However, by far the most significant thing to follow from all this was the war itself, which drastically transformed power relationships in the world and gave birth to a whole new set of issues in the course of resolving others. Among its many side effects, the war would make the United States and the Soviet Union allies, a condition that gave rise to beliefs and actions spawning many future troubles. In particular, the pro-Soviet atmospherics of the war would accentuate the problem of Communist infiltration that had developed during the Great Depression. What had been a serious problem in the 1930s would now become a truly massive penetration. The story of how all this came about, and its implications for our security interests, is yet another unthinkable chapter from the secret annals of the Cold War.
Equally important, it was in the war years that J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI got their first serious inkling as to the extent of the penetration and began putting together a series of detailed reports that tracked the Red presence in the federal workforce. However, as with the Philby crowd in England and the inert response to Chambers, these FBI memos would in many cases be disparaged or ignored by top officials. A related legacy of the war years was the secrecy in which such intel was mantled, as the facts about the penetration were routinely shielded from Congress and the public. All this occurred in the 1940s, before Joe McCarthy ever came on the security scene, much of it before he was ever elected to the Senate, and it supplied the predicate for just about everything he said and did in the succeeding decade.
Dealing with combustible issues that blew up in the 1950s but had their genesis years before obviously entails the use of flashbacks to explain the elements of the conflict, the stakes involved, and how this or that dispute developed. In later chapters of this essay, a number of switches back and forth between the decades can scarcely be avoided. However, to minimize the distractions and confusions involved in using this device, the following section discusses, in roughly chronological order, some key developments of the war and early postwar years that constitute, so to speak, the immediate prehistory of the McCarthy era.
In this discussion, certain critical events—though greatly compressed—are set forth in fair detail rather than merely being alluded to in passing. This approach has been used, in part, because of the unthinkability factor: Some of the things that happened were so wildly improbable as to defy ready credence, and thus need to be documented rather than simply being asserted. Equally to the point, such details are of the essence in figuring out how the infiltration happened, what was or wasn’t done about it, and why it mattered. Once some of these specifics are understood, it becomes possible to understand as well the later unthinkable charges of McCarthy.
CHAPTER 6
The Witching Hour
COMMUNIST penetration of the American government was a long-term process that ebbed and flowed but never ceased entirely. As with other infiltration targets, such as schools, media outlets, civic groups, or labor unions, the purposes were several: to influence policies and programs, make propaganda, disrupt or sabotage things from time to time, and—where chance presented—engage in “intelligence”-gathering operations, otherwise known as spying.
As noted, such infiltration at the official level developed mostly in two phases—one in the depression years, the other during World War II. The net effect of these twin incursions was a sizable Communist presence on the federal payroll, far greater than most histories have suggested. However, in the trough between the rising waves (August 1939–June 1941), the Hitler-Stalin pact exploded, shattering the Communist Party’s anti-Nazi image and setting back the penetration effort that prospered in the 1930s. Though these losses would later be recouped, events during the heyday of the pact would have profound effects long after it had ignominiously ended. The seeds of conflict over U.S. security policies for years to come would be sown in the wild zigzags and contradictions of this era.
While it lasted, the spectacle of Brown and Red dictatorships in common harness spurred Congress to decisive action, including stern new laws that treated the two as equal dangers. Foremost among these measures was the Hatch Act, adopted in 1939 and further toughened in 1940, which outlawed the hiring or retention of federal workers who advocated the “overthrow of our constitutional form of government,” a rote phrase officially said to mean members of the Communist Party. In May 1941, Congress would adopt a bill of even broader scope, requiring scrutiny of federal workers involved with any “subversive” group whatever. This was Public Law 135, directing that the FBI investigate “the employees of every department, agency and independent establishment of the federal government who are members of subversive organizations or advocate the overthrow of the Federal government,” and report back to Congress.1
All this was a sharp U-turn, not only from the security nonchalance of the previous decade, but from long-standing Civil Service rules that banned job discrimination based on the “political” views of workers—reflecting a more innocent time when self-styled political parties as agents of a hostile foreign power weren’t seen as a serious menace. Concurrent with the strict new guidelines was the unforgiving concept of “reasonable doubt,” meaning where such doubt arose security interests would trump the usual safeguards of the system. As the standards were explained in December 1940:
“The United States Civil Service Commission has decided officially that as a matter of policy it will not [favorably] certify to any department or agency the name of any person when it has been established that he is a member of the Communist Party, German Bund, or any other Communist or Nazi organization.” And further: “If we find anybody has had any association with the Communists, the German Bund, or any other foreign organization of that kind, that person is disqualified immediately. All doubts are being resolved in favor of the government.”2
In the enforcement of these hard-nosed rules the relatively open Communist doings of the 1930s would now be used by security agents to advantage. In particular, the membership rolls of front groups that flourished in the Red decade were scanned by the FBI, Justice Department, and House Committee on Un-American Activities as indices of possible trouble. Also, as P.L. 135 raised the question of what was meant by the catchall term “subversive,” an official answer was provided: the first “Attorney General’s list,” quoted in Chapter 4, describing eleven major Communist fronts, circulated early in 1942 by Attorney General Francis Biddle to federal agencies for their guidance.
Had these hawkish notions been adhered to, it’s doubtful much further Communist penetration of the federal government could have happened. Such policies, however, would soon be eroded by events and in many instances reversed entirely. When Hitler broke his deal with Stalin and invaded Russia in June of 1941, Moscow was perforce on the side of London and, when we joined the war in December 1941, would be our “noble ally” also. Statements from such as Ambassador Joseph Davies, White House familiar Harry Hopkins, and FDR himself would now echo with praise of Stalin, the Soviet army, and all things whatsoever that were Russian. The Communist Party USA, as Moscow’s agent on the scene, basked happily in this springtime for Stalin and reaped a bumper harvest from it.*23
Among its many side effects, such pro-Soviet thinking at high levels self-evidently clashed with laws and regulations barring Reds from federal office. The resulting conflict between black-letter law and executive yen to woo the Kremlin would produce a series of angry quarrels between New Deal officials and anti-Red security hawks in Congress—Martin Dies predictably among them.
A main source of friction was P.L. 135 and its order for vetting federal workers. Though circulating his own list of suspect groups in keeping with this mandate, Francis Biddle didn’t like it and had used it as a means of needling Dies—suggesting that the House committee itself should do the work of tracking down the data. In the short run this gambit backfired, as Dies responded in the fall of 1941 with another of his lists—a roster of 1,124 federal workers who allegedly were, or had been, members of groups found by the committee, and later b
y Biddle himself, to be subversive.†24
As required by law 135, the FBI would investigate these staffers, producing, in the summer of 1942, a fat report about them running to five volumes (total number of pages not given). This document, however, would never see the light of day, as Biddle and the powers above him were by this time moving in noble-ally mode to scotch the use of fronts as indices for hiring. The Bureau was told to submit its findings in muffled, purely statistical form, the whole running to no more than twenty pages, omitting the names of any groups or individuals. As to the purpose of this edict, one FBI memo explained, Biddle “stated that he was anxious to have the report point out that the Dies information had been worthless.”3
Thereafter, though Dies tried to revive the issue, the names he submitted—and FBI report about them—would vanish from the public record. More was the pity for the nation, as this much-derided list of suspects, compiled before Pearl Harbor, included numerous big-time Soviet agents who would one day make the headlines—Alger Hiss, Lauchlin Currie, Harry White, and Harold Glasser, to name a notorious handful. Combined with the brush-off of Whittaker Chambers three years before, this deep-sixing of the Dies list gave the comrades the better part of a decade to carry on without much hindrance.
As events would show, this episode-of-the-thousand-names was but a single phase in a broader effort to wire around the Hatch Act, P.L. 135, and other measures barring Reds from office. In this pursuit, ingenious distinctions were devised by New Deal wordsmiths, justifying the policy change without bothering to change the statutes, a more difficult and uncertain process. Chief among these subtle concepts was “mere membership” in a subversive group, which, it was argued, could be innocuous in nature. As Biddle would later put it, “activity in the organization, rather than membership, would come closer to reality, and even this can be but one of many facts to be considered in determining fitness for Federal employees.”4
Applied to front groups, this had some plausible basis, as one object of such “innocents’ clubs” was to lure naive peace-seekers or friends of the downtrodden into unwitting concert with the Kremlin. Some scrutiny of that aspect was obviously in order. However, “mere membership” was soon expanded past these prudent limits, embracing not only cited front groups but the Communist Party also. A telltale instance, again from 1942, showed the link between this notion and the pro-Soviet policy now stemming from the White House.
At the outset of the war, a statute administered by the Navy barred Communists as well as Nazis from radio jobs on U.S. merchant vessels, as radio traffic was a vital source of military/strategic data. In May of 1942, however, an order was issued by Navy Secretary Frank Knox rescinding this prohibition. As reflected in official records (doubtless not the total story), the impetus for this reversal came from Knox assistant Adlai Stevenson, later governor of Illinois and candidate for president. Stevenson raised the issue in a memo of April 30, rhetorically asking “whether identification with Communism, even if sufficiently proved, is sufficient grounds to disqualify a man without some further evidence of incompetence or unreliability.”5 Knox sent this to FDR, urging that the ban be lifted, and the President followed suit. The pro-Soviet basis of the change was spelled out in the Navy minutes:
The Secretary [Knox]…said that he had no brief for the activities of the Communist Party, but that the President had stated that, considering the fact that the United States and Russia were allies at this time, and that the Communist Party and the United States effort were now bent toward our winning the war, the United States was bound not to oppose the activities of the Communist Party, and specifically, to not disapprove the employment of any radio operator for the sole reason that he was a member of the Communist Party or that he was active in Communist affairs. (Emphasis added.)6
In sum, the hiring standards were to be altered and Communists (literally) brought on board, in keeping with the wartime view of Moscow as gallant ally. The far-reaching implications of this mind-set would be borne out by other like reversals. One such occurred the following year when the Civil Service Commission again revised its guidelines, harking back to the see-no-evil standards of the 1930s. These changes in effect negated both P.L. 135 and the “reasonable doubt” approach of 1940, as civil service investigators were now explicitly told not to ask about front groups or other Red connections.*25 7
As customary in such cases, these new rules were set forth in civil liberties language, but the timing of the order and complete volte-face in procedure told another story. It’s noteworthy that the Washington Book Shop, named specifically in this order as shielded from inquiry, had been included the previous year in the list of suspect outfits passed around by Biddle (and would be included in other such listings later). Thus, in early 1942 federal agencies were expressly warned about the Book Shop in official guidance for their hiring; but by the fall of 1943, investigators were forbidden even to ask if someone were a member.
Thereafter, “mere membership” would show up in other places—always as a rationale for having Communists on the public payroll. A much-controverted case involved the regulations of the Army. Here, too, in keeping with the 1940 standards, existing policy barred Reds as well as Nazis from key positions and from commissions in the service. But in December 1944, a superseding order was issued by the Adjutant General of the Army, saying “no action will be taken…that is predicated on membership in or adherence to the doctrine of the Communist Party unless there is a specific finding that the individual involved has a loyalty to the Communist Party which outweighs his loyalty to the United States.”8
How this comparative weighing of mental states was to be arrived at wasn’t explained, nor could any such mind-reading feat well be imagined. Obviously, if Communist Party membership didn’t raise a loyalty issue, the only way to make such a judgment would be proof of some disloyal action—virtually a criminal courtroom standard for screening military rosters. Absent that, the ruling was carte blanche for known Communists—to say nothing of fronters or mere suspects—to obtain commissions in the Army.†26
This directive drew the notice, and ire, of Sen. Styles Bridges (R-N.H.), who would later insert a Senate staff report about it in the Congressional Record. It also produced some unusual hearings, predictive of events to follow. In February and March of 1945, a House Military Affairs subcommittee chaired by Rep. Ewing Thomason (D-Tex.) reviewed the newly minted Army guidelines. The witnesses were Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, Army intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Clayton Bissell, and Maj. Gen. William Donovan, head of the super-secret OSS. Among them they grudgingly made it plain that the new standards were an open sesame for Communists to enter the Army, get commissions, and gain access to restricted data.9
Of the threesome, McCloy was the most knowledgeable on the issue and took the point in explaining it to Congress. Though bearing the title Assistant Secretary, he was relied on heavily by the septuagenarian Secretary Henry Stimson, and was an omnipresent figure on matters relating to defense. This one was no exception, though his explanations of the new ground rules didn’t seem too persuasive to the House committee.
Indeed, McCloy’s discussion of the new proviso was apparently as baffling to the panel as the matter he was explaining. Much of it was a discourse on “mere membership”—what it meant to be a Communist, whether and how the definition of this had changed, and other philosophic musings.*27 A moment of clarity occurred when McCloy was asked point blank whether a “person might be a member of the Communist Party and still be commissioned as an officer in the Army of the United States.” To which he answered, “Yes, that is so.”
General Bissell tried to soften this by saying that, even though the policy was as stated, there weren’t to his knowledge any such people in the Army. However, midway in the hearings, Willard Edwards of the Chicago Tribune published a list of officers whose records, according to official data, proved these assurances in error. When asked about these individuals, Bissell said they were good soldiers and that their loyalty
was unquestioned. Pressed about the Communist charges, he offered only vague demurrers. Pushed harder still, he produced a letter from Stimson denying the relevant security files to Congress. Whereupon discussion foundered.10
WHILE all this was going on, still other changes were afoot that affected the issue of Red penetration and the collapse of security safeguards against it. In late 1943 and early ’44, reports were received by the FBI and members of the Senate that an effort was under way to abolish counter-intelligence records used in anti-Red investigations. A snapshot of this purge was provided by security expert Ben Mandel, who served many years as an investigator and researcher for Congress and more briefly in the State Department.
Mandel told the FBI that, in early 1944, two Budget Bureau officials had “made personal visits to various agencies, such as Civil Service, ONI [Office of Naval Intelligence], Navy Department and G-2 War Department, examining their investigative records.” According to Mandel, the duo’s “first and principal concern was the subversive files which the various agencies had compiled”—the stated reason for this being that “there was great duplication, and that such investigative activity was unnecessary as the FBI was already making such investigations.”11
This advice, it seems, was heeded. In June 1944, antisubversive files maintained by the Office of Naval Intelligence in New York and Boston abruptly vanished. According to one ONI staffer testifying to the Senate, these records contained about 100,000 index cards, plus myriad dossiers, reports, and forms that were much consulted. In June 1944, he said, “I remember coming in one day and those files were missing.” Similar testimony was given by another staffer shipped out to France in 1943, returning two years later. When he got back, he said, “all the files that were there when I left in 1943 were missing.”12
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