National Affairs: A Few Scars

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Smear & Evasion. Far beyond politics, the central issue was the effect the hearings would have on McCarthy's influence in the Senate, in the Administration and in the nation. It might be years before this would be precisely measured, but already most of the U.S. was inclined to view McCarthy's legendary, shadowy power through the unimpressive shades of black & white television. Only a confirmed minority cast him as a dauntless fighter, chipping away singlehanded at the forces of conspiracy and ignorance.

Most televiewers saw not an embattled hero but an impetuous and indiscriminate attacker, who vented his fury on friends and bystanders no less than on his vaguely defined enemies. Having smeared, he impugned smear to others; having sidetracked, he bewailed diversion; having deceived, he charged deception. If he had once been a potential leader in the Republican Party, he now had clearly demonstrated that he lacked the self-discipline necessary in any political organization. If he had once been an effective Communist hunter, the effectiveness was now seriously damaged because he had revealed the nature of his own character.

During the hearings he confounded his own attack. He started out against Stevens and Army Counselor Adams. Later he dragged in Assistant Defense Secretary Hensel (admitting last week that he had assumed Hensel's implication by "adding two and two"), and then hinted that Deputy Attorney General William Rogers was the guilty party. Finally, he charged that he was the victim of a Democratic scheme, masterminded by Harry Truman's onetime counsel, Clark Clifford. By frequently shifting his target, McCarthy revealed his own lack of conviction in his charges.

Judge & Jury. By aiming his fire, for the nonce, away from Republicans and towards Democrats, McCarthy seemed to be luring the party leaders back to their old hope that he might be a good, useful party sharpshooter after all. When Vermont's Ralph Flanders introduced a motion in the Senate to remove McCarthy from committee chairmanships, Senate Majority Leader Bill Knowland told him it was a "mistake," pleading that it might "completely block" the legislative program. A top G.O.P. adviser stated the Administration's cautious new policy: "We'll watch everything McCarthy does, and when he's reasonable and behaving like a Senator, we'll cooperate."

At week's end Joe McCarthy flew out to the Wisconsin state Republican convention and told its cheering delegates that he would continue his tactics, "even if I leave a few scars on my own party." The scars on the party were already there for all to see. It was now up to the party to see that none would be left on the U.S. body politic.