Master of the Senate (111 page)

But the Taft wing amounted—by the most generous calculations—to no more than half the Republican senators. The November, 1952, elections had brought to the Republican side of the Senate not only Potter but Prescott Bush of Connecticut and Thomas Kuchel of California; there were additional Republican recruits now for the views that Margaret Chase Smith and six other Republicans had expressed three years before. Democratic liberals felt that bipartisan support for a move against McCarthy—the support that Lyndon
Johnson had been saying he was waiting for—was surely present now. As for their own party, McClellan’s vote on the subcommittee, coming after the attacks on McCarthy by Russell, Hayden, Byrd, Maybank, and Stennis, was a signal that the Democrats’ southern conservatives had had enough of McCarthy and were prepared to take action against him. Confident that with the exception of Pat McCarran and perhaps one or two other Democratic conservatives—and perhaps two or three Democratic senators with large Catholic constituencies—the forty-seven Democrats would be lined up against McCarthy almost solidly, liberals pleaded with Johnson to bring the issue before the Democratic Policy Committee, so that the party could take a course of action, or at least go on record, against the demagogue. But if during this period he did so, the Policy Committee’s minutes do not reflect it. Herbert Lehman asked Johnson to support a resolution condemning McCarthy—Johnson, who had been assuring liberals that he would move when “we have enough votes.” They felt there were certainly enough votes to pass a resolution, but no support was forthcoming from Johnson, and the resolution never reached the floor. When Maury Maverick wrote him that “Everybody in the Government is scared to death … and as the leader of the Senate Democrats I hope you will do your part to stem the tide,” Johnson replied with words that in one form or another he had repeated so often that they had become a refrain, his mantra on McCarthyism. While he regretted the “hysteria around the country and in the government,” he said, “You have got to realize that atmosphere can be dispelled only by letting it run its course so that people can see for themselves what is really behind all the noise.”

Lyndon Johnson had determined on the course of action that should be taken. Sometime in 1953, he told a group of friendly reporters, in an off-the-record talk: “If I were the Majority Leader, I know what I’d do about McCarthy. I’d appoint a bipartisan select committee, and I’d put on our side the very best men we have, men who are above reproach, the wisest men in the Senate and the best judges, and I’d ask ’em to make a study of McCarthy and report to the Senate. With the men I’d pick, the Senate would accept their judgment and that would be the end of it.” But, Evans and Novak were to report, “he was
not
Majority Leader. And McCarthy was Bill Knowland’s problem, not his.” Knowland remained reluctant to move against McCarthy, but liberals were increasingly skeptical of Johnson’s reasoning. So substantial had anti-McCarthy sentiment become within the Senate, they felt, that there would be a majority for disciplining the Wisconsin senator if that sentiment were only mobilized behind some specific Senate action, and the mobilizing did not necessarily have to be done by the Majority Leader. There was among these liberals considerable feeling, in fact, that the more obvious senator to do the mobilizing was the leader of the party opposed to McCarthy’s party—the Minority Leader. But the Minority Leader continued to decline every opportunity to do so. Without such an action, senators remained too timid to act alone. In January, 1954, only one senator—William Fulbright—cast a vote for what
would have been the rare move of denying funding for a subcommittee McCarthy chaired.

T
HEN
, IN F
EBRUARY
, 1954, as the McCarthy era entered its fifth year, the Wisconsin senator picked a new target—the United States Army—and the climate began to change. Nineteen fifty-four would be the year of Irving Peress, an Army dentist who had received a promotion despite the fact that he had taken the Fifth Amendment when asked if he had ever been a Communist, a fact which, when McCarthy got hold of it, caused a furor so great that it produced a large
New York Times
headline: “who promoted dr. peress?” (N
O
one, as a matter of fact; the promotion had been automatic.) It was the year of General Ralph Zwicker, the officer who had had the bad luck to be Peress’ commanding officer at the time of the promotion, and who McCarthy said was therefore “not fit to wear the uniform”—although the uniform was covered with medals; Zwicker was a battlefield hero of World War II. It was the year of Roy Cohn, smirking and vulpine, and of Private G. David Schine, Cohn’s handsome friend, for whose training-camp comforts Cohn had exerted pressure on the Army. It was the year of the “chicken lunch” in Everett Dirksen’s Capitol hideaway, at which Secretary of the Army Robert Stevens was tricked into signing a “memorandum of understanding” that gave McCarthy so much of what he was asking for that the
Times
of London said: “Senator McCarthy this afternoon achieved what General Burgoyne and General Cornwallis never achieved—the surrender of the American army.” And it was the year of the March 9
See It Now
documentary that was advertised in a small ad paid for by Edward R. Murrow and his co-producer Fred Friendly because CBS would not pay for an ad, and that was, in David Oshinsky’s phrase, “chillingly effective” because Murrow and Friendly let the film clips of McCarthy speak for themselves—and they did, showing McCarthy terrorizing a witness before his subcommittee, chuckling over his “Alger—I mean Adlai” remark, and belching and giggling his high-pitched, uncontrollable giggle. Murrow ended the program by saying, “This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy’s methods to keep silent…. We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home,” and reaction poured in on the reluctant network. CBS had to hire dozens of operators to take an estimated fifteen thousand calls—which ran about ten to one for Murrow and against McCarthy. McCarthy’s popularity began to fall; in January, 50 percent of the public had a “favorable” opinion of him; only 29 percent were “unfavorable.” By March, the margin had been tightened to 46 percent to 36, and by April, the balance had tipped the other way, with 38 percent “favorable” and 46 percent “unfavorable.” And then, on April 22, 1954, before McCarthy’s own subcommittee—recusing himself, he appointed his closest friend in the Senate, Karl Mundt, as chairman—began the “Army-McCarthy Hearings.”

Understanding the lesson of
See It Now
(as another very savvy—if very
different—politician also understood: “Ike wants hearings open and televised,” Jim Hagerty wrote in his diary), Lyndon Johnson had told John McClellan, the subcommittee’s senior Democrat, that no matter what concessions the Democrats made to the subcommittee’s Republicans, they must insist that the hearings be televised. “He knew that what McCarthy was doing was a very dangerous thing for the country,” Sam Houston Johnson was to say. “And he knew that the newspapers alone and two minutes a night on television during the Army hearings wasn’t enough. McCarthy had to be seen day after day during the entire hearings on the Army. He thought that would make people see what the bastard was up to.” And television did indeed let millions of Americans see for themselves another “doctored” photograph—this time, a figure had been cut out rather than added—and heard Roy Cohn maintain, even with the two pictures displayed in front of him, that the picture had not been “changed.” Television let millions of Americans see for themselves McCarthy’s black-jowled sneer as he whined, “Point of order, point of order, Mr. Chairman,” and witness the brutality with which he bullied witnesses—and it let America contrast him with the Army’s courtly, puckish counsel, Joseph Welch. It let America see McCarthy’s black-jowled smile as he brought into the hearing the name of a young attorney, Fred Fisher. A member of Welch’s Boston law firm, Fisher had originally been a member of the Army legal team, but when he told Welch that during the 1940s he had belonged for a time to the National Lawyers Guild (learning of its link to a local Communist organization, he resigned), Welch had said that Fisher had better not work on the Army case because if he did, “one of these days that will come out and go over national television and it will hurt like the dickens.” And now millions of Americans saw Welch’s distress as McCarthy said, “Mr. Chairman … 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, who 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…. I am not asking you at this point to explain why you tried to foist him on this committee.” They saw Welch’s face contorted with dismay as he tried to stop McCarthy—“Senator, may we not drop this? We know he belonged to the Lawyers Guild….” They saw the despair on Welch’s face when he realized he wasn’t going to be able to stop him. “Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” When McCarthy kept talking about how Welch had tried to “foist” Fisher on the committee, millions saw how even Mundt felt impelled to try—to try repeatedly—to correct him: “The Chair would like to repeat that he does not believe Mr. Welch recommended Mr. Fisher as counsel for this committee.” And they saw how Welch finally had to say, “Mr. McCarthy, I will not discuss this further with you. You have sat within six feet of me, and could have asked about Fred Fisher. You have brought it out. If there is a God in heaven, it
will do neither you nor your cause any good.” Leaving the hearing room, the Boston lawyer, weary, grim-faced, said, “I never saw such cruelty.” Millions of Americans had seen what Welch had seen; television had let them see it. By the time the Army-McCarthy hearings ended on June 17, McCarthy’s favorable rating had dropped to around 30 percent—where it was to remain for the rest of the year. McCarthy’s great weapon had been his mass support. “That weapon,” as Oshinsky writes, “was gone now, and gone for good.” And that fact was promptly underlined in terms that senators could grasp. In 1950 and ’52, McCarthy’s support in elections for the Senate had been a fearsome weapon. In 1954, he sponsored—and arranged for the financing of—a primary campaign against Margaret Chase Smith by a personable, dynamic young candidate whom he called “that Maine boy who is going places.” The Maine boy carried exactly two, small, precincts. The legend of McCarthy’s political invincibility had been destroyed.

Upon the conclusion of the Army-McCarthy hearings, Vermont’s Republican Senator Ralph Flanders introduced a resolution to censure McCarthy for conduct that violated Senate traditions and brought the body into disrepute, and liberal organizations, including the National Committee for an Effective Congress, urged Senate Democrats to support the resolution or in some other way to take a broader position to demonstrate that their party was opposed not only to McCarthy but to McCarthyism. Johnson refused to take any action at all, and indeed he did not take any action until after his primary victory over Dougherty on July 24—and until after his hand had been forced by Knowland’s announcement that he was about to bring the resolution before the Senate for a vote.

W
HEN
L
YNDON
J
OHNSON FINALLY
moved against Joe McCarthy, he did so with his customary effectiveness—both with strategy and with men. He didn’t want the Democrats to take a party position on McCarthy, and on the very day before the vote, he staved one off. On July 29, at his call, the Democratic Policy Committee finally met to discuss McCarthy, for almost four hours. Johnson had invited five liberals who were not members of the committee to present their views, and Lehman said that he had “never subscribed to the thesis that this [Senator McCarthy] is a Republican responsibility. Every man in the Senate has a responsibility…. I very much hope that the Policy Committee will decide that it is a matter of our concern. I very much hope that Senator Johnson will take the lead in censuring Senator McCarthy. I think the Democratic Party will suffer if it does not take a stand.” Symington said that “A vote against McCarthy is a vote against evil.” But Johnson, supported by Clements, Kerr, Murray, Ed Johnson (“This should not be a partisan issue and therefore I do not think the leadership should be asked to deliver votes”), and Russell (“The Policy Committee has got no right to commit Democratic members on issues of this kind”), persuaded the committee not to formulate a Democratic position.
He had lined up support for the move he wanted, the appointment of a select committee—a
bipartisan
select committee—by consulting with such key Republicans as Earl Warren and General Jerry Persons, head of the White House congressional liaison team, and on August 2, the Senate voted, 75 to 12, to refer the Flanders resolution to a select committee of three members from each party, which was directed to report back to the Senate before it adjourned for the year.

Knowing that the committee had to be sufficiently respected so that its report would pass, Johnson had devoted a great deal of thought to selecting its members—and a great deal of craft to making Knowland think
he
had selected them. “Knowland theoretically appointed the Republican members, but Johnson appointed every one of them,” White was to recall. “I was present in his office one day when they had their final conference on this.” Johnson would suggest “some Republican he knew Knowland detested. He’d say, ‘Now, Bill, I’m sure you want so-and-so.’ Knowland would say, ‘Oh, no! Good God, no, I don’t want so-and-so!’ and he’d wind up naming the man Johnson wanted.” Johnson didn’t want liberals, who would be “just grist” for McCarthy’s mill, but conservatives, and conservatives tough enough to stand up to McCarthy, and he had read his men. On the Democratic side he wanted Stennis (“It had never occurred to me that anybody as gentle as John Stennis could actually get up in across-floor debate and not only hold his own but mop up the floor with an Irish brawler like Joe McCarthy, which Stennis did,” George Reedy was to say. “I think Joe McCarthy was cleaning blood off himself for two weeks after he made the mistake of trying to tangle with Stennis”); and Ed Johnson, who hated McCarthy because of an old personal feud; and Sam Ervin, because Ervin had been a state supreme court judge in North Carolina, and, as Evans and Novak say, “it was essential that the country accept the select committee as juridically qualified” to render a verdict on McCarthy. As Republicans he wanted the same kind of senators, and he got them—Frank Carlson of Kansas, Francis Case of South Dakota and, as chairman, Watkins of Utah, very quiet and very tough. All, except Case, belonged to the Senate’s “inner club,” and respected its rules and traditions, which McCarthy had so flagrantly broken. The Select Committee’s report, as Oshinsky would note, “left an awful lot unsaid.” It was a condemnation not of McCarthy’s long inquisition—“There was hardly a word about his anti-Communist crusade”—or of his use of classified information and “senatorial privilege” to destroy innocent people. It recommended his censure—or, to be precise, “condemnation”—only because of conduct “contrary to senatorial traditions” that “tended to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute” and to “impair its dignity.” But when the report was delivered to the Senate, Johnson lined up behind it forty-four of the forty-seven Democrats. Two were paired with Republican senators who were unavoidably absent. So only one Democratic senator—John Kennedy, who was hospitalized in Boston recovering from a serious back operation—was not announced for
McCarthy’s condemnation. The GOP split down the middle, with twenty-two moderate and liberal Republicans voting in favor of condemnation and twenty-two old Taft partisans overwhelmingly opposed. Independent Morse voted yea, so McCarthy was censured, 67 to 22. (Republican Wiley was absent and unrecorded, and McCarthy himself voted “present.”) He was to spend his last three years in the Senate—before his death in 1957—increasingly in the throes of alcohol, wandering the halls, prone to tears, often unshaven, fawningly anxious for a kind word from his colleagues. Once Reedy was standing on a sidewalk in Washington when a mud-encrusted automobile pulled up, “and something black and round and squiggly forced its way out the front door and rolled up to me…. It took me about thirty seconds to realize that this was the remnant of Joe McCarthy—unshaven, needing a bath, bloated from too much booze, almost inarticulate.”