Army–McCarthy hearings | |
---|---|
Event | Senate hearing derived from Senator Joseph McCarthy's hunt for communists in the US |
Time | April–June 1954 |
Place | Washington, D.C. |
Participants | The two sides of the hearing:
|
Chairman | Senator Karl Mundt |
Result | End of the McCarthy era |
The Army–McCarthy hearings were a series of televised hearings held by the United States Senate's Subcommittee on Investigations (April–June 1954) to investigate conflicting accusations between the United States Army and U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy. The Army accused McCarthy and his chief counsel Roy Cohn of pressuring the Army to give preferential treatment to G. David Schine, a former McCarthy aide and friend of Cohn's. McCarthy counter-charged that this accusation was made in bad faith and in retaliation for his recent aggressive investigations of suspected communists and security risks in the Army.
Chaired by Senator Karl Mundt, the hearings convened on March 16, 1954, and received considerable press attention, including gavel-to-gavel live television coverage on ABC and DuMont (April 22 – June 17). The media coverage, particularly television, greatly contributed to McCarthy's decline in popularity and his eventual censure by the Senate the following December.
McCarthy came to national prominence in February 1950 after giving a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, in which he claimed to have a list of 205 State Department employees who were members of the Communist Party. [1] McCarthy claimed the list was provided to but dismissed by Secretary of State Dean Acheson, saying that the "State Department harbors a nest of Communists and Communist sympathizers who are helping to shape our foreign policy". [2] In January 1953, McCarthy began his second term and the Republican Party regained control of the Senate; with the Republicans in the majority, McCarthy was made chairman of the Senate Committee on Government Operations. [3] This committee included the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and the mandate of this subcommittee allowed McCarthy to use it to carry out his investigations of communists in the government. [4] McCarthy appointed 26-year-old Roy Cohn as chief counsel to the subcommittee and future attorney general Robert F. Kennedy as assistant counsel, while reassigning Francis Flanagan to the ad hoc position of general counsel. [5]
In 1953, McCarthy's committee began inquiries into the United States Army, starting by investigating supposed communist infiltration of the Army Signal Corps laboratory at Fort Monmouth. [6] McCarthy's investigations were largely fruitless, but after the Army accused McCarthy and his staff of seeking a direct commission for Private G. David Schine, a chief consultant to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and a close friend of Cohn's who had been drafted into the Army as a private the previous year, McCarthy claimed that the accusation was made in bad faith. [7]
The Senate decided that these conflicting charges should be investigated and the appropriate committee to do this was the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, usually chaired by McCarthy. Since McCarthy was one of the targets of the hearings, Senator Karl Mundt was appointed (to his reported reluctance) to assume his responsibilities as chairman of the subcommittee. [8] John G. Adams served as the Army's counsel for the hearing. [9] Acting as special counsel was Joseph Welch of the Boston law firm of Hale & Dorr (now called WilmerHale). [10] The hearings were broadcast nationally on the new ABC and DuMont networks, and in part by NBC. [11] Francis Newton Littlejohn, the news director at ABC, made the decision to cover the hearings live, gavel-to-gavel. [12] The televised hearings lasted for 36 days and an estimated 80 million people saw at least part of the hearings. [13]
While the hearings went on, a photograph of Schine was introduced, and Welch accused Cohn of doctoring the image to show Schine alone with Army Secretary Robert T. Stevens. [14] On the witness stand Cohn and Schine both insisted that the picture entered into evidence (Schine and Stevens alone) was requested by Stevens and that no one was edited out of the photograph. Welch then produced a wider shot of Stevens and Schine with McGuire AFB wing commander Colonel Jack Bradley standing to Schine's right. A fourth person also edited out of the picture (his sleeve was visible to Bradley's right in the Welch photograph) was identified as McCarthy aide Frank Carr. [15]
After the photograph was discredited, McCarthy produced a copy of a confidential letter he claimed was a January 26, 1951, memo written and sent by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, to Major General Alexander R. Bolling, warning Army intelligence of subversives in the Army Signal Corps. [16] McCarthy claimed the letter was in the Army files when Stevens became secretary in 1953, and that Stevens willfully ignored it. [17] Welch was the first to question the letter's validity, claiming that McCarthy's "purported copy" did not come from Army files; McCarthy stated he never received any document from the FBI, but when questioned on the stand by special Senate counsel Ray Jenkins and cross-examined by Welch, McCarthy, while admitting the document was given to him by an intelligence officer, refused to identify his source.
Robert Collier, assistant to Ray Jenkins, read a letter from Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr., in which he stated that Hoover examined the document and that he neither wrote nor ordered the letter, and that no such copy existed in official FBI records, rendering McCarthy's claims meritless, and the letter spurious.
Though the hearings were sometimes about government subversion, they occasionally took on accusations of a more taboo nature: a portion of the hearings assessed the security risk of homosexuals in government. The issue remained an undercurrent throughout the hearings. One such example of this undercurrent was an exchange between Senator McCarthy and Welch. Welch was questioning McCarthy staff member James Juliana about the unedited picture of Schine with Stevens and Bradley, asking him "Did you think this came from a Pixie?" (a type of camera popular at the time), at which point McCarthy asked to have the question re-read: [18]
McCarthy. Will counsel [i.e. Welch] for my benefit define – I think he might be an expert on that – what a pixie is?
Welch. Yes. I should say, Mr. Senator, that a pixie is a close relative of a fairy. (Laughter from the chamber) Shall I proceed, sir? Have I enlightened you?
McCarthy. As I said, I think you may be an authority on what a pixie is. [19]
At least a portion of the Army's allegations were correct. Cohn did take steps to request preferential treatment for Schine, going so far on at least one occasion to sign McCarthy's name without his knowledge on a request for Schine to have access to the Senators' baths, a pool and steam room reserved exclusively for senators. [20]
The exact relationship between Cohn, McCarthy and Schine remains unknown. Cohn and Schine were certainly close, and rather than work out of the Senate offices, the two rented nearby office space and shared bills. McCarthy commented that Cohn was unreasonable in matters dealing with Schine. It is unclear if Schine ever had a romantic or sexual relationship with Cohn, who was a closeted homosexual (three years after the hearings, Schine married and eventually had six children). Some have also suggested that McCarthy may have been homosexual, and was even possibly involved with Schine or Cohn. [21] [22] [23]
In what played out to be the most dramatic exchange of the hearings, McCarthy responded to aggressive questioning from Army counsel Joseph Welch. On June 9, 1954, day 30 of the hearings, Welch challenged Cohn to give McCarthy's list of 130 subversives in defense plants to the office of the FBI and the Department of Defense "before the sun goes down". [24] In response to Welch's badgering of Cohn, McCarthy suggested that Welch should "check" on Fred Fisher, a young lawyer in Welch's own Boston law firm whom Welch had planned to have on his staff for the hearings. [25] Fisher had once belonged to the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), a group which Attorney General Brownell had called "the legal bulwark of the Communist Party". [26] McCarthy had previously agreed to keep Fisher's involvement in both Welch's law firm and the NLG confidential. In exchange, Welch agreed to leave a controversy regarding Cohn's draft status out of the hearings.
Welch revealed he had confirmed Fisher's former membership in the National Lawyers Guild approximately six weeks before the hearings started. [27] After Fisher admitted his membership in the National Lawyers Guild, Welch decided to send Fisher back to Boston. [28] His replacement by another colleague on Welch's staff was also covered by The New York Times. [29] [30] Welch then reprimanded McCarthy for his needless attack on Fisher, saying "Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness." [31] McCarthy, accusing Welch of filibustering the hearing and baiting Cohn, resumed his attack on Fisher, at which point Welch angrily cut him short: [25]
Senator, may we not drop this? We know he belonged to the Lawyers Guild ... Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator; you've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?
Welch excluded himself from the remainder of the hearings with a parting shot to McCarthy: [32] "Mr. McCarthy, I will not discuss this further with you ... You have seen fit to bring [the Fisher/NLG affair] out, and if there is a God in heaven, it will do neither you nor your cause any good! I will not discuss it further ... You, Mr. Chairman, may as you will, call the next witness!" [33] After Welch deferred to Chairman Mundt to call the next witness, the gallery burst into applause. [34]
Near the end of the hearings, McCarthy and Senator Stuart Symington sparred over the handling of secret files by McCarthy's staff. McCarthy staff director Frank Carr testified that everyone who worked on McCarthy's staff had access to classified files regardless of their level of security clearance. Symington hinted that some members of McCarthy's own staff might themselves be subversive and signed a document agreeing to take the stand in the hearings to reveal their names in return for McCarthy's signature on the same document agreeing to an investigation of his staff. But McCarthy, after calling Symington "Sanctimonious Stu", refused to sign the agreement, claiming it contained false statements, and called the accusations an "unfounded smear" on his men. He then rebuked Symington by saying "You're not fooling anyone!" But Symington retaliated with a prophetic remark of his own: "Senator, the American people have had a look at you now for six weeks; you're not fooling anyone, either." [35]
In Gallup polls from January 1954, McCarthy's approval rating was at 50%, with only 29% disapproving. By June, both percentages had shifted by 16%, with more people (34% approving, 45% disapproving) now rejecting McCarthy and his methods. [36]
After hearing 32 witnesses and two million words of testimony, the committee concluded that McCarthy himself had not exercised any improper influence on Schine's behalf, but that Roy Cohn, McCarthy's chief counsel, had engaged in some "unduly persistent or aggressive efforts" for Schine. The conclusion also reported questionable behavior on the part of the Army: that Secretary Stevens and Army Counsel John Adams "made efforts to terminate or influence the investigation and hearings at Fort Monmouth", and that Adams "made vigorous and diligent efforts" to block subpoenas for members of the Army Loyalty and Screening Board "by means of personal appeal to certain members of the [McCarthy] committee". Before the official reports were released, Cohn had resigned as McCarthy's chief counsel, and Senator Ralph Flanders (R-Vermont) had introduced a resolution of censure against McCarthy in the Senate. [37]
Despite McCarthy's acquittal of misconduct in the Schine matter, the Army–McCarthy hearings ultimately became the main catalyst in McCarthy's downfall from political power. Daily newspaper summaries were increasingly unfavorable toward McCarthy, [38] [39] while television audiences witnessed firsthand the unethical tactics of the junior Senator from Wisconsin.
On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted 67–22 to censure McCarthy, effectively eradicating his influence, though not expelling him from office. [40] McCarthy continued to chair the Subcommittee on Investigations until January 3, 1955, the day the 84th United States Congress was inaugurated; Senator John L. McClellan (D-Arkansas) replaced McCarthy as chairman.
Fred Fisher was relatively unaffected by McCarthy's charges and went on to become a partner in Boston's prestigious Hale & Dorr law firm and organized its commercial law department. He also served as president of the Massachusetts Bar Association and as chairman of many committees of the American and Boston bar associations. [41]
After his censuring, Senator McCarthy continued his anti-communist oratory, often speaking to an empty or near-empty Senate chamber. Turning increasingly to alcohol, McCarthy died of hepatitis on May 2, 1957, at the age of 48. [42]
Joseph Raymond McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death at age 48 in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in the United States in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread communist subversion. He alleged that numerous communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers had infiltrated the United States federal government, universities, film industry, and elsewhere. Ultimately, he was censured for refusing to cooperate with, and abusing members of, the committee established to investigate whether or not he should be censured. The term "McCarthyism", coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist activities. Today, the term is used more broadly to mean demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.
McCarthyism, also known as the Second Red Scare, was the political repression and persecution of left-wing individuals and a campaign spreading fear of alleged communist and Soviet influence on American institutions and of Soviet espionage in the United States during the late 1940s through the 1950s. After the mid-1950s, U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, who had spearheaded the campaign, gradually lost his public popularity and credibility after several of his accusations were found to be false. The U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren made a series of rulings on civil and political rights that overturned several key laws and legislative directives, and helped bring an end to the Second Red Scare. Historians have suggested since the 1980s that as McCarthy's involvement was less central than that of others, a different and more accurate term should be used instead that more accurately conveys the breadth of the phenomenon, and that the term McCarthyism is, in the modern day, outdated. Ellen Schrecker has suggested that Hooverism, after FBI Head J. Edgar Hoover, is more appropriate.
Roy Marcus Cohn was an American lawyer and prosecutor who came to prominence for his role as Senator Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel during the Army–McCarthy hearings in 1954, when he assisted McCarthy's investigations of suspected communists. In the late 1970s and during the 1980s, he became a prominent political fixer in New York City.
Gerard David Schine, better known as G. David Schine or David Schine, was the wealthy heir to a hotel chain fortune who became a central figure in the Army–McCarthy hearings of 1954 in his role as the chief consultant to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
Robert Ten Broeck Stevens was an American businessman and former chairman of J. P. Stevens and Company, which was one of the most established textile manufacturing plants in the US. He served as the Secretary of the Army between February 4, 1953, until July 21, 1955.
William Stuart Symington III was an American businessman and Democratic politician from Missouri. He served as the first Secretary of the Air Force from 1947 to 1950 and was a United States Senator from Missouri from 1953 to 1976.
Point of Order! is a 1963 American documentary film by Emile de Antonio about the Senate Army–McCarthy hearings of 1954.
Joseph Nye Welch was an American lawyer and actor who served as the chief counsel for the United States Army while it was under investigation for Communist activities by Senator Joseph McCarthy's Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, an investigation known as the Army–McCarthy hearings. His confrontation with McCarthy during the hearings, in which he asked McCarthy "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?", is seen as a turning point in the history of McCarthyism.
The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), stood up in March 1941 as the "Truman Committee," is the oldest subcommittee of the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, the Committee broadened its title to Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. PSI led the Committee's broad mandate to "investigate inefficiency, mismanagement, and corruption in Government."
Citizen Cohn is a 1992 made-for-TV movie covering the life of Joseph McCarthy's controversial chief counsel Roy Cohn. James Woods, who starred as Cohn, was nominated for both an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his performance. Citizen Cohn also stars Joe Don Baker, Ed Flanders, Frederic Forrest, and Pat Hingle. It was directed by Frank Pierson. The movie was based on the 1988 book of the same name by Nicholas von Hoffman; it was filmed on location in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Frederick George Fisher Jr. was an American lawyer who first entered the public eye in connection with Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Annie Lee Moss was a communications clerk in the US Army Signal Corps in the Pentagon and alleged member of the American Communist Party. She was believed to be a security risk by the FBI and her superiors at the Signal Corps, and was questioned by United States Senator Joseph McCarthy in his role as the chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The highly publicized case was damaging to McCarthy's popularity and influence.
James Draper St. Clair was an American lawyer, who practiced law for many years in Boston with the firm of Hale & Dorr. He was the chief legal counsel for President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal.
This is a list of notable events in the history of LGBT rights that took place worldwide in the 1950s.
The Green Feather Movement was a series of college protests directed against McCarthyism at the height of the Red Scare in the United States. The movement arose in response to an attempt to censor Robin Hood because of its alleged communist connotations and eventually spread to universities across the nation.
Herman Struve Hensel was an American international lawyer who served in several senior positions in the Department of the Navy and the Department of Defense from 1941 to 1946 and from 1952 to 1955.
Irving Peress was an American dentist and military officer who became a primary target for investigation of alleged communist leanings during the 1954 Army–McCarthy hearings.
Samuel Reber III was a diplomat who spent 27 years in the Foreign Service of the United States, including several years with the Allied High Commission for Germany. Threats by Senator Joseph McCarthy to reveal a homosexual incident in his past forced him to resign quietly from the State Department in 1953. McCarthy later publicly alleged that Reber had been forced to retire because he posed a "security risk."
Theodore Kaghan was an American civil servant and journalist.
Ray Howard Jenkins was an American lawyer, active primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, and the surrounding region, throughout much of the 20th century. He is best known for his role as special counsel to the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations during the 1954 Army-McCarthy Hearings, earning broad praise for his aggressive questioning of the hearings' two complainants, Senator Joseph McCarthy and Secretary of the Army Robert T. Stevens. Jenkins appeared on the cover of Time at the height of the hearings on May 17, 1954.
Twenty-three years ago this month, the curtain rang down on one of Washington's greatest television dramas: Army-McCarthy hearings. At the start, the focus was on G. David Schine, an Army private who had been chief consultant to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which Senator Joseph R. McCarthy headed.
'Presiding over these hearings is a responsibility that I do not welcome.' said by Senator Karl Mundt near beginning of film
Mr. Adams, an Army veteran of World War II, worked on Capitol Hill and for the Defense Department before being named Army general counsel in 1953.
The National Broadcasting Company's television network beginning tomorrow will stop carrying live pickups from the Army–McCarthy hearings in Washington, because 'it cost us a lot of money last week' and might cost advertising goodwill.
Francis Newton 'Fritz' Littlejohn, 97, news director at ABC in 1954 when the network provided gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Army–McCarthy hearings, died of cardiac arrest November 24 at his home in New York City.
Millions of Americans watched the real-life TV drama as McCarthy and Cohn tangled with top Army officials, trading bitter charges and accusations. Army counsel John G. Adams testified that Cohn had threatened to 'wreck the Army.' Army special counsel Joseph N. Welch also accused Cohn of doctoring a photo that was introduced as evidence.(Subscription required.)
Tall, rich, and suave, the Harvard-educated (and heterosexual) Schine contrasted starkly with the short, physically undistinguished, and caustic Cohn.
But so far as Mr. Schine is concerned, there has never been the slightest evidence that he was anything but a good-looking kid who was having a helluva good time in a helluva good cause. In any event, the rumors were sizzling away