INVESTIGATIONS: Schnuffles & Flourishes

Two dapper young men stepped off a MATS plane in Paris last week and set forth on a whirlwind inspection tour. They were Roy Cohn, Senator Joe McCarthy’s No. 1 investigator, and Gerard David

Schine, another McCarthy aide, and they had come to investigate the U.S. Information Service in Europe. Hamburg’s Die Welt promptly dubbed them Schnuffler (snoopers), a name that dogged them through Europe. But in USIS centers from Berlin to Belgrade, all work ceased when they appeared.

Their specific mission, explained Schnuffler Cohn, was to “see if there’s waste and mismanagement, and to pin down responsibility.” They also planned to question possible security risks among employees of the U.S. High Commission for Germany, and, as an added assignment, they would inspect the books on the shelves of USIS libraries. Cohn and Schine reckoned it would take them only about ten days to accomplish their staggering mission.

After twelve hours in Bonn, Cohn proved that he was indeed a fast worker.

Already, he announced at a press conference, “we have some significant things to report.” Asked for specifics, Cohn said portentously that there were not enough copies of the American Legion Magazine in U.S. information libraries. (Later they announced that the libraries contained such magazines as the Nation and the New Republic* works by such authors as Agnes Smedley, Dashiell Hammett, Anna Louise Strong.) Then the pair flew off to Berlin for a quick look at the Soviet cultural center in the Russian zone. There wasn’t time to inspect Berlin’s American library, but in a refugee camp Cohn asked a recent trans-Curtain arrival if he knew who Senator McCarthy was. “Oh yes,” the refugee replied brightly. “That is the general in Japan.”

In Frankfurt, Cohn charged that Theodore Kaghan, deputy director of HICOG’s Public Affairs Division, had once “signed a Communist Party petition and authored pro-Communist plays.” In Bonn, Kaghan said that he was eager to explain to McCarthy and his committee. Moreover, he added, he had been engaged in anti-Soviet propaganda work in Europe “for more years than Senator McCarthy’s two junketing gumshoes have been out of school.” (Cohn and Schine are both 26 years old.) The Schnuffler telephoned Washington frequently, interviewed scores of anonymous Germans and Austrians, refused all social overtures of the press. Though reporters were startled, Cohn remained cool and collected when his wristwatch alarm went off in the midst of a Vienna press conference. By then it was almost time for the Schnuffler to leave Europe, and U.S. Information Service employees could go back to getting some work done.

-Asked about TIME, Cohn replied: “With us, TIME is a swear word.”