MCCARRAN: I do not understand that he has anything to do with their resignation.
SNOW: The chairman is correct. I have nothing to do with whether they resign or don’t resign…and once they resign, the case leaves the board and we have no further jurisdiction over it.
MCCARTHY: Let me put it this way: Do you know whether you or any other member of your board has ever indicated to an employee that unless he resigns there will be an adverse holding?
SNOW: No. We could not do that. In the first place, that would be physically impossible because we don’t know what conclusions we come to until the hearing is over with.17 (Emphasis added.)
At this stage discussion went on to other topics, but the exchange was enough to confirm that resignations short-circuited the process, so that matters were left open-ended and—the point McCarthy was making—no adverse holding would be arrived at. By such methods the department’s immaculate record of never having found a loyalty risk in its employ could be kept intact forever.
An instance of how this worked was the case of William Stone, McCarthy’s suspect No. 46 before the Senate. Stone had been recommended for separation by Robert Bannerman as far back as 1946, but had outlasted Bannerman himself in the department and was still on the payroll six years later. After McCarthy had huffed and puffed about the matter, the Stone case was reopened and taken up by the Bingham board for post-audit. While all this was going on, Stone resigned from the department. Humelsine’s discussion of the case was revealing:
“His case had been cleared by the department’s board and had been sent forward to the Bingham board for post-audit purposes. While it was over there, Stone resigned…. [The Central Board thereafter] sent back a form saying that inasmuch as Mr. Stone had resigned his case would not be post-audited unless he should attempt to come back into the Federal government…at the time he resigned he was a cleared employee…”18 (Emphasis added.) So Stone, too, would remain in the department data banks as “cleared” and State’s perfect record would continue.
A further instance in this genre was Edward Posniak. McCarthy had previously read out to the Senate FBI reports indicating Posniak was or had been a Communist Party member. Posniak, too, had been a “cleared employee” in July of 1950 when McCarthy raised the issue. Now, in the hearings with Humelsine and Snow, McCarthy asked what had happened to the case and eventually got the answer: “The department was advised on June 11, 1948, that the FBI had started a loyalty investigation on Edward G. Posniak. He resigned his position with the Department on November 9, 1950.”19 Posniak would be another no-show in State’s tabulation of loyalty risks who had ever been on its payroll.
To the resignation method State added yet another, a bit more complex but still useful in keeping the stat sheet free in terms of finding loyalty risks or—more accurately—not finding them. This was to “suspend” employees at mid-flight in the proceedings, thus placing them in bureaucratic limbo and keeping them there for an extended period. Such suspension didn’t amount to an adverse holding but forestalled review of the case by the LRB.
A prime example of this technique was one of McCarthy’s more famous cases, that of Esther Brunauer. McCarthy asked Humelsine what had happened to her and was given a series of confusing answers, as Snow and Humelsine couldn’t get straight whether the case was before the State Department board or reposing somewhere else in the labyrinthine channels of the system. Despite the obscurity on this, it was agreed that Mrs. Brunauer had been “suspended” for approximately a year and that no final determination had been made as to her loyalty/security status.
From this fact the suspicion dawns, and certainly dawned on McCarthy, that the State Department was simply sitting on the case, thus forestalling final resolution. The issue became enmeshed in double-talk when McCarthy tried to press this aspect, asking if the Bingham board could get the case if State indefinitely held it:
MCCARTHY: Is there anything to the suspicion on the part of some that you hold some of these cases indefinitely after a suspension because the Review Board cannot get them until you get through with them? In other words, if you hold the Brunauer case indefinitely, the Review Board can never see it, can they?
HUMELSINE: The Review Board cannot post-audit, but the Review Board could and has the authority at any time, as I understand it, to take the case out of our hands and handle it themselves.
MCCARTHY: Has that ever been done?
HUMELSINE: Yes sir, it has been done in two cases.
MCCARTHY: In which cases?
HUMELSINE: They took the Service case and one other case, two cases.
FERGUSON: Before you were through with them?
HUMELSINE: No sir; after they had been sent over to them.
FERGUSON: Why do you not answer the Senator’s question?
MCCARTHY: Why do you not try to answer my question? It is like pulling teeth. I should not have to ask several questions, in order to get the truth.20
All this raised a further point of interest to McCarthy and his colleagues: the failure of the State Department to invoke the McCarran rider in re Brunauer, Posniak, Hanson, Meigs, Stone, or other cases of like nature. Under this proviso, the elaborate loyalty/security rigamarole could have been avoided altogether. As agreed to by State itself in the days of Byrnes-Russell-Panuch, the rider gave the secretary the power to dismiss any employee whatever if he thought the national interest required it. Not unnaturally, as the rider bore his name, Senator McCarran thought to raise the issue, though Ferguson would address it also.
MCCARRAN: I would like to know what has become of the provision in the law: It happens to be my own language as originally written [quoting the rider].
FERGUSON: That is an absolute discretion and none of this channeling provides for that.
MCCARRAN: Not a bit of it.21
In response, Humelsine made it clear that, while giving lip service to the rider, the State Department was not only loath to use it but considered it a dead letter.
HUMELSINE: My understanding is that we were not to use the McCarran rider but to use Public Law 733 [the supporting legislation for the Truman program]….We have used the McCarran rider in a couple of cases. But nevertheless the President has told us to run our loyalty program under the executive order. He has told us to run the security program under Public Law 733. (Emphasis added.)
FERGUSON: But you are not using the valuable instrument we gave you.22 [and later] You are absolutely defying the McCarran rider.
From these comments it appears the Truman loyalty program, allegedly a tough response to the security problem, was de facto a drastic weakening of previous safeguards. In place of the McCarran rider, with its cut-and-dried authority, Truman had substituted an elaborate Rube Goldberg mechanism of multiple boards, ground-up investigations, appeals, ping-ponging cases back and forth between State and Civil Service, indefinite suspensions, delays in delivering relevant files, and other complications that dragged the process out for years.
From the above—and there is a lot more like it in the record—it’s apparent that “clearance” of loyalty/security suspects by the State Department meant little. And what little it did mean, quite plainly, was the reverse of what we’re told in standard treatments of the subject.
CHAPTER 23
The Man Who Knew Too Much
THERE remains a procedural question to be considered: Did McCarthy have inside information sources about security suspects in the State Department, or elsewhere in the federal government? Or, to adapt a catchphrase from a later era, what did Joe McCarthy know, and when exactly did he know it?
This is on the face of it one of those collateral, off-the-main-theme topics so common to the McCarthy story, like the flap about the Wheeling numbers or, even more on point, fixation with the Lee list as the one and only basis of his charges. As has been noted, efforts to deflect attention from the substance of McCarthy’s cases to the question of where they came from were constant features of all his battles, from Tydings to the showdown
with the Army.
Yet, more than other sidebars, the subject of McCarthy’s sources goes to his bona fides, and that of his opponents—and not just because he intimated that he had such sources while his critics categorically said he didn’t. There is the fact that, if McCarthy really were devoid of sources, the quality and currency of the data he wielded would be open to serious question. Conversely, the existence of such contacts would have enhanced the weight and relevance of his charges. Also, there is a tangent bearing on the issue: Though contrasts between public and private statements were par for the course in the McCarthy struggle, nowhere were these more jarring than in discussion of his sources.
That McCarthy had no inside contacts, and was merely bluffing when he claimed to, was part of the original State Department mantra, echoed by Tydings and countless other McCarthy critics. This was of course the flipside of the “nothing but the Lee list” thesis. As seen, some McCarthy foes would push the argument still further—contending that, since the list was simply an anonymous, numbered lineup, he didn’t even know the names of the people he was discussing.
Enough has perhaps been said already to suggest these charges are mistaken. In numerous instances cited in Chapter 19, it’s obvious that McCarthy and his staffers had been backtracking on and adding to the Lee list entries for some considerable while before he first addressed the Senate. This plainly shows he had the names of his suspects, since without the names he would have been able to check out nothing. It also means, eo ipso, that he had to have some source or other beside the Lee list to make additions to its contents.
However, these modest claims about McCarthy’s sources badly understate the point at issue. There is plenty of evidence that he had inside contacts in the executive branch and that these were critical to his presentation. There is evidence also that various of these were in the State Department—though exactly how many may have been at State, Civil Service, intelligence agencies, or other places there is no way of knowing. A good deal of relevant material on this may be found in the archives of the FBI, capsuling the views and actions of Truman staffers on the subject.
It is in these long-secret records that the contrast between public and private comment is most vivid. While the official posture of the State Department and Tydings panel was that McCarthy had no inside sources and was lying when he claimed to, the backstage view was very different; Truman officials were convinced that he did have such sources and were desperate to find them. The hunt for pro-McCarthy moles began with his initial Senate speech and would go on for months thereafter.
In this respect as in many others, the leading instance was the case of John Stewart Service. McCarthy frequently mentioned Service and Amerasia in his Wheeling-Reno round of talks and reprised the whole affair again in his opening speech before the Senate. In this oration, McCarthy reviewed various salient facts about the case and added: “For some unknown reason, John Service’s file has disappeared in the State Department. I have tried to find out where it is, and I have been told it is in the office—quoting the individual over there—of ‘the top brass.’”1
Here was certainly a claim to inside data that had no connection to the Lee list, indicating that McCarthy had been talking to someone at the State Department about the file on Service. The Tydings panel would in fact quote this very passage as one in a series of McCarthy statements “seemingly designed to suggest that he has confidential sources in the State Department”—the point being that he was faking when he said it. However, these McCarthy comments, and others like them, were very much on target, and the Truman administration knew it.
At the time of McCarthy’s Senate speech, the FBI records reveal, the State Department file on Service wasn’t at its accustomed place in the department security office but was being prepped elsewhere for delivery to Examiner Cyril Coombs of the Civil Service LRB. Coombs was a stickler for the rules who had been raising questions about the case for months, believing it hadn’t been properly handled. For causes that are obscure but may be guessed, there was an immense delay in getting the file over to the LRB, so Coombs didn’t receive it until February 24—four days after McCarthy’s statement.
All this closely matched McCarthy’s version of what had been occurring, a fact well noted by the White House, State Department, and Truman Justice. (As one administration memo put it, “The dates mentioned by Senator McCarthy coincide with other information indicating the Service case was at that time being forwarded to the Loyalty Review Board.”)2 Somebody was apparently feeding inside information to McCarthy, a suspicion that gave the Truman forces many anxious moments.
Things would soon get even more worrisome for the White House, as McCarthy continued to track the Service case with some precision. In statements before the Tydings panel and the Senate, he discussed new loyalty hearings to be held about the case, the whereabouts of the relevant security file, and FBI reports pertaining to it. On March 14, he urged the Tydings panel to find out “if Service was not considered as a bad security risk by the loyalty board of the Civil Service Commission, in a post-audit decision, handed down on March 3 of this year.” He added that he understood “a new loyalty board” was to be convened at State to hear the case de novo.3
This salvo convinced the Truman staffers that McCarthy unquestionably did have inside sources, and they were desperate to find the leak. How desperate would appear later that day, when White House assistant Donald Dawson and Democratic national chairman William Boyle showed up at the FBI in search of plumbers. This visit was suggestive at several levels—including the fact that the chairman of the Democratic National Committee should be involved in such discussion. It further indicated that the Truman forces thought the leak was at the LRB and were ready to make some drastic moves to stop it. The Bureau memo on this informs us:
Donald Dawson stated the White House had learned that there was a leak in the Loyalty Review Board (Seth Richardson’s group) in view of the fact that Senator McCarthy this morning stated that the loyalty case of John Stewart Service…was being referred back to the State Department…. According to Dawson, McCarthy made this disclosure prior to the time that the board had referred the case…and therefore, it was evident to them that the leak had occurred in the Board…. Both Dawson and Boyle wanted to know if the Bureau would investigate the leak….Boyle commented that, “if we can satisfy ourselves as to the identity of the person giving the information to McCarthy we will fire him outright.”4
Politely but one gathers firmly, the FBI turned down this request, saying it didn’t seem to be a criminal matter but an administrative issue for the Civil Service Commission itself to handle. Such at least was the formal answer. More privately, Bureau agents may have reflected on the irony of the Dawson-Boyle approach. John Service had been kept on the State Department payroll for five full years after passing official papers to Philip Jaffe, confidant of Communist bosses and Soviet agents; but anyone caught passing data to Joe McCarthy concerning Service himself would be out on his ear by sundown.
In succeeding weeks, McCarthy continued to be well informed about the Service case and the loyalty program in general. On April 25, 1950, he announced that the Seth Richardson LRB had recently met and agreed that it wouldn’t consider the problem of security risks, but would take cognizance only, in McCarthy’s words, of “specific acts of disloyalty.” He further said that some members of the Richardson board didn’t believe membership in the Communist Party was such an act—raising the question of what kind of proof might be availing in these cases (this echoing the “mere membership” business dating back to World War II). Two days later, he would give the names of board members present at this meeting. He then recounted a series of seven FBI reports on Service, the dates on which they were received by the LRB, and the fact that “on March 6, 1950, the Justice Department picked up Service’s entire file.”*189 5
Again, the accuracy of these statements may be gauged from the scalded-cat reaction of the Truman forces, who now launched a full-fledged invest
igation to find the leak and plug it. This was no perfunctory effort, but a high-level probe conducted by Assistant Attorney General Clive Palmer and James Hatcher, chief investigator of the CSC. It involved much sifting of McCarthy’s statements for clues, questioning of suspected pro-McCarthy moles—Cyril Coombs foremost among them—and closely studied transcripts of their answers. Ultimately, the investigators filed a report that didn’t identify the mole exactly but did contain a number of revealing comments.
This Palmer-Hatcher report, gathering dust for fifty years in the vaults of the FBI, is confirmation that McCarthy’s bulletins on the Service case were too close for comfort at the White House, indicating not only that he had inside sources but that these were minutely accurate in their updates. The report observes, for instance, that “Senator McCarthy’s statements as revealed in the Congressional Record of April 27 indicate that he had received very detailed information concerning what transpired at the April 3 meeting of the loyalty board and also that he had received very complete information pertaining to the receipt of FBI reports.”6
McCarthy’s information in this case supported the view that he had contacts at the LRB, but didn’t preclude sources at the State Department also. Questioned by the Truman gumshoes, the unfortunate Coombs insisted that he wasn’t the mole and tried to rebut the theory that everything McCarthy knew had to have come from the Review Board. Rather, Coombs argued, the nature of McCarthy’s intel suggested it had come from State. One proof of this alleged by Coombs was that McCarthy had several times mentioned a new loyalty board at State to hear the Service case—something Coombs himself was not, he said, aware of.
Whatever his specific sources, McCarthy seemed to have an unusual knack for obtaining security records from someplace. On March 14, the same day he told the Tydings panel about the ping-ponging of the Service file between State and the Review Board, he also regaled the committee with an account of the Gustavo Duran affair. Duran was yet another suspect who wasn’t on the Lee list, as he had left the State Department in 1946 and moved on to the U.N. McCarthy’s comments made it clear that he knew the case quite well, and he discoursed on it like an expert. Even more to the present point, he introduced into the hearing record a considerable mass of documents on Duran that explored his background in the Spanish Civil War and portrayed him as a Soviet agent.
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