long wooden conference table for the members of the subcommittee, three representatives of the Army, and McCarthy, Cohn, and Francis Carr.
Joe did not look happy when he entered the caucus room and took his seat at the table. In the weeks before the start of the hearings, he had been drinking heavily, and he wore a gloomy, unsmiling expression. Perhaps his dark mood was due to a realization that he faced an uphill battle. The most recent Gallup poll showed that eight out of ten of those questioned had read or heard of the Army-McCarthy conflict, and 46 percent of them sided with Army Secretary
Joseph N. Welch, chief lawyer for the Army in the Army-McCarthy hearings. The Library of Congress
Stevens, while only 23 percent backed McCarthy. The rest said they weren't sure whom to believe.
Before the hearings began, each side in the dispute had agreed to make available to the other, and to the media, the charges they intended to pursue and
the evidence they'd gathered to support them. The Army's charges were an expanded version of its earlier report on all the various ways that Roy Cohn, with McCarthy's backing, had tried to win special favors for David Schine.
Joe's charges drew heavily on the eleven interoffice memos supposedly written by Francis Carr and others—memos implying that on the contrary, it was the Army that had been harassing Joe and Cohn. In addition, the subcommittee's document claimed that Cohn and Army counsel John Adams had once been "close personal and social friends," and that their friendship had continued even after Cohn was said to have made "serious threats against the Army."
Chairman Mundt opened the day's proceedings with a brief statement. It emphasized the subcommittee's commitment to "a maximum degree of dignity, fairness, and thoroughness" as the hearings progressed. Sen. McClellan, the senior Democrat on the subcommittee, was less optimistic. He stated candidly that the charges in the case were "so diametrically in conflict" that he saw no way in which they could be reconciled. The best the subcommittee could do, he said, was to uncover the facts, weigh the accusations made by both sides, and issue some sort of final report. "It will be an arduous and a difficult task," he concluded, "but it is one that must be done."
From the outset, Joe seemed determined to make the subcommittee's task as difficult as possible. The Army was slated to present its case first, and the subcommittee would follow. The hearing had been under way for less than seventeen minutes when Joe interrupted it to raise a point of order—a question as to whether the rules for such hearings were being properly followed. McCarthy was objecting to Counsel Adams and Secretary Stevens saying their charges had been "filed by the Department of the Army." The senator's face flushed a deep red as he declaimed, "I maintain it is a disgrace and reflection upon every one of the million outstanding men in the Army to let a few civilians, who are trying to hold up an investigation of Communists, label themselves as the Department of the Army."
The Rise and Fall of Senator Joe McCarthy Page 22
