• U.S.

National Affairs: The Neutralizer

3 minute read
TIME

Some people think that Air-Wicks purify the atmosphere by “absorbing” unpleasant odors. Not so. Air-Wicks give off chlorophyll and other scents which neutralize other odors. Tall (6 ft. 3 in.), handsome Manhattan Republican Newbold Morris, billed as the chief investigator to purify the graft-ridden Truman Administration, last week was doing effective duty as an Air-Wick.

A Crimson Creed? Some of Morris’ fellow Republicans in Washington, hardly delighted at his taking the Truman appointment, were doing their best to make him trouble. Almost as soon as he got to Washington, Newbold was linked with the Chinese tanker deal. His law firm had got $100,000 in fees for advising onetime Congressman Joseph Casey of Massachusetts and the group which originally bought the surplus tankers from the Government. Furthermore, Newbold himself headed the China International Foundation, a philanthropic organization which held the stock of United Tanker Corp. (see above), which, in turn, delivered oil to Communist China up to the start of the Korean war.

Last week South Dakota’s G.O.P. Senator Karl Mundt teed off on Morris’ law firm by referring repeatedly to “blood profits” and what he called the “crimson creed” of American interests which had dealt with the Reds. Wisconsin’s Joe McCarthy happily announced (without naming names) that two members of the China International Foundation’s board had been active in Communist-front groups. Then the President, who was presumably hot-eyed also, called Newbold in to hear a few well-chosen words.

While the Republican Senators were working him over, Newbold, with the air of a man who was trying to make somebody else his Air-Wick, had started working over the President. As a guest on the television program Meet the Press, he coolly implied that Truman was holding out on him. He announced that he wanted any of 25,000 Government employees—to whom he has sent questionnaires—to be fired if they refused to tell all about their incomes. He added, threateningly, that he would quit if the President refused to act. He tramped on the President’s toes even harder by sniping at Ambassador to Mexico Bill O’Dwyer and Truman’s longtime pal and palace jester, General Harry Vaughan.

The Angel Gabriel? He would not, Newbold said, have appointed either man in the first place. When he was asked, “Has Vaughan been fired?” he replied, significantly, “Not yet.” He was asked if he thought cabinet members who tolerated corruption should be fired. He answered: “What’s so wonderful about a cabinet member?” He waxed sarcastic when someone wanted to know why Truman had ordered the cleanup drive. “Who,” he intoned, “is to know whether the Angel Gabriel appeared to the President?”

But for all his vigor before the television cameras, Morris left his interview with the President with a chastened look. Asked what Truman had told him, he refused to say, crying: “No, no, capital NO. I’m a guy who talks too much. I’m well known from the Bronx to the Battery as the man who talks too much. This time I’m not talking.” Twice a New York City Council president and twice an unsuccessful anti-Tammany candidate for mayor, he was asked how political infighting in Washington compared with that in New York.

“Up in New York it’s sort of like a pillow fight,” he sighed. “Down here they really sock you.” It looked as though worse lay ahead for Newbold. The Republican Senators had only been whacking him at long range. This week they proposed to question him in person.

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