IKE and MCCARTHY:
DWIGHT EISENHOWER'S SECRET CAMPAIGN
AGAINST JOSEPH
MCCARTHY (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017)
By DAVID A. NICHOLS
Rev. by Hugh Murray
David Nichols' book
shows that one of the top priorities of Eisenhower's first term as
president was to curb and destroy Wisconsin Republican Senator Joseph
McCarthy. Nichols occasionally intersperses his main theme with
snippets of what else was happening in the world – such as the
defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu in Indo-China(247), and the
decision by the US Supreme Court overturning 50 years of precedents
in favor of segregation, to declare “separate but equal,”
un-Constitutional.(262)
Nichols argues that
McCarthy had subverted the Constitutional protection against
self-incrimination by accusing those who invoked the 5th
Amendment before his investigating committee of being
subversives.(45-46) To elaborate on this idea, Nichols quotes Albert
Einstein who urged his colleagues not to speak at the McCarthy
hearings “even if it meant 'jail or economic ruin.'” McCarthy
retorted that anyone advising such is “an enemy of America.” In
the next sentence Nichols reveals his own view...”McCarthy
continued his demagoguery...”(46)
What Nichols does
not discuss is that in 1945 a leading Soviet agent, Pavel Sudaplatov,
was urging one of his underlings to befriend Einstein. Margarita
Konenkova, wife of a prominent sculptor, accompanied her husband to
America where her husband, Sergei, was to sculpt a head of the
prominent scientist. This gave Margarita entree to Einstein, and
they did become an item. Although Einstein was not part of the
Manhattan Project to build the atom bomb, he knew many of the
scientists involved, and they occasionally sought his advice.
According to the National Geographic Channel series “Genius,” a
biography of Einstein, Margarita is shown copying his notes to give
to the Soviets.
Sudaplatov, in his
1995 memoir, stated that he wanted Margarita to also get close to J.
Robert Oppenheimer, “the father of the A bomb,” who headed the
Manhattan Project. She did not, but that may not have been
necessary. Oppenheimer's landlady was a member of the Communist
Party; so was his mistress; so was his brother; his sister-in-law; so
was his wife. According to the FBI, Oppenheimer himself had been a
member, but was told by the party to drop out so as to pass security
for the Manhattan Project. The FBI had sources alleging that
Oppenheimer simply became part of the party's secret apparatus. Some
also alleged that he knew Steve Nelson. It is not disputed that he
hired Communists for the Manhattan Project. In a recent PBS 2-hour
documentary, “The Bomb,” the narrator does disclose some of the
Communist affiliations of those close to Oppenheimer, but not the
possibility that he remained a secret member of the Party. The
documentary was sympathetic to Oppenheimer, while making his
antagonist over building the hydrogen bomb, Edward Teller, into a
villain disliked by most other scientists.
In
1943 the FBI bugged the home of Steve Nelson, labor leader, and
veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (that fought in Spain against
Franco and the Falange). By the early 1940s, Nelson, a secret member
of the CP, was residing in California. Thanks
to the release of various government documents, we now know some of
the workings of the spy networks. In March 1943 the FBI bug revealed
that Nelson met with atomic scientist Joseph Weinberg. Nelson
instructed Weinberg to gather and send him information from
other Party members working with him on the atomic bomb project at
the Univ. of California, Berkeley. Nelson also told Weinberg to
inform the comrades working there to destroy their CP membership
books, and refrain from using liquor.(Herbert Romerstein & Eric
Breindel, The
Venona Secrets,
p. 255)
In
April 1943 Nelson received another visitor, a member of the Soviet
Embassy in Washington DC. The Soviet official instructed the
America Communist to establish an espionage network in the American
atomic program. The Soviet counted out specific amounts of cash
to fund the project, and told Nelson where he should place reliable
Communists for this “special work” in conveying to the Soviets
what the Americans were discovering in the US atomic program.(R &
B.,p. 259)
One writer suggested that this is how the FBI first learned of the
Manhattan Project – from a Soviet official!
Today, we know that
the Rosenbergs were guilty of espionage, as was Klaus Fuchs, but only
much later did we learn of the role of Theodore Hall. How many
others were involved in this? A Reuters story received almost no
headlines when it appeared in January-February 2012. In
January Russian leader Vladimir Putin, in a public address, praised
the Western scientists who provided atomic secrets to the Soviets so
that the Communist regime could develop its own nuclear bombs.
Putin emphasized that the Soviets were provided “suitcases”
filled with material; “suitcases full” he stressed.
American spying on behalf of the Soviets was not paranoia; it was a
reality. And the consequence of that spying aided Stalin to
develop nuclear weapons faster, and helped in other areas of military
advance. To this day, do we know the full scale of spying on behalf
of the USSR? On behalf of Stalin?
And how does
Nichols handle the Oppenheimer case? “Another threat to
Eisenhower's anti-McCarthy operation had surfaced on April 8
[1954]...the AEC [Atomic Energy Commission] had stripped J. Robert
Oppenheimer...of his security clearance...following the war, he had
become an advisor to the AEC.”(225) Related was an 18-month delay
in America's development of the hydrogen bomb. Atty. General Herbert
Brownell thought “the only possible criminal action against
Oppenheimer would be for perjury.”(226) Brownell believed that
Oppenheimer was guilty only of bad associations. At that time, a
major theme of Eisenhower's fight with McCarthy was over the notion
of “guilt by association” and how damaging this was to innocent
people and freedom.
The New York
Times, working with the Eisenhower Administration, reported on
“Oppenheimer's questionable associations, his hiring of alleged
communists or former communists, his contradictory testimony to the
FBI about attending communist meetings, his failure to report in
timely fashion on an attempt by the Soviet Union to secure scientific
information from him, and his opposition to the development of the
hydrogen bomb.”(226-27) The Administration feared McCarthy would
exploit Oppenheimer's h-bomb opposition; the Wisconsonian did declare
Oppenheimer's suspension was long overdue. McCarthy also claimed
that he had delayed his own investigation of the h-bomb delay at the
behest of the Administration “because of security measures
involved.”(227)
Of course, there had
been Communists and Soviet agents inside the US government. Perhaps,
in many cases they simply performed their jobs as any other
bureaucrats. But at other times, with their advice invariably
coinciding with Soviet policy, their proposals could be disastrous
from the American perspective. In 1951 McCarthy had published a book
in which he contended that American policy in China after WWII was
based upon advice coming from the reports of communists, socialists,
and other left-wingers. This resulted in the denial of American aid
to Chiang Kai Shek, which led to the collapse of his Nationalist
forces and the victory of the Communists under Mao Zedong. Among
those whom McCarthy sharply criticized was the former American
Ambassador, Gen. George Marshall, for his role in the Asian debacle.
Eisenhower, who served under Marshall in Europe, resented McCarthy's
attack upon his old mentor. Moreover, Eisenhower felt himself
vulnerable about some of his actions in Europe during the rosy days
of US-Soviet cooperation.(144, 213)
How was Eisenhower
managing the issue of communists in government? His Atty. Gen.
Brownell, cleaning up the office from the past Administration,
rummaging through old papers, discovered documents showing that Harry
Dexter White was a Soviet spy. White had been Under Secretary of the
Treasury during the Roosevelt and early Truman presidencies.
Brownell conferred with Eisenhower, discussing the evidence and
suggesting that he should go public with the information. Eisenhower
agreed. Brownell, in a public speech, declared White a spy. And
although the FBI had reported his activities in detail to Pres.
Truman, despite the derogatory reports, Truman nominated White to be
Executive Director for the US of the International Monetary Fund.
Moreover, Truman failed to inform the Senate Banking Committee of the
FBI report, so White was confirmed in the new post. On 30 April 1946
Truman had written a letter commending White's distinguished career
with Treasury. White died in 1948.(85) With Brownell's expose of
Truman's promotion of a communist spy, Truman fired back. He accused
Brownell of playing politics, trying to divert attention from the
Administration's failures on the economic front. Truman then
asserted that White had been fired by his Democratic Administration.
White House Press Secretary James Hagerty explained that Mr. White
had not been fired, but had resigned from the Treasury Dept. To
this, Truman blasted, White had been fired by resignation. Hagerty
responded by reading from Truman's letter of 1946 praising White.
Nichol's adds: “Truman's combative denials, even when false, made
such a sharp-edged attack on a former president seem unseemly.”(86)
But was this not a major problem for McCarthy? When he charged a
respectable person with subversion, even when true, it was
“unseemly,” “low,” “boorish,” “bullying”? Look at
how Herblock portrayed McCarthy in the cartoons? Indeed, the New
York Times' editorial feared Brownell's revelations about
White might provoke “a reckless renewal of McCarthyism.”(87)
The House
un-American Activities Committee planned to subpoena Truman, who
continued to defend his general anti-communist actions. HUAC, under
pressure from Eisenhower, relented on the subpoena, and Brownell now
simply charged the previous Administration with “laxity” in the
case of White.
At a press
conference, Eisenhower, pretending to be ignorant of the White story,
asserted that he would not have issued a subpoena for former Pres.
Truman. Furthermore, it was “inconceivable” that Truman had
knowingly appointed a Communist spy to high office.(88) “In spite
of testimony by J. Edgar Hoover [and a statement by former Secretary
of State James Byrnes] contradicting Truman's account...,Truman had
won the public argument.”(91) Would Truman have won this argument
if Eisenhower had been willing to be truthful and to support the
facts being exposed? Was Ike so afraid of being labeled a
McCarthyite that he was willing to allow a pass on Truman who
promoted a Communist spy to a higher ranking post? When the buck
stopped with Truman, Ike lied and dropped the issue. Essentially,
Ike White-washed it.
Were there other
communists in government? Spies? Were some providing advise based
upon communist principles? Scientist Oppenheimer was undoubtedly one
of those who helped delay American development of the hydrogen bomb.
He did not lose his security clearance until April 1954. So
Oppenheimer served in the US government under FDR, Truman, and Ike.
But which government was he most desirous of serving?
In Eisenhower's
State of the Union speech of January 1954, he announced that 2,200
federal employees had lost their jobs, implying the sweep out of
communists was a success. (Oppenheimer was still on the payroll.)
But Eisenhower had changed the methods of firing government
employees. When pressed for more information about the discharged
employees, the Administration finally provided statistics: 29 for
loyalty concerns; 430 for security concerns, the rest for sexual
perversions, alcoholism, or false statements on the job
applications.(138) The new administration explained a government job
was not a right but a privilege, and those who might be subject to
blackmail would be dismissed. The assumption was that homosexuals,
if not communists or spies, might be blackmailed into providing
information to an enemy, and therefore should not work in government.
However, the government provided no evidence of any of the fired
homosexuals or alcoholics secreting information to an enemy.
But in many ways
Eisenhower continued the personnel and policies of the Truman era.
The fight over Charles Bohlen's appointment as ambassador to the
USSR, was not simply about sexual rumors, as Nichols relates. Bohlen
was considered another of the Acheson, soft-on- communism crowd of
bureaucrats that had led to communist victories throughout much of
the post-WWII world.
The culmination of
Eisenhower's attempt to crush McCarthy centered around the
Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954. McCarthy had received a memo
alleging that 34 workers at Ft. Monmouth Army Signal Corps base in
New Jersey were subjects of FBI investigation. H Stanton Evans in
his Blacklisted by History writes: “...but one of many leads
about the Army Signal Corps that would reach McCarthy in the spring
of 1953 and later. Based on such tips, the committee launched...a
series of investigations...These interlocking probes would run from
the late summer of 1953 through the spring of 1954. when they would
be brought to a sudden halt by stunning Army charges of malfeasance
against McCarthy and his counsel Roy Cohn...”(Evans, p. 523) Some
working at Monmouth would take home secret documents – an amazing
2,700 security documents signed out at one time.(Evans, 510) Earlier
in the 1940s Julius Rosenberg had worked as a Signal Corps inspector
along with fellow spies like Morton Sobell. The Signal Corps
remained important for its research and development in radar,
missiles, anti-aircraft, and other weaponry. Some working there were
convinced that security at Monmouth was lax and some employees
should be fired. Furthemore, not all questions about Monmouth
concerned the past; a recent defector from East Germany claimed that
the East European laboratory where he had worked often received data
secreted from Ft. Monmouth.
McCarthy held closed
hearings and various witnesses invoked the 5th Amendment
rather than answer questions about communism and even espionage.
McCarthy was convinced that there was more subversion to uncover at
the installation, and some worked at Monmouth, like Gen. Kirke Larton
agreed with the Senator. This group of about 10 army men tried to
fire those they deemed security risks, but when the cases went higher
– to the Pentagon, the firing decisions were reversed by the
federal Loyalty Board, and the “risks” reinstated. Gen. Larton
even praised Sen. McCarthy during these hearings. Also attending
some of these hearings was John Adams, Army counsel, who disapproved
and deemed them a witch hunt.
Because of his
efforts to cleanse Ft. Monmouth and his praise for McCarthy, Gen.
Larton soon discovered that he was passed over for an expected
promotion. Then he would find his army career at an end. Others,
too, felt the pressure from on high. Army attorney John Adams viewed
many of the “risks” as innocent victims, while judging Gen.
Larton as demoralizing the work-force at Monmouth with his super
security concerns. When an Army dentist at Monmouth, who was a
member of the Communist Party, received a promotion, McCarthy wanted
to know who was responsible. He called Army Gen. Ralph Zwicker, in
charge of the Fort, and berated him when he did not answer the main
question - “ Who promoted Peress?”
Some complained that
McCarty was humiliating an officer of the US Army, and that is
impermissible. The stage was set for Ike's counter-attack: the
Army-McCarthy hearings.
And with them, the
anti-subversion hearings a Ft. Monmouth came to a halt. The Army, in
silent collaboration with Pres. Eisenhower, counter-attacked with
charges against McCarthy. It was clear that the main thrust of the
Army's counter punch would be the implied unnatural relationship
between McCarthy's counsel, Roy Cohn and a committee investigator who
had recently been drafted, David Schine. Cohn contended that Schine
was essential for the committee's work and pressured the Army to give
the draftee more week-end passes during basic training in New Jersey.
Cohn sought other privileges for his young colleague, but when the
Army refused all Cohn's demands, according to army officials, Cohn
threatened to destroy the Army.
Liberal Republican
Thomas Dewey, also involved in the assault against McCarthy,
suggested attorney Joseph Welch to lead the prosecution for the Army.
The hearings were to be televised. At a time when on television the
“I Love Lucy” show could not even mention the word “pregnant”
to describe Lucy's condition, the word “homosexual” was as taboo
as the act was illegal. Innuendo was used by Welch. With Roy Cohn
on the witness stand, Welch probed into what work was accomplished on
those week-end passes. What was he and Schine doing? On the stand,
complaining about a doctored photograph introduced into evidence by
Cohn, Welch wanted to know if the picture had been altered by pixies.
McCarty interrupted to ask Welch for his definition of a pixie.
Something akin to a fairy, Welch replied. McCarthy interjected that
Welch might be an expert on that. Both sides invoked the anti-gay
jabs, but the heart of the Army position was that McCarthy had
humiliated an Army general because Cohn could not get more privileges
for his friend, Schine. Some began to wonder what Cohn might have on
McCarthy, that he allowed Cohn to make such demands on the Army.
During the hearings, the Army held one witness in reserve – a
chauffeur of Schine. This driver maintained that on the weekend pass
days, he would drive the pair from New Jersey to New York City; he
also witnessed Cohn and Schine having sex in the back seat. But as
the hearings were having the desired effect, McCarthy's popularity in
polls was plummeting, the Army case raced forward without the driver.
To stress the point,
liberal Republican Sen. Ralph Flanders of Vermont gave a speech in
the Senate calling McCarthy a menace, comparing him to Hitler, and
emphasizing that the core of the Army-McCarthy hearings was the
“personal relationships” between Cohn and Schine. Cohn's
“passionate anxiety” to retain Schine as a staff employee.
Flanders also asked what hold Cohn had on McCarthy.(277) Flanders
was implying, in the euphemisms of the time, that all three were gay.
McCarthy's stock continued to fall, and later the Senate would vote
to condemn him.
There were issues
that seemed to be resolved when the Senate condemned McCarthy. To
defend his side, McCarthy sought to subpoena information where much
of the planning for the hearings occurred. He was alleging that
Schine was a hostage of the government that sought to derail his
hearings on subversion at Monmouth. That at that meeting the
government concocted a smear campaign against McCarthy and his
employees. He wanted to see what happened at that meeting, and even
some Democratic Senators thought that a proper request. President
Eisenhower basically said no and invoked Executive Privilege to
prevent any information going to Congress concerning advise to the
President or his advisors. The major media celebrated the
President's strong defense of the Executive branch and its powers.
Also, McCarthy had
requested that government employees should inform him if they found
something suspicious at work. In effect, McCarthy was asking for
whistle-blowers. Eisenhower responded by wondering if such a call was
itself a broach of security.(251) McCarthy asserted that Eisenhower
was more worried about McCarthy moles in government than about Soviet
agents. But Eisenhower's Executive Privilege won the day over
McCarthy and his potential whistle-blowers.
Evans, in his book
on McCarthy, notes the hypocrisy of the liberal media – it
supported the Executive Privileges under Eisenhower when challenged
by McCarthy, but when Pres. Richard Nixon invoked Executive
Privilege, with one of the same attorneys, James St. Claire, who had
worked it out for Eisenhower, - however this time, the Congress AND
the media demanded the Nixon records, and even the Nixon tapes.
Advisors to Nixon would not, should not, receive the protection to
advise the President with the knowledge that their advise would not
be made public. And today with President Trump, the liberal media
support all the leaks provided by entrenched liberal bureaucrats
against the new nationalist Administration. Apparently, the role of
the whistle-blower and Executive Privilege depends less on the
Constitution and more on whose ox is gored.
Nichols does show
conclusively that Eisenhower was actively involved in the attack on
McCarthy. Though both sides were willing to use the gay issue to
their advantage, Eisenhower and the Army would use it most
effectively against Cohn and Schine, and thus against McCarthy.
While Nichols presents a record hostile to McCarthy, the Evans' book
provides a different interpretation of the Cohn-Schine trip to Europe
to purge American propaganda libraries, which did containe many works
by Communists and those on the left, but little by authors on the
right. Evans also attacks the Edward R. Murrow hit-piece on
McCarthy, that Nichols mentions in his book as one of a series of
events in the anti-McCarthy crescendo of mid 1954.
Nichols proves that
Pres. Eisenhower was no bumbling, senile golfer ignorant of American
politics. Eisenhower was leading the troops against McCarthy, but
doing so behind the scenes. He viewed McCarthy as a threat, and
after the televised hearings, got the Senate to condemn McCarthy and
break his power. However, as a new book, this one fails. Nichols
writes as if he were still in the 1950s. Since then there have been
more revelations of how the Soviets did penetrate the American
government. He ignores such exposes so that he can continue to
write, as did liberals of the earlier era, that Hoover and McCarthy
and others were paranoid, on witch hunts, destroying freedom,
bullying, boorish, unseemly, even lower class. Now, we know there
were witches who provided important information to our adversaries.
Because of the new material, an author should reasses the conflict
between McCarthy and Eisenhower and the other liberals. With new
information, McCarthy seems prescient; his liberal opponents blind,
bumbling, deceptive, and vindictive. Nichols refuses to reboot. His
book was outdated on the day of its publication.
Communists in the
American government were not all “spies” providing secret
documents. They might simply provide bad advice – advice meant to
promote Soviet interests rather than those of the US. And some did
steal secrets. Today, we know there was much more subversion than we
wanted to believe back then. Suitcases of documents! McCarthy may
have been closer to the truth than Gen. Marshall, President
Eisenhower, and the New York Times. Nichols fails to consider
this possibility. Or should I write, probability?