That, as Juliana made clear, was the sum and substance of the whole affair. However, there were some footnotes that made the photo of further interest. As it turned out, the picture in question had already been cropped by the military, before it ever got to Schine, excluding from the shot a fourth individual in the original lineup. This fourth person was McCarthy staffer Frank Carr, standing sideways to the others, at the end of the queue to the left of Colonel Bradley. Carr obviously wasn’t meant to be featured in the shot, though he was gazing pensively toward the camera; somebody thus decided he wasn’t essential to the photo and cropped him out. So the picture allegedly “doctored” by Jim Juliana was already “doctored” before the McCarthy staffers ever got it.4
For some reason, this cropping of the photo elicited no cries of “trick” from Counsel Welch. Apparently, removing somebody from a picture was a dastardly deed only if this had some linkage to McCarthy. Done by a Pentagon photo lab, it was perfectly okay, not worthy of a moment’s notice. Of course, as is well known, such “doctoring” of photos occurs on a daily basis at newspapers, magazines, and TV studios across the land deciding on key aspects of a wide-shot photo. Exactly the same thing had occurred with the Army version of the photo wielded by Joe Welch, and with Jim Juliana and the Senate technicians when told Jenkins wanted a picture of Schine and Stevens. The hassle stirred up by Welch was sound and fury over nothing.
Even this, however, wasn’t the bottom line about the photo. Welch persisted in calling the Army version a “group picture,” as if Schine and Stevens had bumped into each other in a milling subway crowd or some other gathering of the masses. But in the Army version of the shot, the only other person in the “group” was Colonel Bradley, the commander of the air base—not exactly a random stranger who happened to wander before the camera. His presence did nothing to change the point Jenkins was making—that Schine, a mere private, was being treated with utmost cordiality at the highest military levels. (Indeed, the fact that Schine was photographed standing between Bradley and Stevens, at the dead center of the Army version, emphasized the point more strongly.) And, whether Bradley was in the shot or not, nothing could change the fact that Private Schine was indeed photographed cheek by jowl with Stevens.
• The “Purloined Letter.” Fairly early in the hearings, McCarthy produced the two-and-a-quarter-page memo received from an Army intelligence officer the year before, relating to the security scene at Monmouth. As noted, this had been excerpted from a longer, fifteen-page memorandum sent to Army intelligence by the FBI, summarizing security data on Aaron Coleman and others at the Monmouth complex.
For obvious reasons, the contents of this memo would have been intensely relevant to the hearings. But these contents would never be entered in the record. Instead, at the insistence of Welch, abetted by some members of the committee and a disapproving letter from Eisenhower Justice, the document was explicitly barred as evidence on the points at issue. The data it contained about security risks at Monmouth, it seemed, were of zero interest. Instead, the main point stressed by Welch, hammered at from several angles, was how McCarthy came to have the document in his possession. “I have an absorbing curiosity,” said the Army lawyer, “to know how in the dickens you got hold of it.”5 That was, per Welch, the all-important issue about the memo.
As with the “doctored photo,” this Welch sally kicked off a prolonged discussion of what he called “the purloined letter.” Logically considered, there was no reason his “absorbing curiosity” should have been quenched by McCarthy, and plenty of reasons that it shouldn’t. McCarthy was the duly elected head of a Senate investigating committee charged with ferreting out official malfeasance, and in that capacity had many such data confided to him. As acting chairman Mundt pointed out, it was no business of temporary Army Counsel Welch to know who supplied the document to McCarthy, and very much the business of McCarthy not to tell him.
Though thus instructed by the chairman, Welch persisted in his efforts to find out who gave the document to McCarthy. In this endeavor he used one of his favored gambits, which was, after an elaborate and usually pious buildup, to implore the witness, please, please, sir, do the right thing here, as doing the right thing is so awfully important. His exchanges with McCarthy to this effect would go as follows:
WELCH: Senator McCarthy, when you took the stand of course you understood that you were going to be asked about this letter, did you not?
McCARTHY: I assumed that would be the subject.
WELCH: Did you understand you would be asked the source?
McCARTHY:…I never try to read the minds of the senators to know what they will ask you.
WELCH: Could I have the oath that you took read back slowly by the reporter?
MUNDT: Mr. Welch, that does not seem to be an appropriate question. You were present. You took the oath yourself. He took the same oath you took.
WELCH: The oath included a promise, a solemn promise by you to tell the truth, comma, the whole truth, comma, and nothing but the truth. Is that correct, sir?
McCARTHY: Mr. Welch, you are not the first individual that tried to get me to betray the confidence and give out the names of my informants. You will be no more successful than those who have tried in the past, period.
WELCH: I’m only asking you, sir, did you realize when you took that oath that you were making a solemn promise to tell the whole truth to this committee?
McCARTHY: I understand the oath, Mr. Welch.
WELCH:…Then tell who delivered the document to you.
McCARTHY: The answer is no. You will not get that information.
And so on and so forth, until the whole line of questioning was ruled out of order by both Counsel Jenkins and Chairman Mundt. This ruling, as Mundt put it, was “sustained by an unbroken precedent so far as he knew [that] Senate investigating committees who come in contact with confidential information are not required to disclose the source of their information.”*302 6
Linked to McCarthy’s possession of the letter were two other Welchian sidebars. One was a suggestion that the two-and-a-quarter-page memo was—like the “doctored” photo—a “perfect phony” foisted on the committee by the devious McCarthy. Welch sought to develop this idea in interrogation of Robert Collier, a Jenkins aide who had discussed the memo with FBI Director Hoover. In this confab with Hoover, Collier had learned that the memo was in fact a condensation of a longer FBI report, not an identical copy. On this point the questioning went as follows:
WELCH: Mr. Collier, as I understand your testimony this document that I hold in my hand is a carbon copy of precisely nothing, is that right?
COLLIER: I will say that Mr. Hoover informed me that it is not a carbon copy of a memorandum prepared or sent by the FBI.
WELCH: Let us have it straight from the shoulder. So far as you know, it is a carbon copy of precisely nothing.
COLLIER: So far as I know, it is, yes, but that is only a conclusion.
WELCH: You just told us it is a carbon copy of precisely nothing, haven’t you?
COLLIER: I have said it is not a copy of a document in the FBI file. I will not say it is a copy of nothing because if it was typed as a carbon there must have been an original.7
Having thus said thrice over the document was “a carbon copy of precisely nothing,” Welch then reversed directions, describing the memo as too “hot” to be entered in the record and refusing even to read it. To do so, he said, would be a terrible breach of security regulations, and he would never, ever do that. His tribute to his own rectitude in such matters was emphatic.
“I have,” said Welch, “higher standards in respect to my own conduct in respect to these documents than the senator and his staff does [sic]. I do not think it is proper for Mr. Collier to read it and he has declined to read it. I do not think it is proper for Mr. Welch to read it and he has declined to read it. I await with much interest the Senator’s [McCarthy’s] explanation of how it reached his hands and whether he read it.”8
All of thi
s, however, was fustian, as McCarthy—who had read the memo—quite lucidly explained it. In the condensed format, he noted, all information that might reveal FBI sources and methods, and specific data on the suspects, had been deleted. Thus, no security breach could occur from simply reading the bobtailed version. The sole but significant point established by the memo was that the FBI had duly warned the Army about the problem of Aaron Coleman and others in the Monmouth setup. This was of course a point Welch and Co. wanted to obscure—the sideshow about how McCarthy got the memo, and its allegedly phony nature, helping to achieve this.
In fact, the Collier testimony and other evidence in the record made it plain the two-and-a-quarter-page document was definitely not a “phony.” Collier said the shorter memo covered the identical subject matter as did the original FBI report and, equally to the point, was verbatim as to phrasing—with the exception that the security information on the suspects was deleted.*303 Far from being a “perfect phony,” as alleged by Welch, the document per Collier’s testimony was obviously the real McCoy.*304 As for the shortened format, such condensation of FBI reports—omitting certain sensitive data—was a common official practice. As earlier noted, there were hundreds of such condensed or paraphrased reports, based on Bureau information, in the security files at State, Commerce, the Civil Service Commission, and elsewhere.
Finally, McCarthy and Collier between them produced some other compelling facts about the bobtailed memo. An especially significant point was that the report bore the heading “Aaron Coleman—Espionage—R.” As seen in the Owen Lattimore case, the “R” in such memoranda stood for “Russian.” Beyond this, McCarthy reeled off a considerable list of other FBI reports on Monmouth, giving the dates on which they were provided, thus making it clear the Bureau’s efforts to spotlight the problem had been persistent over a span of years since the latter 1940s.†305
• Fred Fisher. Having thus exhibited his instinct for the capillary, Welch would outdo himself in a third notable episode of this nature—the matter of Frederick Fisher. Fisher was a young attorney from Welch’s Boston law firm of Hale and Dorr, brought down to Washington to help prepare the case for Stevens-Adams. In getting ready for the hearings, Welch had asked Fisher if there were anything in his background that could prove embarrassing to the Army.
Well, yes, said Fisher, there was. He had been a member of the National Lawyers Guild, which was indeed a problem. As the Guild had the year before been branded by Attorney General Herbert Brownell as the “legal mouthpiece” of the Communist Party, and before that by the House Committee on Un-American Activities as the party’s “legal bulwark,” it was decided such past membership would be an incapacitating factor in hearings so heavily devoted to issues of subversion.‡306 Fisher was sent home to Boston.
Nonetheless, his name would show up in the hearings, as Welch was cross-examining Roy Cohn in what would be a famous confrontation. This began with the standard Welch technique of exaggerated buildup, to the effect that Cohn had been remiss in not communicating whatever he knew about Communists in the Army directly to Robert Stevens. This colloquy is worth quoting in extenso as an example of Welch in action and the degree to which the lovable codger could change his mien as needed.
WELCH: If you had gone over to the Pentagon and got inside the door and yelled to the first receptionist you saw, “We got some hot dope on some Communists in the Army,” don’t you think you could have landed at the top?
COHN: Sir, that is not the way I do things.
WELCH: And although you had this dope and a fresh and ambitious new Secretary of the Army, reachable by the expenditure of one taxicab fare, you never went during March, if you had it in March, did you, is that right?
COHN: Mr. Welch—
WELCH: Just answer. You never went near him in March?
COHN: No, I—
WELCH: Or April? Did you?
COHN: Mr. Welch—
WELCH: Tell me, please.
COHN: I am trying, sir.
WELCH: Or April?
COHN: No, sir.
WELCH: Or May?
COHN: I never went near him, sir.
WELCH: Or June?
COHN: The answer is never.
WELCH: Right. Or July?
COHN: I communicated—
WELCH: Or July?
COHN: No, sir—
SENATOR MUNDT: I think we have covered July.
WELCH: I think it is really dramatic to see how these Communist hunters will sit on this document when they could have brought it to the attention of Bob Stevens in 20 minutes, and they let month after month go by without going to the head and saying, “Sic ’em Stevens.”
COHN: May I answer the last statement?
WELCH: I only said you didn’t say, “Sic ’em Stevens,” and you didn’t, did you?…You did not say “Sic ’em Stevens.” Is that right?
COHN: Sir—
WELCH: Is that right?
COHN: Mr. Welch, if you want to know the way things work, I will tell you.
WELCH: I don’t care how it works. I just want to know if it is right that you did not say, “Sic ’em Stevens.”
COHN: No, sir, you are right.
WELCH: I am at long last right once, is that correct?
COHN: Mr. Welch, you can always get a laugh…
WELCH: Mr. Cohn, we are not talking about laughing matters. If there is a laugh, I suggest to you, sir, it is because it is so hard to get you to say that you didn’t actually yell, “Sic ’em Stevens.”9
When McCarthy finally objected to this burlesque, the discussion wandered off to other topics. However, Welch was soon back in “Sic ’em Stevens” mode, arguing that Cohn was at fault for not having personally rushed to inform Stevens the instant that data on security problems at Monmouth surfaced. This recapped what had gone before, but with additional Welchian furbelows:
WELCH:…you didn’t tug at his lapel and say, “Mr. Secretary, I know something about Monmouth that won’t let me sleep nights?” You didn’t do it, did you?
COHN: I don’t, as I testified, Mr. Welch, I don’t know whether I talked to Mr. Stevens about it then [in September 1953] or not…
WELCH: Don’t you know that if you had really told him what your fears were, and substantiated them to any extent, he could have jumped in the next day with suspensions?
COHN: No, sir.
WELCH: Mr. Cohn, tell me once more: Every time you learn of a Communist or a spy anywhere, is it your policy to get them out as fast as possible?
COHN: Surely, we want them out as fast as possible, sir.
WELCH: And whenever you learn of one from now on, Mr. Cohn, I beg of you, will you tell somebody about them quick?
COHN: Mr. Welch, with great respect, I work for the committee here. They know how we go about handling situations of Communist infiltration and failure to act on FBI information about Communist infiltration…
WELCH: May I add my small voice, sir, and say whenever you know about a subversive or a Communist or a spy, please hurry. Will you remember these words?10
This hectoring of Cohn, be it noted, came from the small voice whose clients had been pressuring General Lawton to restore asserted security risks at Monmouth. Even more ironic, if possible, it was premised on the selfsame “purloined letter” Welch had dismissively treated as a “carbon copy of precisely nothing.” Now he was contending that Cohn was grievously to blame for not hand-delivering this copy of “precisely nothing” to Robert Stevens by the fastest possible method.
After sitting through these Welch sermonettes about exposing every subversive or Communist suspect Cohn had ever heard of, and being extra quick about it, McCarthy at last broke in by raising the issue of Fred Fisher. Having brought Fisher to D.C. to help out with the hearings, McCarthy opined, Welch had little standing to lecture others about proper methods of Red-hunting. In a tone heavy with disdain, McCarthy stated:
…in view of Mr. Welch’s request that information be given once we know of anyone who might be perform
ing work for the Communist Party, I think we should tell him that he has in his law firm a young man named Fisher, whom he recommended incidentally to do work on this committee, he has been for a number of years a member of an organization which was named, oh years and years ago, as the legal bulwark of the Communist Party…We are now letting you know that this young man did belong to this organization for either 3 or 4 years, belonged to it long after he was out of law school…
And subsequently:
Jim [Juliana], will you get the news story to the effect that this man belonged to this Communist front organization?11
This drew from Welch a much-celebrated answer, featured in all the usual write-ups and replayed innumerable times in video treatments of the hearings. It was the distilled essence of Joe Welch, worth studying in detail to get context and flavor. Along with certain other statements on Fred Fisher, Welch assailed McCarthy as follows:
Until this moment, Senator, I think I never fully grasped your cruelty or your recklessness. Fred Fisher is a young man who went to Harvard Law School and came with my firm and is starting what looks like a brilliant career with us…Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad…I fear that he shall always bear a scar needlessly inflicted by you. If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty I would do so. I like to think I am a gentleman, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me.12 (Emphasis added.)
When McCarthy then attempted to give some background on the National Lawyers Guild, plus a strong tu quoque about the harm done to the reputations of Frank Carr and other young McCarthy staffers by the charges Welch had signed his name to, the Army counsel again lamented the injury to Fisher:
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