Atlanta Daily World

Flanders Flays McCarthy's Drive Against His Critics

WASHINGTON—(INS)—Sen. Ralph E. Flanders (R) Vt., charged last night that Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy was conducting a "deliberate campaign" to "drive from public life" all senators who have dared to criticize him.

Flanders' statement was made in a letter accompanying additional documentation submitted to the Watkins committee in support of Flanders demand for censure of the Wisconsin Republican.

The supporting documentation consisted of quotations from newspaper stories, senate hearings and reports.

Flanders made public his letter to Sen. Arthur V. Watkins (R) Utah, who heads the special committee now preparing a report on evidence taken on the censure question.

The Vermonter conceded that Senators and other public figures "cannot be thin-skinned," but added: "The statements about other Senators quoted in support of the censure motion constitute not harmless hyperbole but attacks in vulgar and base language impugning the integrity and loyalty of individual senators and degrading the dignity of the senate as an institution of American public life."

STARTED IN 1949

He said McCarthy's attacks started in 1949. He continued: "A careful tracing of this pattern through these years shows clearly a deliberate campaign to discredit and degrade and if possible drive from public life all those senators who dare to criticize Senator McCarthy.

"Sen. McCarthy learned early in this campaign that he need not stay within the bounds of self-restraint which had become implicitly the standard of conduct prevailing in the Senate. He discovered that the 'Indian Charlie' tactics which he had employed with such notable success in his political life prior to coming to the Senate could be used with more or less impunity and in addition provided him with wide publicity.

"He learned that by attacking his Republican and Democratic colleagues, he could rise from complete obscurity to national prominence.