McCarthy Dictatorship

Cherington nurses grave doubts about Hoover's role in the White case. "The use of the head of secret police as a witness for political purposes is a portent of things to come. Mr. Hoover possesses files which in times of excitement, passion and departure from due process of law could be used as the justification for imprisoning half a million Americans in concentration campus. I think the FBI now in a position to become the police arm of a McCarthy dictatorship. I think Mr. Hoover is quite capable of operating in this fashion. Despite his denials, Mr. Hoover has been actively engaged in politics since he became director of the FBI in the '20s. He is a power-loving man."

Mark DeWolfe Howe '28, professor of Law, deplores Brownell's selecting only politically favorable information from FBI files for publication. "He's going on the assumption that anything advantageous for the Republicans the public ought to know. All that's been established (by the whole White business) is a little sloppiness in the White House and perhaps a mistaken decision. No evidence has come out to show that any damage was done to the nation.

"I think Eisenhower says something on Monday. does something else on Tuesday, and qualifies both on Wednesday," Howe says. "He has shown a complete failure to control his subordinates." Regarding Dulles' and Eisenrower's recent rebuke of McCarthy, he states, "I think they'll do some qualifying of the vigor of yesterday."

Wires Crossed

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. '38, associate professor of History, feels Brownell for political reasons "created a deliberately false impression of the problems that faced Truman in 1946" when he shifted White from the Treasury to the International Monetary Fund. Given the situation that existed at that time, the Truman Administration's laxity was not in appointing White to a new position, but in allowing him to recruit security risks for his staff, Schlesinger says. Somehow, between Vinson's resignation and John Snyder's appointment, the wires were carelessly crossed.

He believes that Truman was forced to choose the last of three possible alternatives. Since Hoover insisted that under no circumstances could the charges against White be made public, Truman would appear in the position of "destroying the life and career of an apparently able and respected official. White was a skilled infighter and would have raised hell about this. There is no question in my mind that White was leaking information, but I doubt if it could have been proven.

"Elizabeth Bentley never saw White," Schlesinger continues, "Her evidence was all hearsay. But Bentley did work directly with Silvermaster, and Ullmann. Since J. Edgar Hoover says everything she says is true, why not indict these two?"

Schlesinger admits that Truman resorted to "a careless, slothful kind of action to get White out of his hair," but criticizes Brownell and Hoover who "seven years later; on the basis of much better evidence, are failing to take as drastic action as they expected Truman to take in 1946."

Daniel S. Cheever, assistant professor of Government, thinks the whole range of politically inspired spy hunts are merely "a device for making political hay." He would like to see non-partisan groups of respected citizens investigate subversion and report to the people rather than Congressional committees.

"I am convinced that the hounding of career people by individual Congressmen is very, very wrong. I don't mind holding people responsible for failure, but not for judgement. It is enough now to make a public insinuation to discredit a man in the public eye and deter him from doing his work. Career services should not be a football of politics," he insists.

Robert Braucher, professor of Law, denounces Truman's "funny trails" which came in with the loyalty boards set up by Executive Order in the spring of 1947. No witnesses appeared; the suspected security or loyalty risk was confronted with anonymous charges and asked to answer them, Braucher explains. "The kangaroo courts were an evil development of Truman's tightening-up process."

Braucher thinks the Communists-in-government issue is about ended, but sees further ominous, headline-seeking investigation of Communists is industry. "I'm a little bit scared by this whole development. If you extend loyalty probes to private business, you may end up with a sort of ostracism of people. This is quite dangerous when, on the pretext of security, you can force people to starve."

He thinks the GOP will try to parlay its attacks on Truman into long range political cannon-fodder. "In tennis they say when you find an opponent with a wooden leg you force him from side to side, forward and back. You want to tire him. In politics you do much the same thing. The Democrats for twenty years thought they had a man with a wooden leg in Herbert Hoover. Now the Republicans have found their man with a wooden leg: Harry Truman.