Force of Nature- The Life of Linus Pauling

by Thomas Hager

  Pauling threw himself back into a full speaking schedule, making more than forty major speeches during the spring to any sizable group that would listen: liberal forums and peace groups, Kiwanis and Rotary clubs, high school assemblies and church congregations. Despite the French test and Soviet blustering, the Geneva talks seemed to progress encouragingly for a few months; Eisenhower seemed determined to get something signed before he left office, and hopes were high that the final barriers might be overcome at a planned May summit in Paris between the leaders of the East and West.

  It all fell apart in early May when a top-secret U.S. spy plane called U-2 was shot down over Russia. It was humiliating for Eisenhower, who had sworn that such flights were not taking place, and it killed any chance of a test ban being finalized at the Paris summit. The AEC's McCone and Teller used the resulting breakdown in international negotiations to launch another round of pressure for renewed testing. The pendulum of public opinion began swinging again, this time toward taking a harder line with the Soviets and putting off even a limited test ban.

  To Pauling, the U-2 incident was more proof that the United States was the recalcitrant partner in the test-ban talks, the nation that seemed always to find a way to throw things off track. It was almost as though there were a conspiracy to continue the Cold War. Pauling's talks now began to center not only on the horrors of nuclear war but on the military-industrial cabal he saw running U.S. policy. Leading it were Teller and what Pauling called "the small but highly influential group of people" centered around him, "the militarists, industrialists, H-bomb scientists, and politicians in all countries who are striving to find a way to continue to wage war, to impose their national will upon the rest of the world." This military-industrial clique, he said, "are our enemies."

  In mid-May, Pauling and Ava Helen were driving up to Berkeley for more speeches when they heard over the radio that the scheduled San Francisco appearance of a HUAC panel had triggered a noisy protest outside city hall, mostly made up of students. They listened as the reporters described how the protest had turned into a small-scale riot when police used fire hoses and clubs to clear the area; the entire melee, replete with screaming students being dragged by the hair to paddy wagons, was televised that night to a shocked America.

  The Paulings were excited. Any anti-HUAC action was fine, in Pauling's view, but especially one that involved American college students, a group that had been politically passive through the 1950s. The San Francisco riot was, in fact, the beginning of a new kind of student anti-government activism and a seminal event in the development of the New Left. The next day, after delivering a scheduled speech to a Union Square peace rally, Pauling and Ava Helen gave their blessing to the event by joining thousands of anti-HUAC protesters who were picketing city hall to protest the treatment of the students. Telling reporters that HUAC was immoral and should be abolished, Pauling added, "American students during recent years have been pretty backward about protesting or demonstrating or taking part in political action. I think that it is really encouraging that students in the United States are beginning to wake up."

  SISS

  In Washington, D.C., during an East Coast peace lecture swing in June, Pauling delivered a speech to one of Ava Helen's favored groups, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Afterward, he was mobbed by admiring attendees thanking him for his inspiration, asking his advice, and pressing gifts on him: newspaper clippings, announcements of upcoming events, a poem someone had written to him. He thanked them all and shoved most of the papers into his pocket. It wasn't until he got back to his hotel room and was undressing that he emptied his pockets and started looking through the detritus. Then everything stopped. Among them was a subpoena commanding him to appear before an executive session of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS). He had to look at the date twice. He was to appear on the morning of Monday, June 20—the day after tomorrow.

  Being served papers in this way was a surprise, but harassment from the SISS was not. Pauling knew a little about the subcommittee. It had been started by the Senate in 1951 to complement the House’s un-American activities committee, which was getting all the anti-Communist headlines. Under a string of conservative chairmen, the SISS had staged through the 1950s a series of spectacular hearings on Communist influence in the Foreign Service, in youth organizations, and in the television industry. The subcommittee had listed Pauling as one of the nation's leading fellow travelers in 1956 and threatened to bring him before them in 1957 to answer questions about whether Communists were behind his petitions against testing. More recently, SISS acting chairman Thomas Dodd had threatened to hold hearings on Communist influences in SANE unless the group purged itself of suspected Reds; the group's leader, Norman Cousins, had, in Pauling's words, "knuckled under" to Dodd and instituted something akin to a loyalty check on its members. The decision fractured SANE's leadership and crippled the nation's largest and most effective peace group. To Pauling, the SISS ranked with HUAC as an example of government gone bad.

  But why a subpoena now? The most obvious answer appeared to be Thomas Dodd. Dodd was an unusual senator, a first-term Democrat from Connecticut who appeared to be trying to carve out a unique place for himself in the national scene as a conservative member of a traditionally liberal party, an unusual combination, especially from a northern state. He came into the Senate swinging, speaking out strongly against the Soviets and backing the development of Teller's "clean bomb." He quickly became the Democratic Party's most outspoken proponent of continued bomb tests to keep America strong. When he was offered the acting leadership of the SISS, he used it to investigate and attack SANE and other antibomb groups. Pauling was a natural target.

  Dodd was encouraged in his pursuit by the SISS director of research, Benjamin Mandel, a former HUAC star investigator who had tracked Pauling since 1951. Pauling was one of Mandel's pet projects. Mandel had planned to subpoena the dissident scientist in 1957; when that fell through because of political considerations, he continued to thicken his files with everything he could find on Pauling's anti-bomb activism. "You have probably noted the item in the paper to the effect that Linus Pauling has gone over the head of the American Government in the usual Communist style," Mandel memoed SISS chief counsel Jules Sourwine after Pauling announced his international scientists' petition in 1958. "It would be interesting to inquire of Pauling regarding the details of this apparatus."

  When Mandel showed Dodd the Pauling file, the new senator quickly decided that Pauling was a probable "fellow traveler" who had packed his 1958 petition with signatures from behind the Iron Curtain.

  Even though the petition was two years old, Pauling was more active than ever in criticizing America's militarism. If testing was ever going to resume, Dodd reasoned, efforts like Pauling's would have to be unveiled as part of the Communist "peace offensive." Dodd's attack on SANE had worked. Putting Pauling under scrutiny would serve as another blow to the peace crowd and might also help shore up the Democratic Party's reputation for anti-Communist toughness during an election year. Dodd okayed the subpoena.

  He did not know what he was getting into.

  - - -

  The first thing Pauling did after finding the subpoena was to call his long-time lawyer Abraham Lincoln Wirin, who flew to Washington the next day. After hours of conferring in Pauling's hotel room, they decided that the language in the subpoena—calling Pauling to testify "with respect to Communist participation in, or support of, a propaganda campaign against nuclear testing, and other Communist or Communist-front activities with respect to which you may have knowledge"—indicated that the subcommittee was going to dredge up his entire record, all the old McCarthy charges. It was difficult to plan a strategy without knowing exactly what Dodd was going to ask. Both Pauling and Wirin had been through this type of thing before; they both knew how an open-ended witch-hunt could harm a person's reputation without ever proving anything. Dodd appeared to be going on a fishing expedition. The only way t
o be anything other than prey would be to put him on the defensive. For the moment, they decided to use the technique that had worked so well in Pauling's passport cases: to mount a strong public relations offensive waged through the press.

  The day before he was scheduled to appear, Pauling called a press conference, where he told the hastily gathered reporters that the SISS inquiry was clearly an attempt to interrupt the flow of information to the public on nuclear tests. It represented an attack on the Bill of Rights. It was Pauling’s first salvo in what would become a bitter public battle.

  When Pauling and Wirin arrived for the hearing, they were angered to learn that the proceedings had been delayed for a day because the Senate was in session. They were also informed that the first hearing would be held in executive session, closed to the press and public, a common first step that allowed the subcommittee to gather and sift through information before going to public hearings.

  They immediately decided that this was unacceptable. A private session gave the SISS control over the release of information, and therefore control over the press, robbing Pauling of his strongest weapon. They immediately and noisily demanded open hearings.

  The subcommittee members, after reading the next morning's Washington Post editorial castigating Dodd for this "foolish piece of political harassment," agreed after a quick huddle to make the hearing public. The doors to the hearing room in the new Senate Office Building were opened, and in flooded a wave of WILPF activists led by Ava Helen. Whatever else happened, Pauling would have a sympathetic audience.

  After gaveling the session to order, the silver-haired Dodd opened the hearing by assuring Pauling that there was "nothing hostile about our presence here, nothing hostile to you at all," that "I have personally no ill will toward you," and that the hearing was not in any sense an "attempt to torment you or harass you or trouble you." So far, Pauling and Wirin's tactics were working.

  Then Pauling was sworn in. SISS counsel Jules Sourwine got down to business. It quickly became clear why Pauling was there. Sourwine's interrogation centered on a single question: How had Pauling managed to get all those names on his UN petition without a large, possibly Communist, organization behind him? Pauling, nattily dressed in a tailored business suit, answered every question politely and completely.

  Would he provide to the subcommittee copies of the names on his petition to the United Nations? He would, although he should not have to; the names, as the subcommittee should know, were available at the United Nations.

  Would he provide to the subcommittee the names of those to whom he sent letters asking for signatures? Yes, he would be happy to, once he returned home to Pasadena and found the lists.

  Would he provide to the subcommittee the names of those who had helped fill the petitions, those who had sent back more than one name? Here Pauling hesitated. "I feel some concern about my duty to the people who worked for this petition," he said. "I feel concern that they may be subpoenaed before this subcommittee, subjected to the treatment that I have been subjected to." He asked why the request was being made. Dodd answered that there had been some discrepancies discovered in the way the petition had been delivered to the United Nations. For instance, he had a letter before him saying that the number of signatures Pauling claimed to have delivered to the United Nations had not actually been received there, and he wanted to provide Pauling the chance to clear that up. That did not sound right to Pauling. He was certain that the number he said were delivered were delivered. (Pauling was right; Dodd was acting on misinformation from his own research staff.)

  Sourwine repeated the request for the names of those who helped circulate the petitions. After a short, whispered conversation with Pauling, Wirin asked for a short recess. Outside the hearing room, the two men talked. Pauling thought he should refuse to provide the names of his petition circulators. The subcommittee was sure to subpoena a number of them and inquire into their backgrounds and beliefs. These people had helped Pauling in an idealistic cause; asking him to provide their names now was akin in his mind to the old McCarthy demands to name names. Pauling would not be an informer. But, Wirin cautioned, recognize what you're getting into: If you refuse to give the subcommittee requested information, they can cite you for contempt, which means a jail sentence if it sticks. The only tested legal way to get out of answering a direct question was to cite the Fifth Amendment. But, Pauling said, anyone who says they refuse to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate them is immediately presumed to be guilty of something. I won't take the Fifth. What's another strategy?

  Together they worked out a riskier course of action. What if they argued that the SISS was trying to dampen the right to mount petitions? Instead of the Fifth, Pauling would base his refusal on his First Amendment right to freedom of speech and petition. A First Amendment defense had never beaten a congressional contempt citation yet, Wirin told Pauling, but we can try it. There was not much else to do. At least the First Amendment always received a welcome response in the press. Pauling and Wirin hastily put together a written statement.

  When the hearing resumed, Pauling put on his half-glasses and read to the subcommittee: "The circulation of petitions is an important part of our democratic process. If it is abolished or inhibited, it would be a step toward a police state. No matter what assurances the subcommittee might give me concerning the use of names, I am convinced the names would be used for reprisals against these enthusiastic, idealistic, high-minded workers for peace." There was an eruption of applause from Ava Helen's contingent.

  Pauling was reminded by Sourwine that a refusal to answer could result in a citation for contempt of Congress. One senator asked pointedly if he was aware of the case of Willard Uphaus, a professor who was then serving a one-year jail sentence for refusing to answer a similar request. Pauling knew about Uphaus. He knew what the senator was trying to tell him. He dug in his heels, continuing to answer questions but refusing the subcommittee's request for the names of those who circulated his petition.

  The hearings ended after Dodd told Pauling he would have until August 9 to come up with the requested names.

  Pauling, civil and polite in the hearing room, vented his anger to the press in the hallway afterward. His petitions "were not Communist inspired," he told reporters: "I inspired them." He attacked Dodd and the SISS for attempting to stifle free speech and the freedom to petition the government. "Do you think anybody tells me what to do—with threats? I make up my mind. If I want to take a chance, I take a chance."

  His words appeared in papers across the nation, along with a surprising outpouring of support for Pauling among the nation's editorial writers. By 1960 there was growing recognition of the fact that congressional investigating committees had been trampling over the rights of witnesses for years in the name of national security, turning their investigations into a form of public theater in which committee counsels were free to stain reputations by subpoenaing whomever they wanted on short notice, dragging them into a public forum, and making whatever statements they liked. Witnesses were forced to appear and forced to answer.

  McCarthy's misuse of this power had started a reaction, and Pauling's defiance of Dodd coincided with a growing feeling that investigatory committees should be reined in. Almost every major daily newspaper in the nation voiced anger at the SISS on its editorial pages: The Honolulu Advertiser: "Since it's official U.S. policy to seek an end to nuclear testing . . . the inquiry seems superfluous." The Hartford Times, in Dodd's home state of Connecticut: "Dr. Pauling is obeying his conscience. The Senate should not interfere." The Austin American, in Texas: "My blood tingles with pride now as I read Dr. Pauling's refusal to bow to this bullying committee." The Washington Post: "Justice is best served at times by those who defy authority. Professor Pauling offered a splendid illustration of the point." Even the reliably anti-Communist Time magazine softened its attitude toward Pauling, calling into question Dodd's decision to put on public display this "kind of kook" whose "naive flirtation with the lef
t has made him a highly controversial figure." The SISS was supported by only a few newspapers, mostly in the Deep South.

  Seeing a political debacle in the making, Dodd started writing lengthy rebuttals to the papers that attacked him, noting Pauling's Communist-front history and making his request for names sound innocent and innocuous. But he could not outwrite, outfight, or outwork Pauling. On the night of June 21, just hours after his SISS hearing, Pauling got wild applause from an overflow crowd of peace activists at Johns Hopkins when he called to them to write Dodd "and say you don't want me to go to jail for contempt." The next morning, he told the story of his harassment to the viewers of NBC's Today show and started working on a series of articles and letters about his case. Support flooded in, with people he had never met sending small donations to help defray his legal costs.

  Wirin got the August SISS hearing postponed until October, giving Pauling and Ava Helen additional time for speechmaking. The threat of the subcommittee seemed only to energize the Paulings. Together they led a mass "Walk for Disarmament" in Los Angeles that drew four thousand people on July 9—the first protest march most Angelenos had ever seen. They then left for a short European tour. Both Paulings spoke to large and enthusiastic audiences across the Continent, then spent time in Geneva, where Pauling held private conversations with the American, British, and Soviet ambassadors about the progress of the test-ban talks. Instead of diminishing his effectiveness, Dodd's actions seemed only to have enhanced Pauling's stature. The Geneva visit was especially encouraging, with all of the ambassadors assuring Pauling that they were close to a final agreement and, according to Pauling's notes, encouraging him to continue the process of influencing public opinion.