INVESTIGATIONS: Cold Eye

Thrill-thriving U.S. radio commentators and newspaper columnists could hardly conceal their chagrin last week at the course of the coldly efficient, seemingly drab censure hearings against Senator Joseph R. McCarthy. But the hard fact was—and nobody knew it better than McCarthy—that the special committee headed by Utah’s Republican Senator Arthur V. Watkins was acting as the finally awakened conscience of the U.S. Senate.

It was from the Senate that McCarthy derived his investigating power, and it is against the Senate’s traditions that he has transgressed. And now the cold, legal eye of the Senate was examining him as he had never been examined before.

Losing Game. All week, McCarthy and his young lawyer, Edward Bennett Williams, sought to show that Joe had not overstepped the bounds of proper senatorial behavior. McCarthy’s defense was aimed at proving that McCarthy acted precisely as have other Senators, past and present. For the first time since his Wheeling speech in 1950, Joe was trying to lose himself among his colleagues.

Replying to the charge that McCarthy urged Government employees to give him classified documents, Lawyer Williams attempted to show that other Senators have done the same thing. But Chairman Watkins pointed out that his committee was investigating only McCarthy, not the other Senators.

How Far Dare They Go? The basic differences between McCarthy and the spirit of the Senate shone most clearly in an exchange between Watkins and McCarthy about the role of the Senate investigator. Taking off from McCarthy’s celebrated attack on Brigadier General Ralph Zwicker (when he said Zwicker was unfit to wear a general’s uniform), Watkins asked McCarthy: “What is your view with respect to the right of Senators to lecture witnesses, or sort of pass judgment on them, whether they are guilty and all that sort of thing, in connection with these hearings?” Replied Joe: “I think it is part of the crossexamination. [A Senate investigator] can make comments. He can try to induce a witness to tell the truth, and oftentimes you have a witness that you can induce to tell the truth … I think there should be considerable latitude in crossexamination. That is the only way you can get at the facts.”

Said Watkins gravely: “… I am very curious about this whole thing because I have held a number of hearings myself as a member of the Internal Security Committee … I know the exasperation and irritation and provocation there is in a very strong degree with some of the witnesses. But I have always wondered how far I dared to go. I don’t think I have come to the extent yet of finding [a witness] guilty of anything.”

Short Walk. Try as he might to be the old McCarthy, Joe could not seem to escape the spell of the cold eye. At one point he was arguing that the committee should accept in evidence the notorious 2¼ page summary of an FBI document (which Joe had produced at the Army-McCarthy hearing—TIME, May 17). North Carolina’s Sam Ervin interrupted him in midsentence. “May I finish, please?” McCarthy asked Chairman Watkins. Watkins replied bluntly: “You may when Senator Ervin has stated his position.” “O.K.,” snapped Joe.

He stood up, pushed his hands into his pants pockets, turned away from the committee and walked toward the audience. For perhaps a minute he stood there, with his back to the committee, as though contemplating a walkout, then suddenly swung around and took his seat again. Moments later he addressed the chair. “Mr. Chairman,” he said softly, “tomorrow morning could I have the privilege of … giving my position without interruption?” Replied Watkins: “Now, we can’t say you won’t be interrupted … I certainly would interrupt you if I thought you were going outside the rules and getting into a completely diversionary matter.”

Disconcerting Turn. Ultimately the committee agreed to read the FBI summary—a factor which McCarthy believed would work in his favor. But like all the rest of Joe’s minor triumphs, this one took a disconcerting turn. After reading it, the committee ruled unanimously that it was too hot to publish.* Did this mean that the committee believed that Joe had as charged, violated U.S. security?

The committee did not so much as hint its feelings by the flicker of an eyelash. But as the hearings moved to a close this week, seasoned reporters sensed that the cold eye had seen right through Joe McCarthy, that the committee would either recommend censure itself, or would present facts to the Senate which would be persuasive argument for a vote of censure by the entire Senate.

*Although Columnist Walter Winchell testified (see PRESS) that he had surreptitiously been handed a copy of the summary in May.