Whatever the explanation, Joe often had to be prompted by Roy Cohn during his four days on the stand. He had nothing new to offer, merely a rambling repeat of his familiar speech about the serious threat of Communist subversion in the U.S. government. None of the senators or counsel present challenged him on that score, however; they were still afraid of being labeled as "soft on Communism" by their political opponents. Even Joseph Welch called Irving Peress a "no-good Communist" at one point, and told Joe, "I admire the work you do, when it succeeds."
The subcommittee was less accepting when Joe tried to defend Cohn and Schine against the Army's charges of favoritism. Even the Republican members found it hard to believe McCarthy when he said of Schine, "I think he is the most modest young man I have seen," and later, referring to Cohn, "I believe he is just a normal young man. He is very brilliant. I don't think that he has a hotter temper than anyone else."
During this phase of the hearings, the Republican members of the subcommittee held an after-hours executive session. They made a motion to call a halt to the hearings after Joe and his aide Francis Carr testified. The Democrats protested—they wanted a chance to interrogate David Schine—but the motion passed on a party-line vote.
And so, after McCarthy concluded his testimony and Francis Carr had weakly defended his role in preparing the eleven questionable memoranda, the Army-McCarthy hearings came to an end on June 17. They had lasted 36 days and taken up 187 hours of network television time. Millions of fascinated viewers had watched the proceedings, and 15,000 had attended one or more of the hearings in person.
The jury—in this case, the members of the subcommittee—would not announce their verdict until September, when they issued their final report. In the meantime, nationwide polls and other samplings of public opinion revealed that the American people had found the Army's case against McCarthy, Cohn, and Schine far more credible than the defense the three of them had presented.
Joe's own approval ratings were equally revealing. In the Gallup poll published immediately after the hearings, his popularity rating had fallen to 34 percent, its lowest yet. More telling, 41 percent of the business and professional people who were polled expressed "extreme disapproval" of McCarthy, while only 14 percent expressed "high approval."
At first, Joe dismissed such polls as inaccurate, claiming he still enjoyed the support of the majority of "real Americans." His claim was reinforced by the fan mail he continued to receive and the backing he got from groups like the Republican convention in his home state of Wisconsin. The convention passed a resolution in the summer of 1954 commending McCarthy for his "crusade against subversives."
Joe relaxed with Jean on a vacation in Mexico that summer. When he returned to Washington in mid-July, expecting to resume his usual schedule, he called a meeting of the subcommittee. He told reporters he would soon launch a one-man hearing in Boston to investigate alleged Communist subversion in the city's defense plants.
But things had changed in Washington. Senator William Knowland of California had been named Senate majority leader after Sen. Taft died of cancer the previous summer. Now Knowland had to tell Joe he couldn't start a one-man hearing outside Washington during the final weeks of the Congressional session because it would be sure to anger the other subcommittee members, even some of the Republican members. What Knowland didn't say was that Joe's power to intimidate his fellow senators had been seriously weakened.
Senator Ralph Flanders, on June 11, 1954, hands McCarthy a note alerting him that Flanders plans to introduce a resolution against him that afternoon in the Senate. Marquette University Archives
This truth had been brought home to Joe even more clearly on June 11. His longtime foe Senator Ralph Flanders rose on the floor of the Senate that afternoon and introduced a resolution to censure McCarthy—that is, to condemn his actions as wrong and express disapproval publicly. Flanders said that the Republican Party had reached a fork in the road and must decide which direction to take. "On the one hand we move in the path and under the influence of the great Lincoln," he said. "If we turn the other way, we choose the leadership of the junior senator from Wisconsin. In the words of Joshua, who led the children of Israel into the Promised Land, 'Choose you this day whom you will serve.'"
Flanders then introduced the resolution itself: "Resolved, that the conduct of the senator from Wisconsin, Mr. McCarthy, is unbecoming a member of the United States Senate, is contrary to senatorial traditions and tends to bring the Senate into disrepute, and such conduct is hereby condemned." There were no specific charges in the resolution; those would be thrashed out in a Senate debate.
Given the altered political climate in Washington since the Army-McCarthy hearings, Flanders was hopeful that the censure resolution would be favorably received. He knew from preliminary surveys conducted by his political allies that twenty-four senators could be counted on to vote in favor of censuring McCarthy, and eighteen others were likely to join them. He also knew that at least twenty senators were strongly opposed to the measure, and the rest were undecided.
Joe may not yet have grasped which way the political winds were blowing, but Roy Cohn did. Realizing he had lost the support of the subcommittee, Cohn resigned from his post as counsel on July 20. McCarthy tried to get Cohn to reconsider his decision, but he refused. Joe made no effort to conceal his disappointment. He called Cohn's departure "a victory for the Communists and their fellow travelers," and claimed that Cohn was appreciated by the millions who had seen him at work during the hearings. "I know that they will resent as deeply as do I the treatment to which he has been subjected," McCarthy said.
Senate debate on the Flanders resolution to censure Joe began on July 30. In an opening statement, Sen. Flanders laid out three specific charges against McCarthy: his contemptuous treatment of the Gillette-Hennings committee, which had been set up to investigate the underhanded tactics used by Joe and others to defeat Senator Millard Tydings in 1951; sending Roy Cohn and David Schine to Europe on a tour that "compromised the honor of the nation and the Senate"; and McCarthy's "habitual contempt" for people whom he had called as witnesses, such as the New York lawyer Dorothy Kenyon and Gen. Zwicker.
Flanders conceded that "the senator's work has resulted in some desirable dismissals." But, he added, "So far as I am aware he [McCarthy] has never claimed credit for a single successful prosecution."
Before the debate began, both political parties had agreed that the Flanders resolution should be discussed in an open-minded, nonpartisan way. However, the remarks of Republican senators in the aftermath of Flanders's opening statement made it clear that they were determined to defeat the resolution. Among other things, the Republicans charged that it was too general.
Senator Ralph Flanders of Vermont, McCarthy's longtime opponent. The Library of Congress
Senator J. William Fulbright, Democrat of Arkansas, responded to this criticism by adding several more examples of alleged misconduct to the resolution. Among them were Joe's appeal to government employees to give him classified information in violation of the law, and his insulting comments about witnesses like Annie Lee Moss and esteemed Americans like General George Marshall. Fulbright concluded his Senate speech by saying, "His [Joe's] abuses have recalled to the minds of millions the most abhorrent tyrannies which our whole system of ordered liberty and balanced power was intended to abolish."
Fulbright's speech did nothing to lessen Republican opposition to the proposed censure. Newspapers reporting on the Republicans' position predicted that if the resolution was put to a vote, it would go down to defeat. Determined to prevent that, Sen. McClellan suggested that a special committee be formed to study the charges against Joe and report its findings before the Senate adjourned.
The notion of a committee appealed to many senators who were reluctant to take a position on McCarthy during an election year. After heated debate, the Senate voted 75–12 to form a committee composed of three Republicans and three Democrats, appointed by Vice-President Nixon on th
e recommendation of the Senate majority and minority party leaders.
In public, Joe adopted a defiant attitude toward these developments. He said he welcomed the opportunity to cross-examine his critics on the Senate floor. "I assure the American people that the senators who have made the charges will either indict themselves for perjury, or they will prove what consummate liars they are."
To close friends, though, it was clear that McCarthy was deeply hurt. He couldn't understand why former friends and allies like J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon had turned away from him. Nor could he grasp why his approval ratings in the polls kept on dropping, or why staunch supporters like the Hearst chain of newspapers had begun to criticize him. Weren't the public and the press aware that Communists and Communism were just as much of a threat to the American way of life as they'd always been?
The Senate majority leader, William F. Knowland of California, and the minority leader, Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, had the difficult task of selecting the committee members who would weigh the charges against Joe. Johnson, known as the "Master of the Senate," was more forceful than Knowland. He was all in favor of censuring Joe; he also knew that, if the resolution was to have any hope of passage, the committee members would need to be moderate conservatives. Otherwise, they would be open to the charge of being prejudiced against Joe.
Johnson compiled a roster of six candidates whom he described as "men who are symbols for patriotism, integrity, and judicial temperament." All came from the South or West, where McCarthy was not as popular as in other regions, and none was known to be either strongly for or against the Wisconsin senator. When Johnson discussed his choices with Knowland, the Californian approved them all. "I would be perfectly willing to go before them on trial of my life," he said. Vice-President Nixon agreed, saying, "This is an outstanding committee."
Joe appeared to be content also. He told an audience at an American Legion convention in Illinois that he was "completely satisfied." But when asked about the resolution, he replied scornfully that some "nice little boys in the Senate" had attacked "someone for doing the skunk-hunting job they didn't have the guts to do themselves." The "someone" of course was McCarthy.
The committee, under the chairmanship of Senator Arthur V. Watkins, Republican of Utah, announced that it would conduct public hearings, but they would not be broadcast or televised. It also announced that it would investigate just five charges against Joe out of the many that had been suggested. These were McCarthy's scornful treatment of the Gillette-Hennings committee; his invitation to government employees to give him classified information; his possession and manipulation of the so-called "letter" to J. Edgar Hoover; his abuse of various fellow senators in the course of his investigations; and his attack on Gen. Zwicker. Excluded were hearsay evidence and any evidence that was not directly related to one of the five charges, in order to prevent McCarthy from going off on any tangents during the hearings.
Senate Majority Leader William Knowland of California (left) and Senator Walter George of Georgia (center) discuss with Senate Minority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson (right) the censure proceedings against Sen. McCarthy. The National Archives
Joe and Jean took another brief vacation, this time to California. On their return, Joe told reporters he considered the hearings "a great waste of time." He said he planned to accept several of the charges. "For instance, the fact I said Senator Flanders is senile is unquestioned. It will be freely admitted. He [Flanders] can prove he's not if he can and wants to."
Senator Arthur Watkins. The Library Congress
The hearings opened on August 31, 1954, in the Senate Caucus Room, where the Army-McCarthy hearings had concluded two months earlier. Once again every seat in the room was filled, and once again McCarthy tried to divert the proceedings by interrupting the chairman's opening statement. But Chairman Watkins refused to acknowledge him: "We are not going to be interrupted by these diversions. We are going straight down the line." When McCarthy persisted, Watkins pounded his gavel on the table over and over again until Joe finally sat down. After that, McCarthy often stayed away from the hearings, and when he was there, he was unusually quiet. New York Times columnist James Reston wrote of Joe, "He is fenced in for the first time and he is being hurt, for regardless of what the Senate does about his case, each day's hearing is a form of censure of its own."
Reston was referring to McCarthy's profanities and insulting remarks that were read into the public record during the hearings. Committee members were visibly distressed to hear Sen. Fulbright described as "Senator Half-bright," Senator Robert C. Hendrickson ridiculed as "the only human being who ever lived so long without brains or guts," and the continuous slurs directed at Gen. Zwicker, whose confrontation with McCarthy was read in full.
McCarthy's lawyer, Edward Bennett Williams, tried to mount a strong defense of his client. McCarthy undercut Williams's efforts at every turn. He expressed no regret for asking government employees to provide him with classified information: "My comments expressed my feelings then," he testified, "and they express my feelings now." He was not about to retract his criticism of Gen. Zwicker, either. "I think any man who says that it is right to give honorable discharges to known Communists is not fit to wear the uniform of a general. I said it then. I will say it now. I will say it again."
Joe's stubborn refusal to admit any wrongdoing on his part did not sit well with the committee members. Their displeasure was evident in the stern tone of their final report, which was issued on September 27. The six members recommended unanimously that McCarthy be censured on two counts: his "vulgar and insulting" treatment of Sen. Hendrickson and the Gillette-Hennings committee; and his slurs on the character and abilities of Gen. Zwicker, which they called "inexcusable" and "reprehensible."
As was to be expected, Joe's ultraconservative Republican friends, such as Sen. Dirksen and Sen. McCarran, vowed to fight the recommendations. But a majority of newspapers across the country praised the work of Sen. Watkins and his committee. A commentator for the Louisville Courier-Journal wrote: "These six inoffensive and austere men [the committee members] have by their unanimity and moderation both destroyed the McCarthy myth and elevated the prestige of a Senate which has suffered severe blows.... The nation owes them thanks."
Joe had little to say publicly, but close associates said he was depressed by the committee's decision. He was also surprised and saddened when many Republican leaders made it clear that, in the wake of the Army-McCarthy hearings and the Watkins committee report, he would not be welcome as a campaigner in their local elections that fall. Perhaps as a result of these disappointments, Joe suffered one of his periodic sinus attacks and checked himself into Bethesda Naval Hospital for treatment.
Many Republicans continued to employ his scare tactics when they spoke on behalf of their party's candidates. Vice-President Nixon made a practice of calling all Democratic candidates "left-wingers." He went on to warn that, if elected, the Democrats would again tolerate the employment of "Reds and Communist sympathizers" in government as they had in the Truman years.
Such tactics had proved effective in 1950 and 1952, but did not succeed in 1954. Perhaps the Republicans had cried wolf once too often. Or perhaps it was because there had been signs of change in the Soviet Union in the year and a half since Stalin's death. Ambassador Charles Bohlen reported from Moscow that the new Soviet leaders, Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin, had begun to relax some of the rigid policies of the Stalin regime. Thousands of political prisoners were coming home from Stalin's notorious labor camps. More consumer goods were appearing in the stores. Books, plays, and movies were starting to deal with personal themes instead of political propaganda. The title of a new novel, The Thaw, by the respected Soviet writer Ilya Ehrenburg came to define this period of transition. Ehrenburg used the phrase to represent not just the usual spring thaw but also the easing of restrictions within the Soviet Union.
McCarthy smilingly accepts a plaque awarded him by the Amityville, New York, American
Legion Post for "distinguished service to our nation in the field of anti-subversion." The National Archives
Whatever the reasons, American voters in November 1954 turned away from the Republican message of fear and returned the Democrats to control of both the House and the Senate. Now that both sides in the cold war had arsenals of nuclear weapons at their command, a majority of voters seemed to be more interested in finding ways to avoid a future conflict than in raking over old charges of subversion and espionage.
But not Joe. He blamed the Republican losses on the failure of their candidates to speak out loudly and clearly about the dangers of Communist subversion in government. "Republicans have got to learn before the next election that they can't duck the real issues and can't talk about sweet nothings." He apparently meant the possibility of peaceful coexistence with the Soviet Union, a notion that some political leaders in the U.S. and other Western countries had begun to take seriously.
The debate on the Watkins committee's recommendations for McCarthy's censure, which had been postponed until after the election, was set to begin on November 8. Everyone concerned realized how serious a matter censure was. Only two senators in American history had been censured for their behavior, one in 1902, the other in 1929.
A Gallup poll released on the 8th was anything but encouraging for Joe. It showed that of the 55 percent of Americans who had followed the doings of the Watkins committee, 56 percent felt he deserved to be censured for his attacks on the Gillette-Hennings committee, and 47 percent thought he should be censured for the disrespectful way he had treated Gen. Zwicker.
The Rise and Fall of Senator Joe McCarthy Page 25
