MCCARTHY CLOSE UP
Wechsler, James A.
McCarthy Close Up By James A. Wechs/er This report by Mr. Wechsler on his encounter with Sen. ]o~ seph McCarthy, behind closed doors, seems to us the most perceptive and revealing commentary on...
...I am sure he is confident that such occasional grillings of recalcitrants will make some timid newspaper souls even more hesitant to tangle with him...
...I think one of his real delights is the measurement of his own strength...
...Rushmore is now a member of McCarthy's staff, but still manages to write a weekly column for Hearst...
...Two—Although I have often fought Communists and been denounced by them, I am a confessed critic of the deeds of Joe McCarthy and I have at times criticized such other distinguished Congressional investigators as J. Parnell Thomas, who went from Congress to prison...
...At first I wondered whether I had heard him correctly...
...But now I can personally report that it also is a place where the existence of proof of in~ nocence becomes damning evidence of guilt...
...On the contrary, it was quickly apparent that no mutual expressions of respect would be called for on this occasion...
...He is clearly preoccupied with one subject—the advancement of Joe McCarthy...
...McCarthy delivers his most outrageous opinions in a tone of innocent fair-mindedness, as though it pains him to believe anyone could question the objectivity with which he is approaching the bloody business of the day...
...Rushmore is a fellow who helps all Congressional committees and testifies for them night and day, whether they are run by McCarthy, Jenner, Parnell Thomas, or Martin Dies...
...He seemed genuinely interested in getting the answer...
...I have been attacked by the Communist press on innumerable occasions in that period...
...Jenner, who is running another current investigative show...
...Three—Therefore McCarthy feels it is logical to assume that I am still secretly affiliated with the Communists and that every anti-Communist word I write and every anti-Communist activity I have undertaken in what constitutes most of my adult life is part of an elaborate design to conceal my true subversive allegiance...
...McCarthy saves his big scenes for the TV cameras...
...but that neither did we view the FBI as a sinister "gestapo...
...I had some of that feeling of despair which men must get in Fascist and Communist prisons when they are called upon to confess crimes they have never committed and then told that their failure to confess is'clear evidence of their disloyalty to the state...
...He called me because he is certain that the way to deal with hostile journalists is to try to hound and harass them...
...I underestimated the man...
...Wechsler's report to his own paper and is published with his permission...
...There were even a couple of exchanges during which his face wore a rather sophisticated smile, as if to say: "Look, bud, everybody's got his racket...
...o~ seph McCarthy, behind closed doors, seems to us the most perceptive and revealing commentary on the man and his methods yet published...
...McCarthy was bored...
...Most of the time, behind closed doors as in public, he retains a surface aspect of amiability...
...He is simply determined to punish anyone who seems to stand in the way of his desperate and cynical fight for power...
...McCarthy exhibits an almost physical distaste for the usual processes of American discussion...
...McCarthy found it unnecessary to ask whether I had ever written any kind words about Joe McCarthy...
...he asked sullenly...
...But he also learned long ago, as did some men in another country, that no lie is too big to be unsaleable if you repeat it often and loudly enough...
...There were moments when I had to remind myself that I was a participant rather than a spectator at the proceedings...
...I introduced a letter I received from Richard Nixon in 1950, praising an editorial I had written on the conviction of Alger Hiss...
...And, although I offered some reasonably hostile evaluations of his contributions to national chaos, I do not believe he ever got fighting mad...
...He resembles the gang-leader in a B-movie who, forever faced with the unpleasant duty of ordering people rubbed out, feels no personal animosity toward the victims...
...In the course of these macabre 70 minutes of closed-door hearing McCarthy asked me, among other things, whether I had ever editorially praised Sen...
...McCarthy's point was quite simple...
...in 1947 I was one of the founders of Americans for Democratic Action, one of whose main purposes was to combat the pro-Communist front groups that were trying to enlist American liberals...
...at times I found myself watching him and listening to him with mingled fascination and astonishment, almost forgetting it was my head he was after on this occasion...
...Did you write that statement...
...Ideas are simply weapons to be used as tactical maneuvers in a given engagement and discarded overnight if a more advantageous slogan comes along...
...Watching him at close range I was more convinced than ever that McCarthy's essential strength is his total cynicism and his complete contempt for the usual decencies of democratic society...
...When I realized the nature of the theory McCarthy was presenting...
...I assured McCarthy that neither The Post nor I planned to purchase tranquillity by discovering at this late hour that Joe McCarthy is a statesman and a scholar...
...Many Americans, Republicans and Democrats alike, enjoy political debate and even acquire respect for each other's opinions during the free trade of ideas...
...Sitting with McCarthy throughout the hearing was Howard Rushmore, the New York journal-American (Hearst) reporter who remained in the Communist Party months after the Nazi-Soviet pact, but finally resigned in abrupt indignation when The Daily Worker refused to publish his favorite review on Gone With the Wind...
...Nothing else really matters...
...It is probably a measure of the ground we have lost that I knew McCarthy could successfully twist any silence to his own advantage...
...It dealt with the paper's policies and personnel—and with its opposition to McCarthyism...
...Suddenly the faint, familiar smile vanished from his face...
...As soon as we got into the subject of my political biography, I contended we could settle the point promptly with the introduction of a few exhibits...
...When he said my record of anti-Communist utterances and actions may have been designed to mask my secret communism, he was reciting a whopper and I am sure he knew it...
...In fact the hearing was an investigation of The New York Posr and its editor, clearly provoked by our long campaign against Joe McCarthy and his little men...
...That was the heart of the matter, at the beginning and at the end...
...That, I said, was the only meaningful answer I could give him...
...When he made clear that I had, I asked whether the question was facetious...
...In thus leaving open the possibility that I am a fool rather than a knave, his voice achieved its most magnanimous tone...
...In the early 1940s I was an active participant in the successful fight to wrest control of the New York Newspaper Guild from the Communists...
...He conscientiously tried to clarify the record but each time he seemed to resolve a point McCarthy shifted to new grounds of suspicion...
...He repeated it, broadening it this time to ask whether I or one of my deputies had inspired the Communist attack on me...
...In an earlier American time I doubt that any editor should have responded to some of the inquiries...
...The only yardstick of patriotism in his hearing room is submission to McCarthy and his mob...
...It was further charged that I was unappreciative of Louis Budenz...
...At no time does McCarthy convey the spirit of a man of deep, authentic conviction...
...he almost seemed to enjoy some unfavorable thoughts I voiced about the danger of McCarthyism, as if for once he found my words really interesting because they concerned the only truly interesting subject on earth...
...One incident early in the hearing told most of the story...
...I was happy to acknowledge that to the best of my knowledge and recollection I had never caught myself praising Jenner—the man whose major public distinction is that, like McCarthy, he has questioned the patriotism of George C. Marshall...
...McCarthy is as bored by ideas as he is by facts...
...At the very end, after I had said in a few closing words that he was engaged in a flagrant attempt to intimidate the press, he paused and asked me rather quizzically: "Do you feel intimidated...
...I suggested that what McCarthy really meant was that the only way a former Communist—or anyone else—could win acquittal was to recognize the superior virtue of Joe McCarthy...
...This was, after all, a private showing...
...But McCarthy ruled that the true test was the number of hours Budenz has spent with the FBI...
...It always reverted, however, to the basic theme—that the only true, tangible proof of patriotism in the year 1953 is faithful allegiance to Joe McCarthy and his imitators...
...I thought it might even jar McCarthy...
...he is interested in truth, and truth is irrelevant if it conflicts with McCarthy's premise...
...At one point I remarked that in line with some of the questions addressed to me, McCarthy's own committee was surely under suspicion...
...So I have what is technically called an "affirmative record" of anti-Communism...
...I remarked that the talents and contributions of former Communists— as of ex-Democrats—might vary considerably...
...For the record, I noted that at the time I was appointed editor of The Post in May, 1949, I had received a letter of congratulations from Lew Nichols, then public relations man for J. Edgar Hoover and now deputy director of the FBI...
...I was summoned (on 18 hours' notice) ostensibly because a book I wrote was reportedly found on the shelves of an Information Service overseas library...
...There were other issues on which McCarthy found that the editorial policy of The Post was seriously remiss...
...This is the way, of course, to total madness for a nation as well as for individuals...
...Nevertheless he succeeds in creating the impression that the job he is trying to do is quite impersonal, and a burden to be borne in the national interest...
...II In a way I am luckier than a lot of citizens who have faced McCarthy...
...These are facts I have never concealed...
...McCarthy didn't expect to document a case and he didn't...
...under his theory what could be more plausible than that the Communists would install one of their own in his group to help promote confusion and discord in the U. S. and provide protection for Communists by indiscriminate assaults on liberals...
...It is adapted from Mr...
...I similarly acknowledged under questioning that I could not recall writing a single editorial tribute to Congressman Velde, and I hope my recollection was accurate...
...ISPENT 70 minutes with Joe McCarthy one day last month...
...His attitude toward me was highly impersonal...
...Ill Like everyone else, former Communists are judged by that standard...
...I told him I thought he had picked on the wrong guy: The Post will fight him just as hard in the coming months as it always has...
...The Communist pronouncement charged that "the Reu-thers, Dubinskys, Wechslers, ef at, paralyzed independent political action by protecting the myth that Stevenson was an obstacle to the advance of reaction...
...The only other committee member present during the hearing was Sen...
...I do not believe for a moment that McCarthy considers me subversive...
...This is not to say that there was any artificial courtesy in the air the day I testified...
...It was a frail pretext and McCarthy didn't stick with that subject long...
...I have a long record of published anti-Communist writings covering a period of nearly 15 years...
...He seemed preoccupied with other things when I replied that The Post had long taken the position that American democracy was strong enough to combat both Joe Stalin and Joe McCarthy...
...I trust I made that point with some passion...
...although I have probably written as many harsh words about him as has any editor in America, I am sure he would forgive me overnight if I saw the McCarthy light...
...McCarthy's realm is often described as the place where men are held to be guilty until they prove their innocence...
...McCarthy must be seen close-up to be believed...
...In what I will always recall as one of the most preposterous moments of my life, I thereupon solemnly denied under oath that I was the author of Communist statements denouncing myself...
...I responded that The Post took the view that no government agency was above criticism, as every Senator ought to know...
...McCarthy gazed out the window...
...And it was...
...I suggested the committee incorporate all the editorials I have written for The Post since becoming editor...
...Jackson, being an honest man, is at a grave disadvantage in such an encounter...
...At his invitation I occupied the witness chair at a closed hearing of his Senate Investigating Committee in Washington...
...The transcript of the hearing shows that this was the essence of McCarthy's position: One—I was a member of the Young Communist League from 1934 to 1937, resigning at the age of 22...
...There is a trance-like quality in the air when McCarthy performs...
...The exhibit seemed devastatingly conclusive...
...He expressed the view that we are lacking in reverence toward the FBI...
...But to assume that such facts make any decisive difference in a McCarthy hearing is to assume that this is a rational proceeding in which the ordinary rules of reason, evidence, and logic prevail...
...I have never believed that Budenz' long service as managing editor of The Daily Worker stamped him an immortal journalist...
...No doubt I could have found numerous legal grounds for refusing to answer many of the questions addressed to me that were clearly beyond the boundary of proper Congressional inquiry and a flagrant invasion of the area of press freedom...
...Americans are prone to underestimate McCarthy, I think, because it is hard for most of us to believe that there really are Americans who—like the Communists and the Fascists—recognize no rules of truth or fairness and actually live by the code of a political jungle...
...In the final moments he remarked that the only uncertainty left in his mind was whether I am "knowingly subversive" or a dupe of evil forces...
...The hearing never even revealed which book it was, or where it was found...
...let's not get too excited about the details...
...That is bullyboy's method...
...I described myself as a responsive but unfriendly witness and we proceeded from there...
...So, while repeatedly registering my protest about the scope and nature of the inquiry, I made it plain that I would answer all questions freely...
...Henry Jackson, a liberal Democrat from Washington...
...Wechsler was Washington correspondent [or The Progressive before he became editor of the New York Post.—The Editors...
...Ah, but Rushmore was different, McCarthy explained...
...In McCarthy's nightmare world all such rules are obsolete...
...anybody can be his friend by just being for Joe McCarthy...
...With a pained expression, McCarthy rejected the proposal...
...The Communists, of course, have intensified the problem by hiding behind Constitutional privilege on all occasions...
...on the other hand I consider Whit-taker Chambers one of the country's most distinguished writers...
...the witness chair gives you a view of him that I have never quite got from the Senate gallery or from television shows...
...to which I might have responded that the long adult years in which Budenz remained a key Communist figure, down to the year 1945, undoubtedly gave him access to substantially more secrets than were available to those of us younger fellows who did not tarry so long...
...Having said at one point that he couldn't bring himself to read what he described as "that sheet of yours," he observed a little later that it was perfectly clear that The Post's only editorial policy was opposition to great American legislators engaged in such crusades as his own...
...The first exhibit I offered was a statement issued by The Central Committee of the Communist Party last December which said that the activities of Walter Reuther, David Dubinsky, and myself were largely responsible for wrecking the Communist attempt to roll up a big vote for the Progressive Party Presidential candidate in the 1952 elections...
...When I offered such exhibits McCarthy usually assumed a remote look, like that of a man who has firmly disciplined himself never to hear a fact that might interfere with the business at hand...
Vol. 17 • June 1953 • No. 6
