Papers Show Sen. McCarthy Was Sizing Up His Victims

The Senate on Monday opened long-sealed transcripts of closed-door hearings conducted by Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, removing a last layer of secrecy surrounding the tactics he employed during his infamous hunt for communists in the government 50 years ago.

The newly released documents are replete with examples of the abrasive style McCarthy and his aides, especially chief counsel Roy M. Cohn, used in interrogating witnesses about their political beliefs and those of their families, neighbors and co-workers. They also offer instances of witnesses holding their own.

For example, after composer Aaron Copland denied ever having been a communist, McCarthy hectored the composer, “You have what appears to be one of the longest communist-front records of anyone we have had here.”

Copland replied, “I spend my days writing symphonies, concertos, ballads, and I am not a political thinker.”

Copland was never called to appear at a public hearing.

Indeed, the 4,232 pages of testimony show that McCarthy used the closed-door hearings to help decide who to summon to a public session, said Donald A. Ritchie, the Senate’s associate historian. “He didn’t want the witness to outshine him,” Ritchie said. “The people he chose not to call into public session were the ones who stood up to him the most” in private.

Another historian compared the private hearings to dress rehearsals for the public sessions. “Like putting the show on the road in Hartford [Conn.], where it could be tested before the Broadway opening,” said Richard Fried, a history professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago who has written about McCarthy.

The ruthless search by the Republican from Wisconsin for communists made “McCarthyism” a synonym for witch hunts.

The Cold War was at its height and some of those investigated by McCarthy -- as well as by the House Un-American Activities Committee -- had been communists or had past links to the Communist Party. But the charges of widespread infiltration of the government by communists or their sympathizers did not pan out, and the newly released documents seem to add no credence to the allegations.

None of the witnesses who appeared before McCarthy at the private sessions was imprisoned for any statements related to their testimony. Many, however, lost their jobs for declining to answer questions.

The hearings by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations that McCarthy headed were held in 1953 and 1954.

More than 500 witnesses were summoned to appear before the panel -- some famous, such as Copland, author Dashiell Hammett and poet Langston Hughes, but mostly unknown bureaucrats or soldiers. McCarthy frequently sought to intimidate the witnesses.

At a February 1954, hearing, an Army colonel refused to answer questions, citing a presidential order against the disclosure of Army personnel and security records. McCarthy chided him.

“I will listen to no Army officer protecting a communist, and you are going to answer these questions or your case will come before the Senate for contempt,” McCarthy told the officer. “Any man in the uniform of his country who refuses to give information to a committee of the Senate ... that man is not fit to wear the uniform of his country.”

But Lt. Col. Chester Brown said, “May I say, sir, as a soldier, it is my duty to obey my military superiors.”

While McCarthy informed witnesses of their 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination, he portrayed any refusal to answer questions as an admission of guilt.

At one hearing, McCarthy told a Brooklyn teacher who had invoked the 5th Amendment: “You have an opportunity of saying you are or you are not a communist. If you are not, it is to your benefit to say so.... If you are, you should avail yourself of the 5th Amendment.”

McCarthy also told the teacher that her refusal to cooperate would probably cause her to be fired.

Clarence Hiskey, a chemist summoned to a June 1953 hearing, told McCarthy, “I don’t think you understand the whole purpose of the 5th Amendment, senator. That amendment was put into the Constitution to protect the innocent man from just this kind of star chamber proceeding you are carrying on.”

McCarthy was censured by his colleagues in 1954 for conduct unbecoming a senator and his public stature quickly faded. A heavy drinker, he died at age 48 in 1957.

Under Senate rules, the records from closed Senate hearings are sealed for 50 years to protect the privacy of witnesses.

McCarthy, who rose from obscurity with his accusations of widespread communist influence in the government -- especially the State Department -- conducted 161 private hearings as head of the subcommitee.

The hearings also gave McCarthy an opportunity to put his own spin on events, historians said.

Ritchie said McCarthy could “control the story by stepping into the hall and giving his version to the press, and his version was often grossly distorted and exaggerated.” An engineer, for example, broke down during one of the hearings.

“There was a headline: ‘Radar Witness Breaks Down,’ ” Fried said. “The implication was that he had been confronted with evidence and had tearfully confessed. The reality was that his mother had died two days previously, and his emotions caught up with him during the hearing.”

Current senators and McCarthy scholars welcomed the new disclosures, saying that they would serve as a reminder of the dangers of government excesses.

“These hearings are a part of our national past that we can neither afford to forget nor permit” to recur, Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said in a preface to the five-volume set of documents, which were also were posted on the Web site of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.

Norman Dorsen, a New York University law professor who as a young lawyer worked with the Army during the McCarthy hearings, added: “The current generation, while knowing that McCarthy was notorious and -- depending on your viewpoint -- a lonely fighter against Communism or a despoiler of American liberties, probably could not describe just what it was that led to the noun McCarthyism.”

Public opinion turned against McCarthy in 1954 after Edward R. Murrow, in his “See It Now” television broadcast, took on the senator, and after televised hearings of a dispute between McCarthy and officials representing the Army.

After McCarthy accused a young lawyer of having been a member of the National Lawyers Guild “long after it had been exposed as the legal arm of the Communist Party,” Army special counsel Joseph N. Welch confronted McCarthy as few others had dared to do in public.

“Until this moment, senator, I think I had never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.... Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

The moment, a memorable one in the early history of television, was widely viewed as exposing McCarthy’s bullying nature.

McCarthy’s tactics led the Senate to revise its rules governing investigations, including removing the chairman’s exclusive authority over staffing.

Levin said he is mindful of McCarthy’s tactics when questioning witnesses. “Nobody wants to engage in conduct which would subject oneself to that label of McCarthyism,” he said.

To read the transcripts, go to latimes.com/mccarthy

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

McCarthy’s line of questioning

Excerpts from transcripts of closed-door hearings conducted by Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy (R-Wis.) in 1953-54. The transcripts were unsealed Monday by the Senate.

Aaron Copland

In May 1953, McCarthy and his chief counsel, Roy M. Cohn, questioned composer Aaron Copland about his associations with communists.

McCarthy: Have you ever been a communist sympathizer?

Copland: I am not sure I would be able to say what you mean by the word “sympathizer.” ...

McCarthy: Did you ever attend a communist meeting?

Copland: I am afraid I don’t know how you define a communist meeting....

Cohn: What was your view of the Hitler-Stalin pact -- 1939 to 1941?

Copland: I don’t remember any specific view of it....

Cohn: Do you feel communists should be allowed to teach in our schools?

Copland: I haven’t given the matter such thought as to come up with an answer.

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Eslanda Goode Robeson

In July 1953, McCarthy and Cohn questioned Eslanda Goode Robeson, the wife of blacklisted singer-actor Paul Robeson, about her communist affiliations.

Cohn: Now, Mrs. Robeson, are you a member of the Communist Party?

Robeson: Under the protection afforded me by the 5th and 15th amendments, I decline to answer.

Cohn: The 15th?

Robeson: Yes, the 15th. I am Negro, you know. I have been brought up to seek protection under the 15th Amendment as a Negro....

McCarthy: The 15th Amendment has nothing to do with it. That provides the right to vote.

Robeson: I always understood it has something to do with my being a Negro and I have always sought protection under it.

McCarthy: Negro or white, Protestant or Jews, we are all American citizens here and you will answer the question as such. The question is: Are you a communist today? If you feel the answer will tend to incriminate you, you can refuse to answer.

Robeson: What confuses me a little bit about what you said -- you see, I am a second-class citizen in this country and, therefore, feel the need of the 15th. That is the reason I use it. I am not quite equal to the rest of the white people....

McCarthy: You are being ordered to answer whether you feel a truthful answer will tend to incriminate you.

Robeson: Under the 5th and 15th amendments, I refuse to answer.

McCarthy: You are ordered to answer.

Robeson: I will have to consult my lawyer. I don’t understand this....

McCarthy: The counsel is informed I am asking the full committee to cite the witness for contempt. She has refused to give us information and taken refuge under the 15th Amendment....

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Compiled from wire and staff reports

Los Angeles Times