The Potters Herald

SENATORS STEP OUT ON
McCARTHY RED 'EXPOSE'

Washington (LPA)-Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R, Wis.) presented to the Senate March 30 what he called "documentation" that Owen Lattimore "is a Soviet agent and also that he either is, or at least has been, a member of the Communist party." But his documentation proved neither point.

McCarthy's "evidence" consisted of a series of quotations from unnamed individuals and documents whose authors he did not disclose. From some of the documents he read only phrases, leading to protests from Republican as well as Democratic Senators.

The Wisconsin Senator deliberately bypassed the special committee set up by this Senate to investigate his charges. Instead he made a well advertised appearance before a crowded Senate chamber and packed galleries. But many of his Senatorial listeners had left before he was half through.

Under questioning by his colleagues, McCarthy admitted that "practically all" of his evidence "must be in the hands of the FBI." Only a few days earlier J. Edgar Hoover. Director of the FBI, had strongly hinted that his agency had no case against Lattimore.

Sen. Hubert Humphrey (D, Minn.) said McCarthy was in effect suggesting that Hoover was "so anxious to keep his job" that he would not resign his post rather than let a Soviet spy remain undisclosed.

McCarthy started out on the defensive, trying to pin on Chairman Millard Tydings (D. Md.). of the investigating committee responsibility for disclosing the names of those he was charging with disloyalty, and trying to explain the discrepancy in the figures he had used.

He also backed away from his original charges that the people he was accusing were either card-carrying Communists, or bad security risks. He said which charge applied to a particular individual would require investigation to disclose, but suggested a new phrase 'bad policy risk."

McCarthy's first unnamed witness against Lattimore was a former Communist who said his business in the party was to know all members of importance and who would testify that "Lattimore was known to him to be a member of the Communist party, a member over whom they had disciplinary powers."

Another document, which McCarthy said he was turning over to the FBI. quoted another unnamed individual as saying he had known Lattimore in Moscow in 1936 when he and another individual were "obviously receiving instructions from the Soviet government concerning the line which the Institute of Pacific Relations ought to follow."

Other documents presented by McCarthy were of the guilt-by-association type of evidence, and a letter allegedly written by Lattimore himself, which the Senator refused to read in full. but insisted on reading only in part over the protest of Sen. Tobey (R, NH).

When Tobey quietly suggested he make the entire letter available, McCarthy flatly refused, saying he would "develop each case as I think wise."

Sen. Lehman (D, NY) protested that McCarthy was "making a spectacle" before the galleries and the Senate, instead of presenting his evidence before a committee set up to investigate the charges.

Lehman protested that when a man's loyalty was questioned, the charges against him should be made in a forum where he had a chance to reply at once.

Sen. McMahon (D, Conn.) challenged McCarthy to say whether he was charging Judge Kenyon, Philip Jessup, and others who have refuted his charges, as traitors.

But the Wisconsin Senator would not reply directly, merely asking the Senator to stay and hear his speech.

He tried to make himself out a martyr, who knew when he started the investigation that he would be smeared. But he said, like John