(7 of 9)
Even Clint Anderson had little hope of defeating Strauss—but he determined that it would not be for lack of trying. Not himself a member of the Commerce Committee, he was notably present during most of the long, disputatious hearings. Appearing as a witness armed with a 42-page attack, Anderson accused Strauss of practicing "deception," telling "unqualified falsehoods" and creating "myths" about his achievements. Having hurled his thunderbolts, Anderson took a seat close behind Wyoming's Gale McGee, a committee member, fed him information and questions to use against Strauss. A liberal with an instinctive dislike for Hoover-Taft Republican Strauss, sometime History Professor McGee, 44, turned out to be Anderson's most eager recruit to the anti-Strauss camp.
Rubber Facts. Even Lewis Strauss's supporters agree that if he had been willing to admit to a few errors, he could have assured his confirmation. But by straining to defend every jot and tittle of his record, he got involved in intricate quibbles and rubber-fact evasions that turned several committee Democrats against him. The 9-to-8 committee vote on Strauss, after 16 days of hearings, was far from the 14-to-3 endorsement that an informal poll of committee members had indicated before Strauss appeared as a witness.
From the 1,128-page record of the hearings, Democrats extracted the main ammunition for attacking Strauss on the Senate floor. Gist of the Democratic charge: Strauss's testimony is sprinkled with half truths and even lies. But the ammunition is small-bore stuff, proving only that under rough and hostile questioning, Strauss can be evasive, quibblesome and not above beclouding a point with big handfuls of debater's dust. Example, one that Gale McGee considers especially damaging to Strauss:
While the hearings were going on, Strauss-hating Columnist Drew Pearson wrote that Strauss had obtained top-secret information from the AEC security file of a hostile witness, Physicist David Inglis. Questioned about the point, Strauss said flatly: "I have never asked for anything on Mr. Inglis in my life." Then the committee put on record a letter from the AEC showing that Strauss had asked for information on Inglis. Strauss argued that by "anything" he meant any secret information, not the few nonconfidential facts he got from AEC; But Strauss stirred up trouble for himself by telling the committee that he asked AEC for these innocuous facts "after" the Pearson column appeared. Actually, the column came out on May 5, and according to the AEC, Strauss asked for data on Inglis "about April 20."