PART TWO
THE INQUISITION

Chapter Fifteen
Top Soviet Spy

Until 1950 Owen Lattimore was a typically inner-directed, iconoclastic scholar. The constraints on his independence were self-chosen and only mildly inhibiting. No organizational bureaucracy stifled his creative thought, neither the Institute of Pacific Relations, nor Johns Hopkins, nor even the Chinese Nationalist government. He said what he thought, and it was often unconventional.

In 1950 all this changed. He found his life taken charge of by lawyers, his privacy invaded by reporters and government sleuths, and his formerly freewheeling discourse forced to conform to the end of proving that he was not a tool of the Kremlin. For five and a half years the inquisition ran his life. The Lattimore story became a part of America's anti-Communist pathology.

The year began happily enough when President Truman announced disengagement from the struggle in China on January 5. The White Paper had exacerbated Republican dissatisfaction with China policy; Asia-first senators were pressing for a commitment to the remnant Nationalist regime on Taiwan. Truman wanted to put a stop to this talk. Disregarding the advice of his staff and of Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson (but agreeing with Secretary of State Dean Acheson), Truman read a statement at his morning press conference January 5: the United States had no predatory designs on Taiwan and would not establish military bases there, nor would it interfere in the Chinese civil war.^[1]

Lattimore was pleased. He knew that American policy in Asia had to be built on the reality of nationalism and that continued support of a discredited regime could only increase Asian resentment at American meddling.

A week later, in Acheson's famous "defense perimeter" speech, the administration clarified its Asian policy further. Military authorities, including MacArthur, had drawn a defense line in the Pacific that included Japan, Okinawa, and the Philippines, but excluded Taiwan and Korea. This defense line had been reported in the world's press; the Russians already knew well what American plans were. Acheson merely restated them on January 12 in a speech to the National Press Club; but in the heightened tension of 1950 his speech attracted a great deal of attention.^[2]

Lattimore also approved of the defense perimeter. He thought South Korea was a loser under Syngman Rhee, who was as out of touch with his people as Chiang had been. He believed, as did the Department of State and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that South Korea was not a viable government and could not defend itself against a Soviet-supported attack from the north. And, like official Washington, he felt that American defense dollars were better spent elsewhere.^[3]

Republican pique at Truman's hands-off stance toward China was intense. The China bloc in Congress, egged on by General Chennault, William Bullitt, the right-wing press, and Chiang's various representatives in the United States, began a long and powerful campaign to support Chiang for an effort to retake the mainland. This campaign was reinforced on January 21, when Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury.

The Hiss case had dragged through the courts all during 1949. A first trial, ending in July with a hung jury, was followed by a second. In both trials Whittaker Chambers was the crucial witness against Hiss. The second jury believed Chambers; and the conspiracy theories of Alfred Kohlberg, up to then generally ignored, received powerful reinforcement. There were traitors in the government conspiring to promote Soviet plans for world conquest. Hiss had been at Yalta, where China was "sold down the river." Hiss had been the assistant to Stanley Hornbeck, head of the Far Eastern desk at the State Department. Hiss had been general secretary of the United Nations Founding Conference at San Francisco. Now it was proved to the satisfaction of a jury that Hiss had been a Communist, working all along to deliver China into the hands of the enemy.

It is hardly possible to exaggerate the importance of the Hiss conviction to the developing witch-hunt. If this pillar of the foreign policy establishment could be a traitor, treason could be anywhere. Worse still, Secretary Acheson, who presided over the whole conspiratorial apparatus, refused now to disown Hiss. At a press conference January 25 Acheson was asked if he had any comment on the Hiss case. He refused to discuss legal aspects of the case but said friends of Hiss had to make a personal decision.

His own decision had been made: "I do not intend to turn my back on Alger Hiss." The standards that impelled him to this position "were stated on the Mount of Olives and if you are interested in seeing them you will find them in the 25th Chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew beginning with verse 34."^[4] Congress, according to Acheson, flew into a tantrum. However motivated Acheson was by Christian charity, his words served as gasoline to the fires of Asia-first resentment.

All writers on the McCarthy years acknowledge that the Hiss verdict convinced a vast constituency that treason in the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt was widespread. It also showed that ex-Communists such as Whittaker Chambers were perceived as credible, and it demonstrated that politicians pursuing subversives could achieve national status, as Nixon did. All of these outcomes were salient for Owen Lattimore.

The tempo of traumatic events early in 1950 continued unabated. It was front-page news for every paper in the country when President Truman announced on January 30 that the United States would develop a hydrogen bomb. And on February 3 Klaus Fuchs, who had worked on the American atomic bomb project during the war but was now in England, confessed that he had passed atomic information to the Russians. Three days later the Republican National Committee announced "Liberty against Socialism" as the major issue of the 1950 congressional elections. The party statement declared: "We advocate a strong policy against the spread of communism or fascism at home and abroad, and we insist that America's efforts toward this end be directed by those who have no sympathy either with communism or fascism."^[5] No one realized, that early in the campaign, how many thousands of people would be charged with sympathy for communism.

Lattimore's attention to these events was distracted by a request from the United Nations that he head a technical assistance mission to Afghanistan, exploring the kinds of economic aid appropriate for that country. The timing of this request was awkward. His lecture schedule in 1949 had kept him away from Baltimore more than normal, he had just returned from a three-week trip to India, and the Johns Hopkins Mongol project needed his attention. On the positive side, he strongly supported the UN, and Afghanistan was a part of the Sino-Soviet border he had never visited.

The Afghan mission would require that he be gone the month of March on an exploratory trip and then for the period from June to September to negotiate final agreements with the Afghan government. This was a big chunk of time. He was uneasy about accepting the assignment and wrote

John W. Gardner of the Carnegie Corporation, which supplied the major funding for his Mongol project, that he would not go if Carnegie thought he would be slighting the Mongols. Gardner replied that he thought the Mongol project well enough organized that it could safely be left in the hands of Lattimore's associates while he went to Afghanistan.^[6] Lattimore therefore accepted and prepared for this new venture. He was to leave March 6.

There was another project to be attended to before he left. The rapid advances of the Chinese Communists into Tibet suggested that that area would be under their control in a year or two. Lattimore believed this overthrow would mean loss to the scholarly world, perhaps permanently, of the priceless manuscripts in Tibetan monasteries. Lattimore talked about prospects for rescuing these manuscripts with Dr. Arthur Hummel of the Library of Congress. Hummel, an orientalist, was convinced that Lattimore was right and suggested that the matter be put to Luther Evans, the Librarian. Lattimore wrote Evans on February 26, 1950: "As country after country comes under communist control it is cut off from the scholarship of the world, as well as from other contacts. There usually follows a scramble in which a few refugee scholars are brought to the United States or other countries and a few books, manuscripts, and other materials are salvaged. Such salvage is, however, just that—unplanned salvage. Tibet is clearly doomed to come under control of the Chinese Communists. There is, however, time for a planned salvage operation. . . . a wealth of material never yet worked on by Western scholars could be brought out during the next few months."^[7]

Lattimore then described to Evans the major sources of manuscripts and what might be found; recommended that the Dilowa Hutukhtu be used to negotiate with Tibetan authorities; explained how Indian cooperation could be obtained; and urged prompt action before the curtain was rung down on Tibet. It was a prescient effort. Perhaps, had the United States not contracted inquisition fever, Luther Evans and the Library of Congress might have acquired the treasure trove of Lama Buddhist lore later destroyed in Mao's Cultural Revolution. As it happened, doctrinal purity took precedence over any kind of scholarship, especially esoteric orientalia.

While Lattimore was wrestling with a decision on Afghanistan, the FBI was wrestling with the problem of keeping up with Lattimore. Lacking a wiretap, the Baltimore office had trouble knowing where and when he was traveling. His home in Ruxton was like the farm in Bethel, Vermont: poor cover for spies. As SAC McFarlin complained to Hoover on February

16, "The peculiar location of the LATTIMORE home eliminates any possibility of successful physical surveillance without the aid of a technical surveillance."^[8]

The Baltimore office had other troubles. McFarlin was worried about the local vigilantes. After the American Legion put Lattimore on its black-list, ultrarightists in Baltimore began their own "investigations." Two of them were serious threats to the bureau.^[9]

One of the vigilantes was a woman whose name the FBI will not divulge. She had been to the Baltimore FBI office several times, alerting them to Lattimore's subversive influence on impressionable Hopkins students and protesting his alleged role in formulating American China policy. McFarlin told headquarters in his February 16 letter that there was "the ever-present possibility that she will present the matter to the House Committee on Un-American Activities or other persons placed in high political positions in Washington, D.C., in which event there might be undesirable repercussions on the Bureau."^[10]

Subsequent serials in the Lattimore file show that the bureau had trouble deciding how w handle the female informant. The matter was serious enough to wind up in the hands of Assistant Director D. M. Ladd. Writing to Hoover on February 17, Ladd recommended that the woman not be contacted again; her charges against Lattimore were trivial. But Hoover reversed Ladd; he did not want HUAC to get potentially important information from an informant directly. His embarrassment at Nixon's getting information from Chambers still rankled. Baltimore was therefore instructed to contact the woman, make sure that she had no new information, and convince her that the bureau was on top of the case. Baltimore found nothing new, and the woman apparently did not go to HUAC.^[11]

A more serious private crusade against Lattimore was conducted by Kenneth Hammer, Maryland American Legion commander and chair of its Americanism Commission. According to Daniel H. Burkhardt, who was closely associated with Hammer as adjutant of the Maryland department of the Legion, Hammer was an attorney-investigator who had learned the trade as a military intelligence agent during the war.^[12] Burkhardt thought Hammer brilliant; the bureau thought him dangerous. Hammer's activities included efforts to get the Baltimore police to tap Lattimore's telephone, amateur surveillance of Lattimore and the Mongols, and frequent calls to SAC McFarlin. The bureau wanted none of this freelancing. Headquarters Security Division dispatched Lee Pennington, a midlevel bureau official, to dampen Hammer's vendetta against Lattimore.

Pennington and McFarlin called on Hammer at Baltimore headquarters of the Legion February 23, 1950. As Pennington reported to Ladd, "It was pointed out to [Hammer] that we were very much perturbed concerning ——— activities in the Lattimore case and hoped that all information would be referred to us instead of being disseminated to a number of agencies and a policeman. It was pointed out to [Hammer] the activities of over zealous individuals might undo considerable work on the part of the Bureau and result in individuals under suspicion becoming aware that their activities were being scrutinized."^[13]

Hammer agreed to back off, though it must have been hard for him. By the time of the Pennington visit McCarthy was riding high, Lattimore had been named as a dangerous subversive before the Senate, and Hammer's sedulous work was getting him no credit at all.

Joe McCarthy was now getting all the attention, and attention was what he wanted most. His ruthlessness was not channeled, as was Nixon's, to gain him higher office. McCarthy learned early that careful and constructive work, such as he did on the postwar housing problem, had no headline appeal. His publicity improved when he charged into the Malmedy investigation, attacking the U.S. army and defending German SS troops who had massacred American soldiers.^[14] In 1949 McCarthy generated considerable notice by red-baiting the Madison Capitol Times . But he was still in the minor leagues. Nixon's coup with the Hiss case was the kind of promotion he needed.

McCarthy selected communism as the theme for his famous Wheeling speech on February 9, 1950, and his use of the issue caught fire. He did not content himself with generalized charges of subversion or treason or Communist sympathy. He gave numbers and claimed that his numbers represented current traitors, still working and making policy in the State Department. They were all known as risks to Secretary Acheson, who was protecting them. When the Democrats demanded that he put up or shut up, he named names. That was all it took.

McCarthy stepped up the tempo of the anti-Communist crusade far beyond any other evangelist. We know much about the character of the senator, of his devotion to the scabrous and scatological, from two extensive biographies by Thomas Reeves and David Oshinsky. Daniel Bell and his collaborators in The Radical Right show how McCarthy appealed to the status insecurities of both ethnic and religious groups. Richard Fried, Nelson Polsby, and Michael Rogin emphasize the part played in the McCarthy saga by Republican politicians for straightforward political rea-

sons. Edwin Bayley has shown McCarthy's consummate skill at anticipating news deadlines and manipulating the media.^[15]

But an adequate account of the McCarthy power must deal with his instinct for reaching the dark places of the American mind. His "proof" was vacuous. Even though he bought the Kohlberg agenda, he did not really address the issues of China policy. He alluded to and presupposed these arguments. His direct appeal was to fear and conspiracy. Robert Griffith's classic book on McCarthy is aptly titled The Politics of Fear .

McCarthy sensed the country's need for simple answers to the challenges of the cold war, and he provided them. Clean out the conspirators (Acheson, Jessup, Lattimore), jail the traitorous dentist (Dr. Peress), fire the disloyal military (Marshall, Zwicker), and fortune will again smile on the United States.^[16]

He came along when the climate was ready for this message, when many of America's military and masculine self-images had been bruised and battered. He had a technique that his colleagues could only view with awe. Without the McCarthy genius to underwrite the China lobby, the China myths could never have taken such powerful hold. William Know-land may have deserved the disparaging title "Senator from Formosa," but he was an honorable and decent man. Kenneth Wherry may have exaggerated a bit when he told a cheering crowd, while it was still conceivable that Chiang Kai-shek might endure, that "with God's help, we will lift Shanghai up and up, ever up, until it's just like Kansas City," but Wherry would not have descended into gutter politics without McCarthy's guidance.^[17] Styles Bridges, Homer Capehart, Bourke Hickenlooper, H. Alexander Smith—these were vigorous partisans, but they were not without honor. It was McCarthy who engineered the descent into diabolism. Senator Arthur Watkins, the ultraconservative Utah Mormon who chaired the McCarthy censure committee, said that McCarthy took us into "depths as dark and fetid as ever stirred on this continent."^[18]

For a while it appeared that McCarthy's crusade would abort. The Wheeling speech and his subsequent addresses at Denver, Salt Lake City, and Reno contained nothing substantial, and Democrats were outraged. He did name specific "security risks," citing Hiss, John Service, Harlow Shapley, and two unknowns, but he had little to back up his charges. When he went before the Senate on February 20, he was still talking about these same people and dealing with others who were only numbers. He had no evidence. Senator Robert Taft, called "Mr. Republican" by the pundits, said it was "a perfectly reckless performance."^[19] But McCarthy

had gotten attention, and the Democratic leadership established a committee under conservative Maryland Senator Millard Tydings to investigate the loyalty of State Department employees; now McCarthy had a center ring in which to stage his circus. On March 8, two days after Lattimore left for Kabul, the Tydings hearings opened.^[20] For Lattimore, these hearings were an affront to many of his State Department friends, but no personal threat. He had never worked for State.

McCarthy was now a magnet for all the Soviet haters and most of the China lovers in the country. Naturally Kohlberg was among those who unloaded their files on this new spokesman. Keeley, Kohlberg's biographer, writes that Kohlberg and McCarthy did not meet until March 23 or 24, after McCarthy had fingered Lattimore before the Senate.^[21] But McCarthy had obtained the Kohlberg materials well before that; they had metastasized throughout the fanatical right wing. He got them from J. B. Matthews, from Willard Edwards and Walter Trohan of the Chicago Tribune , and from George Sokolsky, Westbrook Pegler, and Howard Rushmore of Hearst, all of whom were primed to provide the China sellout story.

McCarthy's first efforts to give Tydings a comprehensive account of government security risks centered on Judge Dorothy Kenyon, whom he falsely claimed held a prominent State Department appointment and belonged to twenty-eight Communist fronts. But as Oshinsky notes, "McCarthy's verbiage outran his evidence."^[22] It developed that Kenyon's only connection with the State Department was as an unpaid delegate to the UN Commission on the Status of Women. For this she did not even need a security clearance. And only one of the subversive connections he charged against her had any cogency. When Kenyon appeared before Tydings, she gave a most convincing account of her loyalty. The case against Kenyon dissolved in short order.

McCarthy then moved on to Philip Jessup, who was a high State Department official but who also came before Tydings fortified with powerful evidence of his patriotism. Then McCarthy took potshots at seven other people, resurrecting the Service case and adding, for the first time, Owen Lattimore. This was on March 13. But it was hit and run, without substantial payoff, and McCarthy continued to lose ground.

He now saw that he needed a flagship case such as Nixon had had. On March 21 he claimed to have found it. Since Hiss had become such a symbol of subversion and had been judged guilty by a jury of his peers, why not top the charges against Hiss? Why not produce the very top of the spy ring, the "boss" of Alger Hiss?

It is not clear how McCarthy settled on Lattimore. Kohlberg would be the most likely source for the idea of making Lattimore into a Soviet spymaster, but if Keeley is correct, and McCarthy did not meet Kohlberg until two days after he promoted Lattimore to the exalted position of "top Soviet spy," Kohlberg could not have talked him into it.

The FBI was bereft of any explanation. Their files contained nothing even suggesting such a role for Lattimore. But they were concerned. Nixon had stolen a march on them in pressing the attack on Hiss. Were McCarthy now to sell a bill of goods on Lattimore, Hoover would indeed look bad.

One explanation of how McCarthy settled on Lattimore made the rounds of the State Department· Francis Sayre, who was in the State Department at the time, attended a conference in Geneva where he heard that McCarthy was going to name him as a spy. Sayre, a past president of the National Council of Churches (NCC), went for help to his old friend John Foster Dulles, also a former NCC president. Dulles allegedly went to see McCarthy and told him to lay off Sayre. McCarthy just laughed. "Sure, why not, we have lots more names in this file," he replied, and without looking, reached into a drawer and pulled out the Lattimore folder.^[23] The story has this much plausibility: McCarthy's methods were that haphazard and reckless.

But McCarthy had a brilliant sense of timing and a sure instinct for what an uncritical press and a disillusioned public would buy. He passed the word to newsmen that he was about to name "the top espionage agent in the United States, the boss of Alger Hiss." This announcement got everyone's attention, and he let it simmer for several days. Then he told Jack Anderson, with whom he was on good terms, that "Mr. X" was Owen Lattimore, but this information was not for attribution. He also told Anderson "a Gothic tale about Communist spies who had been landed on the Atlantic coast by an enemy submarine and who hastened to Lattimore for their orders."

Shortly thereafter McCarthy named Lattimore in a secret session of the Tydings committee, and as Anderson puts it, "named him with a finality that was awesome in its bridge-burning: '. . . definitely an espionage agent . . . one of the top espionage agents . . . the top Russian spy . . . the key man in a Russian espionage ring.' Propelled by the gambler's bravura, he raised the bid even higher: 'I am willing to stand or fall on this one'" (Anderson's ellipses).^[24]

McCarthy made his executive session charge against Lattimore on March 21. It leaked immediately. Peyton Ford, assistant to the attorney general,

called the FBI late that afternoon to request a summary of the Lattimore file. Attorney General McGrath reported to President Truman, who was vacationing in Florida; in turn, Truman asked that the whole Lattimore file be sent him.^[25]

Hoover balked at this request. He could not let the complete file get out of his hands. The White House might blow the anonymity of some of the informants, and illegal and compromising activities by the bureau would be revealed. The bureau had been partly responsible for the collapse of the Amerasia case because of illegalities; such a debacle could not be allowed to happen again. So Hoover told Truman that the bureau could not part with the Lattimore file, which by now consisted of ten volumes and several thousand pages. He told McGrath that the case was active; the files were in constant use and "if released would seriously impair our investigative work. . . . As an alternative, I am having prepared a complete summary of the information developed . . . which I am transmitting to Mr. Peyton Ford."^[26] This was the "complete summary" that was later shown to the Tydings committee; it was also sent to the president.

But Hoover covered all bases. In case he was ordered to release the complete file, he put a crew to work making photocopies of the whole thing. Ladd, in a memo to Hoover of March 24, reported, "(1) The complete Lattimore file has been photostated in accordance with your instructions. (2) The brief on the Lattimore case is being worked on. Supervisors will work Saturday and Sunday and have it ready Monday." Hoover responded, "I must have this Sunday afternoon."^[27]

Just to make sure the director realized how compromising the Lattimore file could be, Supervisor A. H. Belmont instructed the compilers of the "complete summary" to make a list of compromising items. Belmont reported the results to Ladd March 27: "In connection with the preparation of the brief on Owen Lattimore, the volumes of the Lattimore file and the loose mail connected therewith were examined for possible embarrassing or objectionable material contained in each serial for consideration in the event this file is released outside the Bureau." Outcome: 167 items were found to be objectionable or embarrassing.^[28] There were wiretaps and intercepted mail involving wholly innocent persons; the luggage search of the Dilowa's belongings; mentions of custodial detention; the warning to Blue Network not to hire Lattimore; the charge that Atlantic-Little Brown was a "Communist tinged" publishing house; unverified information; letters to and from the CIA; names of dozens of informants; bureau derogation of Barmine's credibility; acerbic comments by the director; and records of many illegal surveillances.

Hoover won this battle; he was not required to produce the complete file.

Lattimore found his time in Afghanistan, March 12-29, 1950, both profitable and fascinating. The mission dealt primarily with the Afghan minister of economics, who had a colorful background and was a good negotiator. Shortly after Lattimore arrived, however, he received disturbing cables from Washington. One, arriving March 14, was from Reuters: "SENATOR MC CARTHY IN SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE TODAY SAID YOU HAD COMMUNIST SYMPATHIES AND ADDED 'THIS MAN'S RECORD AS PRO-COMMUNIST GOES BACK MANY YEARS.' WE WOULD APPRECIATE ANY REPLY YOU CARE TO MAKE FOR PUBLICATION WORLD-WIDE AND ESPECIALLY IN AMERICA. WE HAVE ARRANGED FOR PRE-PAID REPLY UP TO 100 WORDS ADDRESSED PRESS REUTERS NEWS AGENCY LONDON. "^[29]

Lattimore did not answer Reuters. A second cable, from Bert Andrews of the New York Herald Tribune , arrived the same day. "SENATOR MC CARTHY HAS MADE SERIOUS CHARGES AGAINST YOUR LOYALTY Stop COULD YOU CABLE ME FIVE HUNDRED WORD STATEMENT COLLECT. "^[30]

This one Lattimore did answer. "UNKNOWN HERE JUST WHAT MC CAR-THY SAID THEREFORE DETAILED REPLY IMPOSSIBLE UNTIL RETURN IN FEW DAYS TIME WHEN WILL CONTACT YOU MEANTIME HOPE PUBLICITY WILL RESULT IN WIDE SALE MY BOOKS AND REALIZATION THAT COMMON SENSE IS POSSIBLE IN UNITED STATES FAR EASTERN POLICY. "^[31]

Nothing further arrived until March 24. By then McCarthy's "top Soviet spy" charge was circulating in Washington. No one had yet published it, but the Associated Press figured they could at least get Lattimore's reaction to use when it was safe to do so. AP cabled him on that date; he received the message in Kabul March 25. "SENATOR MC CARTHY SAYS OFF RECORD YOU top RUSSIAN ESPIONAGE AGENT IN UNITED STATES AND THAT HIS WHOLE CASE RESTS ON YOU Stop SAYS YOU STATE DEPARTMENT ADVISOR RECENTLY AS FOUR WEEKS AGO Stop HAVE CARRIED MRS. LATTIMORE'S AND DR. BRONK'S DENIALS OF MC CARTHY CHARGE AT PUBLIC SENATE HEARING THAT YOU PRO-COMMUNIST Stop PLEASE CABLE YOUR OWN COMMENT MC CARTHY'S ACCUSATIONS. BEALE ASSOCIATED PRESS. "^[32]

Lattimore knew then that he was in a dirty fight. None of his enemies or opponents had ever made such a charge: neither Schumpeter, nor Kohlberg, nor Eastman, nor Kearney, nor anyone else he was aware of. He talked to the members of his mission and to the Afghans; all were of the opinion that he should not break off the mission even two days early because of this nonsense. They were appalled at this new evidence of anti-

Communist hysteria and expressed full confidence in Lattimore. He therefore sent an answer to AP: "MC CARTHY'S OFF RECORD RANTINGS PURE MOONSHINE Stop DELIGHTED HIS WHOLE CASE RESTS ON ME AS THIS MEANS HE WILL FALL FLAT ON FACE Stop EXACTLY WHAT HE HAS SAID ON RECORD UNKNOWN HERE SO CANNOT REPLY IN DETAIL BUT WILL BE HOME IN FEW DAYS AND WILL CONTACT YOU THEN. "^[33] One of the myths about the Lattimore case is that Lattimore cut short his stay in Afghanistan to deal with the McCarthy charge. In fact, he stayed until the negotiations were completed on March 27.

When Lattimore passed through Karachi on the way home, the public affairs officer in the U.S. embassy there, Merritt N. Cootes, talked to him several times. Cootes reported these conversations to the State Department, and his report wound up in FBI files. (Cootes had the distinction of giving Lattimore a new middle initial. Lattimore had no middle name or initial, but people were always giving him one. Mostly it was "J.," sometimes "M.," and Cootes tried "Owen L. Lattimore.")^[34]

During the course of his conversations with Cootes, Lattimore commented on the many predictions in diplomatic circles that the Chinese Communist regime was doomed to an early demise; he thought, to the contrary, that it was solidly entrenched and that it would be "dangerous if America underestimated this new force."^[35]

Ambassador-at-Large Philip Jessup had just been through Karachi on a fact-finding tour, and one of his major topics of inquiry had been Indo-china. Cootes asked Lattimore what he thought about the American decision to back Bao Dai there; Lattimore said he "thought that the United States had made another mistake in recognizing Bao Dai, just like we did with Chiang." Cootes then noted that Jessup approved of Bao Dai but disparaged Ho Chi Minh; the latter was a shadowy figure who had "not actually been seen by any reliable person since December 1937." Lattimore said one would expect Jessup to say that, but the evidence in French reports indicated that Ho was getting steadily more powerful. Lattimore told Cootes he planned to return to Pakistan in May or June to do the same sort of broad survey he had just done for Afghanistan.^[36]

Lattimore's prediction about Indochina was accurate; his assumption that he could continue in the service of the UN was not. The inquisition had already claimed him.

If the FBI, the Justice Department, and the White House were in a turmoil over McCarthy's sudden elevation of Lattimore to top Soviet spy, unofficial Washington was even more agitated. Everybody knew about it, but nobody could put the charge on the record until McCarthy made it

publicly. Nobody, that is, but the intrepid Drew Pearson. Pearson hated McCarthy. He realized the riskiness of being the first to broadcast the story, but he decided that McCarthy was bluffing and hoped he could squelch McCarthy's gamble by a vigorous defense of Lattimore. Accordingly, on March 26 he opened his national radio broadcast as follows: "I am now going to reveal the name of the man whom Senator McCarthy has designated the top Communist agent in the United States. Senator McCarthy has stated that he would rest his entire charge of State Department communism on this case. The man is Owen Lattimore of Johns Hopkins University."^[37] Pearson continued with a ringing defense of Lattimore. Overnight Lattimore became a household word.

McCarthy's "gambler's bravura," as Jack Anderson called it, compelled the senator to assemble a detailed case against Lattimore. For this he needed all the help he could get. It was easy to come by. To his existing coterie of Hearst, Scripps Howard, and McCormick Patterson reporters he quickly added Kohlberg, who later claimed to have furnished most of the material McCarthy used in attacking Lattimore. The two met for a long dinner either March 23 or 24. Kohlberg wrote in his personal notes, "Joe asked me to give him the story of the China sellout step by step and in chronological order. This I did during a two-hour, leisurely eaten dinner. Jean Kerr took brief notes, not in shorthand, yet the following week in a speech on the Senate floor the Senator told the story of the sellout of China just as I had told it to him there, almost without error."^[38]

Kohlberg exaggerated slightly; some of McCarthy's material came from Freda Utley. McCarthy had a crew of thirteen assembling, organizing, and writing, among them Jean Kerr, later his wife; Charles Kersten, former congressman from Wisconsin; Ed Nellor, a reporter formerly with Hearst; Joe's chief investigator and right-hand man, Don Surine.^[39]

McCarthy's dependence on Surine for the first two years of his crusade (Roy Cohn elbowed Surine aside in 1952) was symptomatic. Surine was everything a good investigator should not be: impulsive, inept, cocky, careless. He had been with the FBI for ten years; it was a miracle that he lasted so long. Hoover fired him in 1950 for involvement with a prostitute during an FBI investigation of a white slavery ring. Surine always lied about this, claiming that he had resigned from the bureau. Eventually, Hoover was forced m write a letter to Senator Mike Monroney disavowing responsibility for the former agent.^[40]

Surine compounded McCarthy's recklessness and mendacity. He was instrumental in the attack on Anna Rosenberg, a prominent New York labor lawyer whom George Marshall nominated as Assistant Secretary of

Defense for Manpower. Surine almost single-handedly got McCarthy embroiled in the fraudulent activities of Charles Davis, a psychotic who fabricated documents intended to discredit John Carter Vincent and who falsely charged Edward R. Murrow with having been on the Soviet payroll in 1934. Davis was denied security clearance by the Department of Defense, yet he was McCarthy's "contact man" in collecting classified documents from McCarthy's loyal underground in the military, the CIA, Justice, and State.^[41]

In the sleazy 1950 Maryland senatorial campaign, which saw the defeat of Millard Tydings, Surine played a prominent role, including a kidnapping and threats of violence against a mailing contractor. He wrote McCarthy's attack on Adlai Stevenson as pro-Communist in the 1952 presidential campaign.^[42] Dan Burkhardt, Maryland American Legion adjutant and a member of a group of former intelligence agents active in the anti-Communist field, says that his group rejected Surine's application to join. He was "too wild."^[43]

Hoover's contempt for Surine was total. Time after time he warned agents to be careful in dealing with Surine. At one stage of the Lattimore investigation, in March 1950, Baltimore agents were told that "they should not have any further contact with SURINE."^[44] Reports of adventures in which Surine went astray over some crackpot would-be informer invariably carry a sarcastic notation by Hoover. To some extent, the cretinous nature of McCarthy's speech on Lattimore was due to Donald Surine.

One of the potential witnesses about Lattimore who came to Surine's attention was Alexander Barmine. The FBI, already suspicious of Bar-mine, interviewed him again on March 27. Barmine now had a new charge against Lattimore. As reported by SAC Scheidt in New York, "BARMINE SAID THAT IN FORTY NINE THE PANCHEN LAMA COMPETITOR OF THE DALAI LAMA OF TIBET VISITED THE US AND WAS RECEIVED BY THE SUBJECT [Lattimore]. UPON LEAVING THE US THE PANCHEN LAMA ARRIVED IN COMMUNIST CHINA AND CLAIMED HIS TITLE FROM THAT POINT. " Bureau naïveté was sufficient to cause them to investigate this howler. They checked it out with State. The Panchen Lama had never visited the United States and could not have been "received" by Lattimore.^[45]

Surine did not know of this latest evidence of Barmine's hyperactive imagination. Charged by his boss to gather any dirt that could be flung at Lattimore, Surine determined to extract an affidavit from Barmine for McCarthy to use in addressing the Senate. His channel for approaching Barmine was Barmine's old friend from Reader's Digest , Bill White. On March 28 White telephoned Barmine, telling him that McCarthy would

like to talk to him and that one of McCarthy's agents would contact him shortly. Barmine said he did not want to talk to McCarthy or his agent. This refusal did not deter Surine, who telephoned Barmine at Barmine's Voice of America office, invoked status as a Senate employee, and induced Barmine to meet him in a nearby bar. At the bar, Surine asked for an affidavit McCarthy could use against Lattimore. Barmine refused, said he would have nothing to do with McCarthy, and stalked out.^[46]

Failed mission? Not for the intrepid Surine. He went to the nearby apartment of Eugene Lyons, another professional anti-Communist journalist, asked to use a typewriter, and typed up what he had heard from various people as Barmine's story about Lattimore. Surine headed his production "Expected testimony from Alexander Barmine." At the bottom of the page he wrote in longhand, "Above facts related to me by Alexander Barmine at Schrafft's Bar 57th St. N.Y.C. 5:30 p.m.-6:10 p.m.—3/29/50," and signed his name. Lyons, somewhat uneasy about this procedure, nonetheless was persuaded to add his bit. He counter-signed the document: "I have read the above statement. Eugene Lyons." It was this flaky concoction that McCarthy flourished before the Senate the next day. After the McCarthy speech, Barmine was furious. He told the FBI that the McCarthy "affidavit" was a forgery and vowed that if he was ever confronted with the document he would accuse Surine of perjury.^[47]

But McCarthy thought it was wonderful, and it came at the right moment. He had asked for time to address the full Senate on March 30. He was now confident that he had the goods on Lattimore. He sent telegrams to Republican friends: "Would like to have you share some pumpkin pie with me this afternoon on the Senate floor."^[48] His flagship case was about to be launched; the pumpkin allusion was to the evidence Whittaker Chambers supplied about Hiss.

McCarthy also notified the FBI to have someone on hand after the speech to get the documents he was going to use. The bureau declined. They would be happy to have him send any documents over to the FBI building, but the attorney general did not want McCarthy to "mousetrap" the bureau by "having a photographer take a picture of him handing over the 'documents.' "^[49]

The Lattimore speech did not represent the nadir of McCarthy performances; that honor must be reserved for his scurrilous attack on General George C. Marshall a year later. But the Lattimore speech was nonetheless unique in some ways. It was, for one thing, probably the only time

McCarthy came close to an apology and a retraction. Midway through the speech he stated, "I fear in the case of Lattimore, I may have perhaps placed too much stress on the question of whether or not he has been an espionage agent. In view of his position of tremendous power in the State Department as the 'architect' of our far eastern policy, the more important aspect of his case deals with his aims and what he advocates; whether his aims are American aims or whether they coincide with the aims of Soviet Russia. Therefore, forgetting for the time being any question of membership in the Communist Party or participation in espionage, I would like to deal briefly with what this man himself advocates and what he believes in." But it was a hollow retraction. McCarthy's whole effort was to brand Lattimore as a loyal Soviet servant, not in spying on the American government, which would only lead to loss of some documents, but in influencing American policy, which led m the loss of China. This charge required McCarthy to claim that Lattimore had "tremendous power" in the State Department; in truth, he had none whatsoever. One infelicitous remark on this theme brought sardonic laughter from the audience. Said McCarthy: "I believe you can ask almost any school child who the architect of our far eastern policy is, and he will say 'Owen Lattimore.' "^[50]

The law firm of Arnold, Fortas, and Porter, engaged by Eleanor Lattimore, issued an analysis of McCarthy's speech, pointing out more than a hundred errors. There were at least that many.^[51]

McCarthy's handling of the Amerasia case was typical. Hoover never claimed that the FBI had a "100% airtight case" of espionage and treason in Amerasia . When Hoover heard this claim, he caused a search to be made to see if he had gone overboard in 1945; he had never said anything like it.^[52] Nor did the Justice Department prosecutor say that "he could cover all the facts in that case in less than 5 minutes," as McCarthy claimed. Nor did Amerasia have a "large photocopying department"; John Stewart Service was never "in communication from China with Jaffe"; no member of the grand jury voted to indict Service, who was unanimously no-billed; Service never wrote reports "urging that we torpedo our ally Chiang Kai-shek"; Joseph Grew was not "forced to resign" because he wanted Jaffe prosecuted; Service and Roth were not at Lattimore's home the night before the Amerasia arrests, but three days before, on an entirely innocent visit.^[53] Contrary to McCarthy's claim, a congressional committee had upheld the Justice Department handling of Amerasia : on October 23, 1946, the Hobbs committee reported that Service had not "stolen" any documents; instead, he loaned some to Jaffe that he himself

had written and had army permission to retain. Jaffe did not get any of Service's reports before the State Department did.^[54]

McCarthy had, despite his statement to the contrary, gotten information from the FBI. Lattimore was in no way "responsible" for Stilwell's activities in China. McCarthy did not have an affidavit from Barmine. Lattimore did not control the magazine Amerasia . Lattimore did not have two cameras with him on the Point Barrow trip, and the inference that he gave photographs of secret installations to the Russians was false.

Lattimore's statement that "the Communists were destined to win" applied only to China in 1948, not to anyplace else; McCarthy's extrapolation of it to all subsequent Soviet-American rivalries was wholly illegitimate. Jessup was never editor of Pacific Affairs ; neither Jessup nor Lattimore "pioneered the fictional idea that the Communists of China were not Communists at all." The State Department did not send Lattimore to Afghanistan; the UN did. Roosevelt did not "appoint" Lattimore as adviser to Chiang; Roosevelt could only nominate him, and it was not on the recommendation of Henry Wallace. Wallace did not recommend the "torpedoing" of Chiang Kai-shek. Lattimore did not head the Pauley reparations mission to Japan; Pauley did. The list of falsehoods, great and small, is almost endless. Some of them McCarthy got from Freda Utley, though most came from Kohlberg.

The whole thing was typical paranoid rhetoric. Historian Richard Hofstadter was right in denoting McCarthy as the paradigm paranoid: the very fantastic character of his conclusions led to "heroic striving for 'evidence' to prove that the unbelievable is the only thing that can be believed."^[55] Calling McCarthy's striving "heroic" is perhaps too complimentary. One incident during the McCarthy address foreshadowed the personal contempt for any opponent that steadily brought McCarthy into disrepute even with his early Republican backers.

When McCarthy quoted parts of Lattimore's letter to Barnes about hiring Chinese personnel for OWI, Senator Charles Tobey of New Hampshire questioned him as to why he did not place the whole letter in the record. McCarthy replied that the letter was classified secret. Tobey knew McCarthy's "quotation" was false, but McCarthy refused to release the whole document.

Senator Herbert Lehman of New York took over the questioning:

Mr. Lehman: :When charges are made against the loyalty of a man he should be given an opportunity to answer those charges in the same forum in which the charges are

made. I should like to ask the distinguished Senator why he is so delicate in refusing to yield to the request of the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire to give the full text of the information, when the Senator from Wisconsin has no hesitation whatsoever in coming before this body and before the American people and attempting to damn and blacken the reputation of many people who may be innocent.

Mr. McCarthy: If the Senator would like to know why some of these documents are not being made available to the press, if he will step over here I will show him part of a document which will make very clear to him why it would be completely unfair to make them available. Does the Senator care to step over?

Mr. Lehman: I am delighted to.^[56]

Lehman then walked down the aisle and stood with his hand out. The two men stared at each other. Stewart Alsop observed this tableau from the press gallery, and his account tells better than the Congressional Record what happened next:

McCarthy giggled his strange, rather terrifying little giggle. Lehman looked around the crowded Senate, obviously appealing for support. Not a man rose.

"Go back to your seat, old man," McCarthy growled at Lehman. The words do not appear in the Congressional Record , but they were clearly audible in the press gallery. Once more, Lehman looked all around the chamber, appealing for support. He was met with silence and lowered eyes. Slowly, he turned and walked . . . back to his seat.
"There goes the end of the Republic," I muttered to my wife, whom I had smuggled into the press gallery to see the show. It was a poor imitation of Lord Grey, but it did not seem exaggerated at the time. For at the time this triumph of the worst Senator who has ever sat in the Senate over one of the best did seem a decisive moment. . . . Thus old Senator Lehman's back, waddling off in retreat, seemed to symbolize the final defeat of decency and the triumph of the yahoos.^[57]

Not many observers of the McCarthy performance thought the yahoos had triumphed. McCarthy's "evidence" was noticeably shoddy. The Luce publications, fervently pro-Chiang and anti-Communist, panned the speech. According to Time , the senator was in trouble; "McCarthy had promised to stand or fall on his case against Owen Lattimore, and he clearly had little left to stand on."^[58]

But McCarthy's ultraright newsmen stood by him. Willard Edwards praised his speech in both the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Times-Herald> . The Tribune article described McCarthy's output as "weighty new evidence . . . an extraordinary demonstration of what a one-man investigator of state department communism could disclose in a brief period." Edwards's Times-Herald article went beyond praising McCarthy to rub salt in FBI wounds. Edwards claimed, "A somewhat embarrassed FBI agent listened as McCarthy produced a series of documents which he said were being turned over to the FBI. Although FBI director Hoover has made no official statement on the Lattimore case, he has not denied reports that his agents have uncovered no evidence warranting criminal prosecution."^[59] Indeed, the bureau had no such evidence. Neither did McCarthy.

Several months after the McCarthy speech, the bureau did have an analysis of the trash McCarthy had paraded before the Senate. This analysis was muted and, as released in 1980, heavily censored; but on those points not censored McCarthy came out losing. Hoover had not, as already noted, described the Amerasia charges as 100 percent airtight. The bureau did not accept the McCarthy "affidavits" about Lattimore and Roth declassifying documents "in favor of their friends" as true.^[60]

The bureau knew Wallace had not recommended Lattimore to President Roosevelt and that Lattimore had not headed the Japanese reparations mission. As to the Barnes letter, the bureau noted, "Intensive investigation has failed to reflect corroboration of the charge that Lattimore loaded the OWI with Communists."^[61] Only the claim McCarthy got from Freda Utley that Lattimore's writings followed the Communist line had any support from the bureau.

McCarthy gave a number of documents to the bureau. By the end of June 1950 there were fifty-nine documents in McCarthy's donation. Most of them the bureau already had. The final disposition of most of them can be traced in the files. Twenty-six of the fifty-nine were discarded as false, meaningless, irrelevant, fraudulent, or hopelessly vague. Four were discarded because the informant was known to the bureau as unreliable or mentally unbalanced. One was impossible to check, and one contained useful information from a reliable informant.^[62] The disposition of the rest is unknown.

By September 1950 someone on McCarthy's staff had begun to worry that their investigative batting average was low. Surine was dispatched to the FBI's Washington field office, where he told the agents that McCarthy wanted a copy of the bureau's current summary report on the Lattimore case. The reason, as reported by agent Guy Hottel: "Senator McCarthy,

in the future, would not make any further allegations without being able to support such allegations by an investigative report. He [Surine] said that if he could get the report, he would attribute the information con-mined therein to a different investigative agency," thus maintaining Hoover's cover story about never releasing reports outside eligible agencies.^[63] This was a familiar charade, but Surine did not get the FBI summary that time.

Chapter Sixteen
Out of the Woodwork

Perhaps not every schoolchild could identify Lattimore as the architect of American policy in the Far East, but by the end of March 1950 every scoundrel in the country, and some abroad, knew that Lattimore had been targeted as another Hiss. Would-be informants came crawling out of the woodwork, drawn to McCarthy as moths to light, each peddling a new version of Lattimore's evil deeds.

Abe Fortas did his best to warn Lattimore that he was "operating in a situation characterized by insanity" and that "it may be necessary that you get down in the gutter in which we are now operating as a result of Senator McCarthy's personal attack on you."^[1] But not even the worldly-wise Fortas fully appreciated the depravity of some of those who now sought fame as accusers of Lattimore. The "respectable" witnesses (Utley, Chambers, Barmine, George Carter, Budenz) were only the visible part of the problem. The underclass of kooks and winos, drifters and opportunists, many of whom would never be named publicly but all of whom were eagerly embraced by McCarthy and the zealous Surine, added a dimension to the problem that no rational argument could deal with. Lattimore could hardly have gotten down in the gutter with them even had he wanted to.

Here there was a paradox. While J. Edgar Hoover was preeminent in stirring up the midcentury scare about domestic communism, and while he hated Lattimore with a passion, it was the ability of Hoover's agents to discern flakiness in those clamoring to sell their testimony against Lattimore that prevented things from being even worse. The bureau made mistakes; there were illegalities aplenty; but only the bureau cut the crazies down to size. The right-wing press, the House and Senate inquisitors,

even the Justice Department tended to believe the most implausible tales about Lattimore. Hard-bitten FBI agents knew the difference between evidence and trash.

Lattimore was still in Afghanistan when the accusations began. To understand the intensity of the onslaught he faced on his return, it is necessary to sample this underclass attack and note the willingness of McCarthy and his supporters to believe the unbelievable.

Some of the fantasies spun about Lattimore were predictable. If Lattimore were a Soviet spy, he might well have been associated with the most famous Soviet spy ring operating in the Far East, that of Richard Sorge. Sorge worked from 1930 to 1941, first in Shanghai, then in Tokyo, sending brilliant reports on Asian events to the Kremlin. The imagination of several would-be informants followed precisely this path.

On March 23, exactly two days after McCarthy named Lattimore as the top Soviet spy, the first of the Sorge informants appeared. A report of that date from the Washington field office (WFO) of the bureau is heavily censored; all that comes through is an anonymous informant's claim, second- or third-hand, that Richard Sorge kept a diary and that "the name of OWEN LATFIMORE appeared therein with the indication that he was a 'friend who could be used.' "^[2] This caused a flurry of bureau activity. By the next day bureau flies had been searched, and this informant was found to have a record. He had talked about Lattimore six months earlier but had not mentioned Sorge. Orders went out immediately to locate and reinterview this individual.

On March 27 WFO caught up with this informant. He was vague. He had not actually seen Sorge's diary. He had been a friend of the late secretary of defense, James Forrestal, and perhaps Forrestal had told him about it. He was sorry he could not be of more help.^[3]

So the bureau went to the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Intelligence Division of the army to see if they knew about Sorge's diary. By March 28 both had denied ever hearing of such a document. On March 30, as McCarthy was speaking to the Senate, SAC Scheidt in New York reported that records of the Sorge case maintained in his office showed a 1947 document from General Willoughby, MacArthur's intelligence chief (G-2), listing "The Members of the Sorge Spy Ring." Lattimore was not among them. The informant was written off by the bureau.^[4]

A month later the Sorge rumor cropped up again. In this set of documents the FBI released names. The channel for this canard was Frank Tavenner, general counsel of HUAC. Tavenner's tale: "One of the Staff Investigators for the HUAC named Owens is alleged to have seen the

original of Sorge's confession, wherein Sorge named several American Communists, it being stated that he, Sorge, then furnished a list of names of individuals who could be depended upon by Communists to cooperate and that Lattimore headed this list." Easy to check. The bureau got to Owens, and he backed down from his tale. Someone else had seen the Sorge confession and told him about it. Tavenner, humbled, put his staff to searching their Sorge papers: there was no mention of Lattimore.^[5]

There was one more Sorge story, this the most irrational of all. It began when Hoover and McCarthy received identical letters from a German soldier of fortune, Willi Foerster. Foerster had lived in Japan before and during World War II but was expelled as an undesirable alien and shipped to Europe in 1947. In May 1950 Foerster was living in Agno, Switzerland. His English was a bit unruly, but the meaning of his letter of May 9, 1950, is clear:

Sir:

From press reports I learned the controversy of Senator MacCarthy contra Lattimore and, that the FBI has orders to re-investigate the whole question carefully, therefore I wish to inform you as follow:

1. I do not know whether or not camerade Lattimore belonged to the US Communist party or any US underground organisation. But I know exactly that Lattimore was intimately connected with Dr. Richard Sorge, the master-spy of the Kreml who worked in Tokyo (Japan) until he was catched by the Japanese secret police and, after a court trial and a stated open confession sentenced to hang. This verdict was executed in 1944. Before Dr. Sorge was hanged I had the unpleasant chance to see and talk with him several time in the Sugamo prison, Tokyo (Japan).

2. A certain Max Clausen, who turned out to be the first assistant of Dr. Sorge and who also was convicted in connection with Dr. Sorge's spy work to life-prison ——— asked [Foerster's wife, on her] vacation trip from Japan via America to Germany to take along a private letter from Dr. Sorge to America, and buy in San Francisco post-stamps and then mail said letter ordinarely. This letter, Clausen said at that time, contained private family matters Dr. Sorge did not want to be known by the Japanese secret police, who censored secretly foreigners mail.

3. [My wife] took this letter along to America and mailed the same as requested. Said letter, as I clearly remember, was addressed to a certain schoolteacher Owen Lattimore. I thought "Owen" was the calling name for a female.^[6]

There followed a page and a half of colorful prose about how he, Foerster, had been mistreated, how Americans were stupid to "liberate" Max Clau-

sen, and how the State Department was leading the world into "disaster and confusion."

This letter did not impress the FBI, and Hoover did nothing about it. McCarthy and his excitable investigator Surine, however, jumped on it immediately. On May 18 the Washington Daily News carried a story headed "Global Private Eye Probes State Dept. for McCarthy."

Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy (R., Wis.) has an international investigator in Paris helping him uncover evidence against State Department officials, it was disclosed today.

The agent was said to divide his time between his Paris attic office and traveling on the famed Paris-Istanbul Orient Express.

Sen. McCarthy refused to identify him, but the agent is said to be an American with contacts in U.S. intelligence circles and the French Surete General.

It was revealed the agent has already visited Switzerland to obtain affidavits which Sen. McCarthy hopes will link a Soviet spy ring to one of the major targets in his charge that the State Department is harboring Communists.

Surine, fired with enthusiasm about this new development, appeared at the WFO May 24. Off the record, he told agents there

HIS OFFICE NOW HAS REPRESENTATIVE EN ROUTE JAPAN IN EFFORT TO SECURE DOCUMENTARY PROOF OF THIS INCIDENT FROM INDIVIDUAL HE DECLINED TO IDENTIFY BECAUSE IF STATE DEPARTMENT LEARNED OF THIS HIS REPRESENTATIVES LIFE WOULD BE IN DANGER. SURINE ALSO CLAIMED HIS TELEPHONES ARE BEING TAPPED, HIS MAIL TAMPERED WITH, AND HE BELIEVES THAT HE IS UNDER CONSTANT SURVEILLANCE. INDICATED THAT STATE DEPT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS. . . . SURINE'S PURPOSE IN FURNISHING INFO RE SURGE NOT KNOWN. HE HAS STATED THAT QUOTE THEY ARE INTERESTED IN BEATING THE BUREAU UNQUOTE ON THIS CASE .^[7]

Hoover, on hearing this tale, ordered the legal attaché (an FBI man) at the U.S. embassy in Paris to go to Switzerland to interview Foerster. On May 30 the attaché's report reached Washington. McCarthy's "global private eye," one John E. Farrand, had already seen Foerster. Foerster had provided Farrand with an affidavit stating that Lattimore was working with Surge and that Surge had sent a letter to Lattimore in the United States via Max Clausen and Foerster's wife. Further, Foerster knew where hard evidence was: (1) he had a file on Max Clausen, with a penciled

notation made in 1937 about the letter to Lattimore; this file had been turned over to Lieutenant Root of the Army Counterintelligence Corps in Japan in 1946. (2) His former wife, Martha Ann Foerster, now residing in Nagano, Japan, had made a notation about this letter in her diary:^[8]

Hoover wrote General Willoughby, asking him to check out the Foerster story. Willoughby replied June 6:

Ref Hoover request. . . . no papers of interest are in Root file except 10 Sep 46 ltr and a business agreement of no current interest. . . . No notes of any kind or in pencil on margin of papers sent Lt Root. Mrs Foerster interrogated Apr 49 and again 31 May 50. Her statements ref Sorge ltr carried by her to USA in both interrogations are similar. She remembers ltr given to her by Clausen thru W. R. Foerster was addressed to Miss or Mrs Sorge. She states on 31 May 50 that "She has never heard of Owen Lattimore, never kept a diary, has no documents or papers concerning Sorge or Lattimore and that Willi Foerster is an habitual and current liar." Our experience with Willi Foerster over period of several years suggest that he is an unreliable opportunist of questionable veracity attempting use of uncooperative ex-wife as stooge for vague repts made to high levels to secure his obj of returning to Japan. It is significant that in 1949 his statement centered on our interest in Sorge, now he has substituted the name of Lattimore, and no doubt will change his stand to coincide with whatever issue is of importance at the time.^[9]

That, one would think, would end the matter. But truth rarely catches up With rumor, and the McCarthy crew tried to connect Lattimore with Sorge for the next three years. On August 1, 1950, McCarthy gave the Senate a story based on the Foerster affidavit his agent had obtained in Switzerland, claiming that the story was supported by an army report about the Sorge case released in February 1948. The army report was alleged to be significant "in connection with the Foerster affidavit mentioning Lattimore." Willard Edwards, McCarthy's most gullible journalistic collaborator, wrote up this story in articles appearing in the Chicago Tribune and other papers. The headline over the Tribune story screamed, "M'Carthy Links Lattimore to Slain Red Spy." Edwards did acknowledge, in the last line of his story, that "Lattimore's name was not mentioned in the Army report."^[10]

By the time of this revelation the Korean War was dominating the news, and Edwards's story got little response. The Sorge connection disappeared.

Surine resurrected it in 1953. In July of that year, still chasing phantoms, he told the bureau that he had "located a witness who will identify

Lattimore as a member of the Sorge Spy Ring and the Soviet espionage apparatus." The bureau knew his witness, believed him to be of "questionable credibility," and ignored the whole thing.^[11] McCarthy never produced the witness.

Another rogue informant came from the ranks of the U.S. navy. On April 4, 1950, the WFO informed headquarters that a potential witness against Lattimore was Navy Commander Milton M. "Mary" Miles, then stationed in Rhode Island.^[12] As American coleader of the Sino-American Cooperative Organization during the war, Miles had worked closely with, and become deeply attached to, Nationalist secret police chief Tai Li.^[13] When Tai Li died in 1946, Miles moved heaven and earth (and the naval bureaucracy) to be allowed to go to China to the funeral. Miles's wartime experiences in China had been debilitating; he suffered a nervous breakdown at the end of the war and was hospitalized for many months.^[14]

Less than twenty-four hours after FBI headquarters learned that Miles had interesting information, two Boston agents were talking to him in an office at the Naval War College in Newport. What they heard was indeed spectacular. Much of this interview is still denied by the FBI, since Miles demanded that "under no circumstances should his identity be made known." (FBI censors did not realize, when they released a sanitized version of this interview, that describing this secret informant as "the American who during the recent war was closest to Tai Li" would positively identify Miles.)

Miles began his interview with the Boston agents by acknowledging that he "dislikes heartily OWEN LATTIMORE ." Though he never had any "affirmative proof" that Lattimore was a Communist or a Russian agent, everything Lattimore did while in China "was designed to subvert the Chinese National Government and to facilitate the seizure of power by the Chinese Communist Party." And, as reported by the Boston agents, there was one specific action that damned Lattimore:

When HENRY WALLACE came to China on his "good will mission," LATTIMORE acted as interpreter. WALLACE made some comment concerning collaboration between the Nationalist and Communist forces before CHIANG KAI-SHEK. LATIMORE wilfully and falsely, [according to Tai Li] translated this comment to the Generalissimo so that it read in substance: "Unless you permit American military men, press representatives, OSS representatives and State Department officials to immediately establish liaison with the government at Yenan, President ROOSEVELT will deny you any further Lend-Lease aid and we will permit your country to fall into the hands of the enemy."

CHIANG KAI-SHEK was alleged to have been shocked by this threat because he could not exist at that particular moment as the head of a living nation without such aid. He thereupon responded in the following language: "The only reason that I have barred Americans from visiting Yenan is because any government which issues a visa should do so with a guarantee that the person's life and property will not be molested. I can make no such guarantee with reference to the territory occupied but not governed by the forces at Yenan. If you wish to assume the burden of protecting your own life and property, you certainly have my permission to go there. I cannot suffer you to refer to Yenan as a government. It is like your telling me that if I wish to visit the Government of the United States, I must not only see Mr. ROOSEVELT at Washington, but also FRANK HAGUE of Jersey City.^[15]

Here was another ludicrous scenario. Neither Miles nor his alleged informant, Tai Li, attended the conferences with Chiang where Kuomintang-Communist relations were discussed. T. V. Soong, not Lattimore, was the translator according to the official records. Lattimore at the time was still a strong supporter of Chiang and had Chiang's full confidence. And, had Lattimore mistranslated something vital, Soong, Madame Chiang, or Wang Shih-chieh would have corrected it immediately.

But the Boston agents were not skeptical of Miles's tale, and their acceptance of his statements was reinforced when he told them that he had "thirteen and a half tons of material in his confidential file and safe" in Washington. This material consisted of "diaries and personal notes concerning the political activities, black market activities and illicit sex life of the individuals named above [Lattimore, Vincent, Davies, Service]. . . . This safe has been sealed under the cover 'Top Secret' and ——— he is the only living person who has the combination."^[16]

The Boston agents were ecstatic. Miles obviously had the smoking gun needed to convict Lattimore. Their report showed a most positive evaluation of Miles: "He is a direct, forceful individual, given to carefully weighing his words. He indicated that he would say no more about the above-named persons until he could refresh his memory from his notes and prove his statements."^[17]

One can imagine the excitement at FBI headquarters. Unfortunately, Commander Miles was unable to come to Washington immediately to produce his thirteen and a half tons of documents; the best the bureau could do was to instruct WFO to see him as soon as he was in town.

Miles was finally available May 5, when two WFO agents interviewed him at his home. The outcome was startling. Far from producing the "proof" that he had promised a month earlier in Boston,

he stated that there was a possibility that there might be information in these files concerning OWEN LATTIMORE and others whose names are mentioned in the reference Boston letter. [Miles stated] however, that he did not remember any particular document in the files which contained any information concerning OWEN LATTIMORE or the others mentioned. He stated that if he were to search all of his files he would probably be on a "wild goose chase." ——— He stated that he had apparently been misunderstood by the interviewing agents of the Boston Office, for he advised that . . . he had no files in his possession. further, he also stated that he had no diaries or personal notes concerning the political activities, black market activities, and the illicit sex life of the individuals mentioned in the reference Boston letter.^[18]

Reeling from this unanticipated setback, the Washington agents pressed Miles specifically on the other charges he had made in Rhode Island. He backed down on all of them.

The bureau was now greatly embarrassed. Hoover had already informed Assistant Attorney General James M. McInerney of the Miles revelations, which now had to be retracted. The Baltimore office of the bureau was even more upset; they wrote Hoover requesting that Boston and Washington agents be asked to "advise whether there was anything [about Miles's behavior] to indicate that he expected or experienced any pressure from any outside source to tone down his very definite statements regarding the subject [Lattimore] and his possession of documents to corroborate such statements."^[19]

Baltimore also wanted a follow-up on Miles to see whether the inconsistencies in his statements could be resolved. So the Boston and WFO agents who had interviewed Miles were probed as m whether they thought he might have been subject to pressure. All responded negatively; Miles was a tough, independent individual, a "man of action" who "would not stand for pressure from any source." They advised dropping the whole matter. The Boston office was particularly opposed to confronting Miles with an agent from each office: he would only be alienated and embarrassed. Anyway, said the Boston response, "It would appear ——— that few of the records in his possession were composed under his direct supervision or by agents employed by him. It is exceedingly doubtful that he has access to the original sources and therefore the evidential value of such material is extremely questionable.^[20]

Hoover did not let the matter rest there. There had to be something to the original Miles account other than complete hallucination. Who else might have been witness to the mistranslation? The Chinese participants,

Chiang, Madame Chiang, Wang Shih-chieh, and T. V. Soong were out of his jurisdiction. There was no point in asking Lattimore. Vincent, however, was in Switzerland; the legal attaché in Paris could be sent to interview him. This was done, and on June 1 the Paris FBI man saw Vincent at the Berne Legation.

Vincent was incredulous. The story made no sense at all. There had been too many Chinese present who had a perfect understanding of English for any such fraud to have occurred.^[21] This was enough to sour even Hoover on Miles as an informant. There is no further mention in bureau files of the "Wallace mistranslation" charge.

In mid-April 1950 a Japanese mischief maker went to the San Francisco office of the FBI with the unlikely story that Lattimore had directed the Strategic Bombing Survey (SBS) sent to Japan in the fall of 1945 and that he had hired at least four Nisei Communists for the survey. SBS was an operation of the U.S. Air Force, then still under Army. The FBI had dose liaison with Army. A few telephone calls could easily have located an air force officer with definitive knowledge of who ran SBS. The bureau should also have recalled that Lattimore had been an active member of the Pauley reparations mission, which operated at the same time as SBS. Lattimore could not have directed SBS while devoting full time to Pauley. Somehow, these commonsense observations were never made.

The informant report that made the charge appears in a letter from the San Francisco office to Hoover dated April 25, 1950: "Regarding OWEN LATTIMORE group worked under the name of the Strategic Bombing Survey included three known Japanese Communists who are presently in Los Angeles. They are SHIRO TAKEDA . . . NOBUYOSHI . . . and TEIJI KOIDE . . . . They flew in Tokyo by the Strategic Bombing Survey group immediately after the surrender under LATTIMORE direction. When they came to Tokyo, I was very much surprised. Many of us who knew their commie reputation could not understand why such boys were sent there. It was rumored that the communistic encouragement might be introduced."^[22] This letter started a full-scale search. WFO, Baltimore, Los Angeles, and other offices were instructed to determine who directed SBS, who selected personnel, what the records of these Japanese Americans were, and what role Lattimore played in it all.

It was not until August that WFO provided the names of those in charge of SBS. The list of thirteen included Paul Nitze, John Kenneth Galbraith, George Ball, and Rensis Likert. Likert was alleged to have "had quite a bit to do" with recruiting personnel. The WFO sources "advised that at no time during the bombing survey did the name of LATTIMORE come to

their attention as having recommended persons to be employed. Both stated that at this time they had never heard of LATTIMORE "^[23]

That should have settled the matter, but it did not. The FBI now set about to interview all or most of the thirteen persons named as directors of SBS. Accordingly, requests for interviews went out to Detroit, New York, Baltimore, Los Angeles, and elsewhere; when reports came in from these interviews, the universal answer was that Lattimore was not involved. Not until November 15 did WFO tell headquarters, in effect, "Enough. There's nothing to this."^[24]

But a late report came in November 29 from San Francisco. That office had finally connected with a former Office of Strategic Services (OSS) officer who was one of the directors of SBS. He gave a bit of background to the survey that showed that even as early as 1945 anti-Communist fanaticism was interfering with professional judgments of government officials. This informant told the bureau that the SBS official responsible for hiring "based his selection of individuals upon their qualifications, competency and willingness to accept assignment to an overseas post." The SBS informant remembered that there had been a challenge to the loyalty of SBS personnel. Representative Andrew May alleged that several of the fifty SBS staffers were Communists and threatened to "expose" the survey as Communist infiltrated. Army authorities were annoyed at the delay caused by May and devised a brilliant strategem; they "randomly removed the names of approximately 20 men from the list of selected personnel. May and his council [committee] were then satisfied and the group departed for Japan."^[25]

The end was not yet. Incredibly, as late as December 1951 the bureau was still interviewing former SBS personnel because "LATTIMORE is charged with using his influence in the hiring of Communists for the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey."^[26] It was one of the worst performances in bureau handling of the Lattimore case.

McCarthy got hundreds of calls from people who claimed to be able to identify Lattimore as a Communist. One of them came on April 17, 1950, from a seaman named Sidney Troster in Memphis. Troster claimed that he had met in Memphis two persons with significant knowledge of Communist affairs. One was a fellow seaman. This seaman told Troster that "while unloading the SS Bayside in Shanghai, China, one Colonel Tsing of the Nationalist Army ——— that he and many others in the Nationalist Army were Communists. ——— should not be surprised because the United States Government also has Communists in it, adding that the

US has its Lattimore." Troster had other tales. One of them was about a trip through the Panama Canal during the war when a crew member took photographs of the canal, later giving them to a Russian spy in Shanghai.^[27]

The day after getting these stories from Troster, McCarthy phoned Ladd at the bureau. Ladd immediately contacted Assistant Director Alan Belmont, ordering "that a memorandum be submitted to the Department advising of the additional information received from Senator McCarthy and that this investigation is being conducted."^[28]

Ladd also phoned SAC Hostetter in Memphis, instructing Hostetter to interview Troster and his two friends and cable results to the bureau.^[29] It is doubtful that Ladd thought this story credible but the bureau could not allow McCarthy to steal a march on it.

The day after Ladd's call to Memphis, Hostetter wired a six-page report to Washington.^[30] A full page of it is still denied for "national security" reasons, and all names are denied, so the exact sequence of events is hard to determine. The clear parts of Hostetter's cable, plus later reports from Knoxville and WFO, provide a biography of Troster that does not inspire confidence.

Troster was from Toronto. In 1945 he joined a Canadian maritime union, which turned out to be Communist controlled. Troster became a Communist, worked as a seaman for several years, and served as a courier for the Party, taking sealed messages to ports all over the world. About 1948 he became disillusioned with communism, left the Party, was beaten up by Communist goons, and came illegally to the United States. After various unfortunate adventures in Toledo and New York, he went to Memphis, where the Immigration and Naturalization Service caught up with him. On April 7, 1950, INS sent an agent from Washington who questioned Troster for seven hours but did not take him into custody. Troster then decided to contact Senator McCarthy, according to an FBI cable, believing that "HE WOULD BE IMMEDIATELY TAKEN TO WASHINGTON, WHERE HE WOULD HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO TALK TO HIGH GOVT. OFFICIALS CONCERNING HIS IMMIGRATION STATUS. "^[31]

The telephone call to McCarthy, however, did not yield a ticket to Washington; instead, Troster was interviewed by Hostetter in Memphis. This result did not satisfy Troster; the next day he started hitchhiking to Washington. The FBI put out a bulletin to have Troster apprehended, but to no avail. When he arrived in Washington, he telephoned a friend in Memphis, learned that the FBI was looking for him, and decided to go to the WFO. There he was interviewed on April 27 by Supervisor E. M.

Gregg, who proved to be a hard-nosed interrogator. After going over his life story, Troster confessed to Gregg that he had no information about Lattimore, nor did his friends in Memphis. He had made it all up. When Gregg reported on the interview, he noted that Troster was "extremely nebulous when queried concerning dates, stating 'I don't want you fellows pinning me down on dates because I don't recall them.' " At the conclusion of the interview, Troster asked Gregg for a sleeping pill.^[32]

Gregg turned Troster over to the INS; presumably he was sent back to Canada. The bureau had once again followed one of McCarthy's leads to a dead end.

Some of Lattimore's enemies in Baltimore were also hallucinating in April 1950. On the eighteenth a woman active in countersubversion phoned McFarlin with a new story that she had gotten from an anonymous source. McFarlin's telegram to Headquarters reported "A REUTERS, BRITISH NEWS AGENCY, DISPATCH FROM KABUL, AFGHANISTAN DATED ON OR ABOUT MARCH EIGHTEEN [SAID THAT] OFFICIALS OF THE AFGHANISTAN GOVERNMENT HAD A SOCIAL FUNCTION AT KABUL IN HONOR OF THE RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR TO PAKISTAN AND HIS NINETEEN ADVISORS. THIS FUNCTION WAS ATTENDED ALSO BY SUBJECT [Lattimore] AND THE OTHER MEMBERS OF THE UN COMMISSION WHO WERE THEN ON A MISSION TO AFGHANISTAN. "^[33] This informant also noted that the Russian ambassador would have gone out of his way to meet Lattimore in Kabul.

McFarlin, whose office usually grasped each new lead eagerly, showed a bit of skepticism at the end of his message. "IT COULD BE REASONED THAT IT WOULD BE PERFECTLY NORMAL SHOULD THE AFGHANISTAN GOVERNMENT HOLD SOME OFFICIAL SOCIAL FUNCTION IN HONOR OF THE RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR AND HIS ADVISORS TO INVITE SUBJECT AND THE OTHER MEMBERS OF THE UN COMMISSION WHO WERE THEN PRESENT IN AFGHANISTAN AS FOREIGN DIGNITARIES. HOWEVER, NY IS REQUESTED TO CONTACT REUTERS IN NYC TO ASCERTAIN IF THE ABOVE DISPATCH ACTUALLY EXISTS, AND, IF SO, TO FURNISH COPIES OF SAME TO THE BUREAU AND BALTIMORE. " FBI headquarters seemed more impressed with the story than was McFarlin, since they quickly passed it on to Assistant Attorney General McInerney. Meanwhile, Reuters was put to work tracking down the incriminating dispatch. By April 25 the New York office of Reuters reported that they had heard from London and that no such dispatch existed.^[34]

That would probably have been the end of it, except for Don Surine of McCarthy's office. The Baltimore informant believed that the FBI was

showing insufficient zeal, so she took her story to McCarthy. McCarthy turned it over to Surine. On May 19 Surine phoned WFO, asking that a Lattimore case officer contact him. The meeting was held three days later. Surine's story had some new embellishments; whether the Baltimore source had provided them or Surine thought them up himself is unknown.

The affair in Kabul was no longer a "social function" but a "most important meeting." And there were some new participants:

In conjunction with the meeting in Kabul, SURINE said that he had also learned that ANDREW ROTH , the subject in the Amerasia investigation who is now serving as an Advisor to Communist HO CHI MINH in Indo China, had also attended this meeting along with MINH. SURINE identified MINH as a Communist who had been employed at the Russian offices in Boston from 1931 to 1933 prior to the United States recognition of Russia. He also advised that in 1937 MINH had visited at the LATTIMORE home in Baltimore.

SURINE believed that the foregoing could be verified by the Central Intelligence Agency or by reviewing dispatches issued by the Reuters News Agency, which had issued releases concerning (1) LATTIMORE'S presence in Kabul and (2) the Russian group in Kabul en route from Moscow to Karachi.^[35]

One has to assume that renewed FBI attention to this implausible tale was caused by lack of internal coordination. McFarlin in Baltimore cabled headquarters requesting that WFO "attempt verification" of Surine's account through the CIA. Headquarters followed through not only with the CIA but also with the State Department.

The CIA, never inclined to exercise itself about requests from Hoover, took its time about answering. Most of its reply of June 19 is denied, but the bottom line was skepticism. Ho Chi Minh had tuberculosis: "it is considered doubtful that he could have undertaken a trip requiring arduous physical exertion. . . . it would appear reasonable to conclude that it is improbable that a meeting took place between these individuals at the time and place mentioned."^[36]

The State Department was more positive. Their embassy in Kabul knew of no such meeting. Ho Chi Minh could not have been in Kabul, and Ambassador Louis G. Dreyfus observed, "It is interesting to note that Professor Lattimore in paying courtesy calls on the Chiefs of Mission of countries which are members of the United Nations, was not received by the Soviet Ambassador. His requests for an interview were either not replied to or the false statement was made that the Ambassador was out of the city."^[37]

If the Reuters and Dreyfus responses were not definitive, McFarlin added an observation from Baltimore. Since Lattimore did not move to Baltimore until 1938, he could hardly have entertained Ho Chi Minh at his home there in 1937.^[38]

This was the end of the "meeting in Kabul" flap. Even Surine had to give up on it. But there were dozens of other equally risible stories in his repertoire; it was a veritable encyclopedia of hallucinations.

One of the most bizarre stories concerned Leon Trotsky's murderer. This story came from an adventurer whose name the FBI documents deny. The informant, who had spent time in Mexico, wrote McCarthy sometime in April 1950 claiming to know much about communism in Latin America. McCarthy passed this information to the bureau.^[39]

The bureau took it up. Dallas FBI agents interviewed the informant on April 21, at which time he elaborated on the claims he had made to McCarthy and "indicated that he had other information which he did not wish to disclose," but he would be in Washington during the first week of May and would tell Ladd about it. As was now routine in bureau interviews with informants on communism, the agents asked him if he knew anything about Owen Lattimore. He did not. The agents described him as "one of those persons with a detective complex and he made a most unfavorable impression."^[40]

By the time he reported to the bureau on May 5 in Washington he knew something about Lattimore, connecting him now with the 1940 murder of Trotsky by Frank Jackson. He had a female acquaintance who "had occasion to talk with TROTSKY'S murderer and the latter said 'Don't worry about me, I won't hang or be executed as I have a contact in the United States who is highly placed in the United States Government.' He then identified this contact as OWEN LATTIMORE ."^[41]

The informant was unable to give the FBI much time in Washington; he had to leave for New York, but the bureau could contact him again there. This they finally did, on September 7. He repeated the Frank Jackson story but had no further details. He would, however, be happy to provide the name of his source in Dallas, and the bureau could tell her that he had given them her name.^[42]

The bureau did not follow up this lead, probably because they found it too fantastic to pursue. On December 2, however, the New York office called headquarters to say that the female source of the story about Jackson and Lattimore had been investigated by them previously because of her Communist connections. She was then in New York and was likely

to be subpoenaed soon by HUAC, which intended to hold hearings on Trotsky's murder. Shouldn't the bureau get to her first, so they would not be caught short if she told her story publicly? Headquarters agreed, and New York agents interviewed her the next day.

As with almost all of the leads that came from McCarthy, this one too vanished into thin air when it was finally tracked down. The woman had indeed talked to Frank Jackson, but she had "NEVER HEARD FRANK JACKSON MAKE ANY STATEMENT AT ANY TIME THAT HE HAD AN IMPORTANT CONTACT OR FRIEND IN US GOVERNMENT . [She had never heard] OF OWEN LATTIMORE BEFORE RECENT NEWSPAPER PUBLICITY ."^[43]

Of all the charlatans clamoring for the spotlight and claiming knowledge about Lattimore during 1950, few were as resourceful as Paul Walters (this seems to have been his real name; the FBI documents have a long paragraph about his several aliases, but most of it is denied). Not only did Walters lead McCarthy, Surine, Robert Morris, J. B. Matthews, and the FBI on a merry chase; he also extracted money from both Alfred Kohlberg and a fanatic anti-Communist in Baltimore, Virginia Starr Freedom, to carry out a wild mission to Cuba.

On April 20, 1950, Walters called McCarthy from New York. He had information proving that Lattimore was a Party member, but he would give it to no one but McCarthy. It is not clear how much of his story he told McCarthy over the telephone, but it was enough for McCarthy to promise Walters that one of McCarthy's trusted agents would contact him immediately.^[44] McCarthy then instructed J. B. Matthews to get in touch with Walters. Matthews invited Walters to come to his apartment that same evening, and he complied; he was there from 7:00 P.M. until 2:00 A.M. Matthews was impressed. Walters could name Communist party officials whom he had known in Baltimore during the 1930s, such as Al Lannon and Tommy Ray. Matthews called Robert Morris, at that time in New York for the Republicans on the Tydings committee, and Morris also heard the story by telephone.

Before Walters would talk, he demanded that the FBI not be informed; Matthews agreed to this request. Then Walters began a tale that outdid even Louis Budenz's story of Party instructions on tissue paper to. be flushed down the toilet. Walters had seen a list of contributors to the Communist party in the handwriting of Roy Hudson, a list now stored in Mexico City; it contained the name of Owen Lattimore as a contributor. Walters could get this list in forty-eight hours. He also recalled two times when Lattimore addressed the Baltimore Waterfront Section of the Party

in 1932 and 1933. And shortly before the Seaman's hunger march on Washington in 1932, Lattimore had signed a receipt for $1,380, which was money collected to finance the march.^[45]

In 1934, Walters said, the Party ordered that all records in possession of the Baltimore Waterfront Branch be gotten rid of. The records were to be eliminated in one of three ways: (1) buried in a box under the cellar of the union hall at 1629 Thames Street; (2) sent by courier to the town of Taxco, Mexico, where the records were buried in caves in a hillside outside of town; or (3) taken by courier to a building operated by a Party sympathizer in Mexico City, which was occupied exclusively by Communist artists. Whenever it was Walters's turn to destroy records, he would collect them in an old sea bag, then dump them in a container to be buried beneath the union hall.

This sea bag was to become Walters's passport to fame and fortune. Shortly after 1934, he said, he quit the Communist party, left Baltimore, and bought a string of racehorses. He kept racing equipment in the old sea bag. In 1940 he got out of the racehorse business, sold his horses to a Florida agent named Jose Gomez, and included the sea bag with the deal. A month after this sale, he received a letter from a horse trainer in Cuba who had purchased the horses and sea bag from Gomez. There were some papers, including a receipt, in the bottom of the sea bag. Were these of any value? Walters did not answer the letter.^[46]

Now, in 1950, he knew what had happened. On some occasion when he dumped the Communist documents out of his sea bag, "a couple of them apparently stuck in the bottom of the bag and remained there unnoticed until found by the Cuban trainer in 1940." If he could just get to Cuba, he could locate the horse trainer, recover the papers in his sea bag, and produce documentary proof of Lattimore's Communist party activity.^[47]

Not only that, the Roy Hudson list of Party contributors was probably at the repository in Mexico City. He had friends there who could obtain it and bring it to New York. Or perhaps he could go get it himself. The latter proposal later appealed to Surine, who told the bureau on April 28 that he and Walters were going to Mexico City the next day.^[48] (Apparently this trip did not take place.)

Walters had other tales: about an American consul in Italy who was a Communist, about a company he worked for that was acting for the Party, about Communist lawyers in Baltimore. But it was the promise of documents about Lattimore that attracted Matthews and later his friends Kohl-

berg and Virginia Freedom. Walters made several telephone calls while he was at Matthews's apartment, saying that he was calling collect to Mexico and Havana.

The next day Matthews and Morris discussed Walters's claims extensively. They concluded that despite their promise to Walters not to involve the FBI, there was sufficient doubt about his credibility to get the bureau to check him out. Accordingly, on April 22 Morris requested the FBI to send agents to talk to him and Matthews. When the agents appeared at Matthews's apartment that evening, they heard the Walters story and were requested to check it out quietly. All this was reported to Ladd the next day.^[49]

Ladd's reaction was to inform Matthews and Morris that the bureau would do no investigating unless they could talk to Walters. Two days later Morris said they could talk to Walters after a week had gone by. Meanwhile the bureau did routine name checks. New York showed nothing, but Baltimore found some interesting items. Walters had not been active in the Communist party there in 1931-34. (Nor had Lattimore been in the city at that time; he was in China.) In 1947 Walters had been arrested by the Baltimore County Police for obstructing justice and withholding information relative to the commission of a crime. He was a "heavy boozer," and his "FORMER EMPLOYER ADVISED THAT HE WAS A MAN OF MYSTERY AND TOLD WEIRD TALES ."^[50]

This information should have been enough to kill FBI interest, but McCarthy was involved. So on April 27 Hoover asked the legal attaché in Havana to check out the places to which Walters had allegedly made telephone calls from Matthews's apartment. This investigation produced nothing.^[51]

McCarthy was now going strong on the Walters story. Surine had been put in charge of it. An incident in New York April 30 stirred up some bad blood between McCarthy's henchman and the FBI. SAC Scheidt cabled the bureau on that date that he had located Mrs. Walters, learned that she and her husband were checking out of their hotel very soon, and put a tail on them. His cloak-and-dagger report:

SPOT CHECK INSTITUTED AT APPROXIMATELY NOON OF THIS DATE. UNKNOWN MAN OBSERVED LOADING PACKAGES AND BABY CARRIAGE IN CAB, IN FRONT OF HOTEL ——— UNKNOWN MAN GLANCED UP IN DIRECTION OF BUREAU CAR AND IMMEDIATELY PROCEEDED THERETO, OPENED THE DOOR OF THE CAR AND IDENTIFIED HIMSELF AS FORMER AGENT SUR -

INE. HE DISPLAYED HIS TEN YEAR KEY HANGING ON HIS TIE CHAIN. HE STATED "I RECOGNIZE THIS CAR AS A BUREAU CAR AND I ASSUME YOU ARE A BUREAU AGENT. I WISH YOU WOULD CLEAR OUT OF THE AREA. I AM WORKING IN COMPLETE COOPERATION WITH THE BUREAU. MY MAN MADE A MISTAKE LAST NIGHT ——— PLEASE DO NOT CHECK THIS ——— FOR IT MAY MEAN THIS MAN'S LIFE." HE THEN INDICATED THAT HE WAS GOING TO WASHINGTON THIS WEEKEND AND WOULD SEE MR. LADD AND THE DIRECTOR AND GIVE THEM THE WHOLE STORY . [Hoover's comment in the margin at this point: "He will never come near the Bureau."] HE THEN RAN TO AN AWAITING TAXICAB AND ENTERED WITH ——— AGENT IN BUREAU CAR COULD NOT DISCREETLY TAKE UP THE SURVEILLANCE IN THE AUTOMOBILE AND WAS UNABLE TO LOCATE A CAB .^[52]

But the agents traced Surine's cab, learning that it had gone to Newark Airport and that Surine had given the driver a seven-dollar tip.

McCarthy was uneasy when he heard that Surine had been tailed by a bureau agent. Jean Kerr, McCarthy's secretary, called Hoover and arranged an appointment for herself and another McCarthy staffer (not Surine; Hoover was right, he never came near the bureau) to see the director. On May 1 Hoover wrote a long memo to Tolson about their visit. They had come to smooth ruffled feathers. Hoover's memo said that according to Kerr, Walters had promised McCarthy that he would "produce the documents" that weekend to prove Lattimore a Party member. But the next day Kerr telephoned Hoover to say that Walters had produced nothing.^[53]

Walters then disappeared from FBI files until May 11, when he surfaced at the Miami FBI office and told a sad tale to SAC Carson. He had originally hoped to testify before the Tydings committee, but when Tydings did not call him, Surine put him in touch with Virginia Starr Freedom of Baltimore and Alfred Kohlberg of New York. They believed his story and agreed to finance a trip to Cuba to retrieve his sea bag and the Lattimore receipt. Kohlberg sent a former Office of Naval Intelligence agent with him on this trip, but the ONI man "kept him in a drunken condition from time of departure until arrival back in Miami last night." The ONI man also "tried to dope him" in Miami. Sadly, he did not find his sea bag.^[54]

Walters arrived back in New York May 22, when FBI agents there talked to him. His whole tale now unraveled:

SUBJECT CLAIMS ALL OF THE MATERIAL AS SET FORTH IN REF MEMO IS PURE FABRICATION ALLEGES THAT WHEN QUESTIONED BY SENATE COMMITTEE INVESTIGATORS THEY AND HIMSELF WERE DRINKING HEAVILY. AS A RESULT OF INTOXICATION, HE IS NOT SURE WHAT HE TOLD THEM BUT NONE OF IT TRUE. . . IN ORIGINAL STORY TO I. B· MATTHEWS AND ROBERT MORRIS, SUBJECT ALLEGED ATTENDING CP MEETINGS AT WHICH LATTIMORE LECTURED. NOW STATES THAT HE NEVER TOLD THIS STORY AND THAT HE HAS NO KNOWLEDGE OF ANY CP ACTIVITIES ON PART OF LATTIMORE OTHER THAN SEEING HIM IN OFFICE OF ADES IN BALTIMORE. . . . STATED THAT IN ALL INTERVIEWS WITH SENATE COMMITTEE INVESTIGATORS THEY ALL ATTEMPTED TO "BLOW UP" HIS STORY AND HAVE HIM TESTIFY TO FABRICATION. MAINTAINS HIS ONLY MOTIVE IN ORIGINAL CONTACTS WITH COMMITTEE WAS PATRIOTISM· ADMITS PRESENTLY DEALING WITH NY JOURNAL AMERICAN NEWSPAPER THROUGH [former FBI agent] LARRY E. KERLEY TO SELL STORY AND TO INVESTIGATE CP ACTIVITIES. . . . UPON REQUEST BY INTERVIEWING AGENT, SUBJECT REFUSED TO EXECUTE SIGNED STATEMENT. NO FURTHER INVESTIGATION CONTEMPLATED BY THIS OFFICE .^[55]

After this memo, Walters disappeared from bureau files. The only missing detail provided by a bureau summary was that Kohlberg had supplied $520 to pay Walters's wife's expenses while he was in Cuba. On July 13 Hoover notified Assistant Attorney General McInerney that the Walters investigation was a dead end.^[56]

One of the ingenious former Communists who wanted to jump on the anti-Lattimore bandwagon was from Cleveland; his name is blacked out in the FBI files. This man went to the bureau office there May 9 with the claim that a Communist writer who used the pen name B. T. Lo was really a collaboration between Lattimore and Thomas A. Bisson. B. T. Lo represented these men's initials reversed. Farfetched? Not in the climate of 1950. The FBI machinery began to track down this possibility.^[57]

B. T. Lo was found to have signed his name to only two articles. One appeared in the June 1940 issue of the Communist , the other in the July 1946 issue of Political Affairs . Both articles contained phrases indicating that the author was a Party member. The Cleveland ex-Communist claimed

that the style of the 1946 article, "U.S. Imperialist Intervention in China," was similar to Lattimore's style in Solution in Asia .

There were several avenues the bureau could use to check out this hypothesis. One was a straightforward search for somebody who knew the author of the B. T. Lo articles. Accordingly, twenty-six leads were put out to bureau and army offices requesting file searches and ordering interviews of ex-Communists who might know B. T. Lo and of anti-Lattimore China specialists who would be familiar with Lattimore's publications.^[58] (One lead was later canceled: "John K. Fairbank should not be interviewed at this time.")

The results were disappointing. No biographical directory, government bureau, or library had a listing for B. T. Lo. None of the ex-Communists interviewed knew who he was, though several said he did indeed write like Lattimore. One ex-Communist said that Lo might have been one of two Chinese associated with the Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy; the bureau checked out this suggestion, with negative results. The Daily Worker index, New York Times index, Library of Congress, and other similar repositories yielded no information.

The Baltimore FBI office, always more zealous and optimistic than headquarters, refused to admit defeat. On July 6 Baltimore wrote Hoover pointing out that Louis Budenz had said Lattimore was charged with changing the Party line on Chiang Kai-shek, that this task was carried out by Bisson in the July 14, 1943, Far Eastern Survey , and that Lattimore and Bisson had been to Yenan together in 1937. Q.E.D. Baltimore therefore had a new avenue of investigation to suggest: "The Bureau Central Research Desk is requested to compare the style and expression of articles written by B. T. LO with the known writings of OWEN LATTIMORE and THOMAS ARTHUR BISSON , aka T. A. BISSON ." Baltimore also wanted federal income-tax records searched to see if Lo had ever filed a return.^[59]

FBI Inspector Carl Hennrich supported the IRS search. Hoover, always sensitive about bureau relations with other government agencies, shot it down on July 19; it would require an immense search by IRS. "This is an unreasonable request and might injure our present excellent relations."^[60]

Hennrich also supported Baltimore's request to the FBI Central Research Desk. The head of that office, F. J. Baumgardner, objected in a letter to Belmont on August 9: "Such a comparison will require extensive research and can not be expected to produce conclusive results. The B. T. Lo articles are alleged to be the production of Lattimore and Bisson and, therefore, the style and expresssion of either would be altered in such a

joint article. A further limitation is the availability of only two specimens of the B. T. Lo writings."^[61]

Baumgardner got his way.

Then there was a discouraging report from Seattle. A bureau informant there, probably George Taylor, read the B. T. Lo articles and decided that Lo was less sophisticated than Lattimore was. As for Bisson, he was a "dull, factual writer" whose style was different from both Lo and Lattimore. Further, Lattimore held opinions different from those stated by Lo.^[62]

The bureau then went back to the original informant in Cleveland. Presumably, Cleveland agents told him that little support could be found for his tale. He then changed his ground: B. T. Lo's similarity to Lattimore-Bisson was one of substance, not style: "he feels the same author may have written both articles since similar conclusions are reached."^[63]

Other informants were still skeptical. A Washington, D.C., authority frequently consulted by the bureau on China affairs said the B. T. Lo language would not have been used by Lattimore.^[64]

By the end of November, headquarters had cooled on the whole topic. Hoover wrote Baltimore telling them that most of the leads had been run out; since nothing of consequence had been obtained, "No comparison will be attempted by the research desk at the Bureau at this time."^[65] The matter appears to have died at this stage.

But Baltimore filed it away for future reference. In November 1952, when the Justice Department was about to take the Lattimore case to a grand jury, Baltimore raised the B. T. Lo matter again. There were "a number of new high-level Communist Party defectees who might now be in a position to give information concerning this matter." Why not interview these defectors in Denver, Miami, Los Angeles, and New York? Hoover gave his approval, but the new "high-level defectees" knew nothing about B. T. Lo. This was the end of the line.^[66]

There is almost no end to the series of improbable tales and unreliable informants in the Lattimore FBI file. They become wearisome. They were all seeking to ride the wave of hysteria unleashed by McCarthy. Ultimately the FBI rejected them all.

Most of the tale bearers peddled their fictions through Senator McCarthy. One seaman who shipped on the United States Lines General Lee told McCarthy that Lattimore had boarded this ship in Manila in July 1936 and had created a disturbance on deck that delayed the ship's sailing. The FBI obtained logs for the General Lee , found no reference to Latti-

more (who was nowhere near Manila at the time), and noted that the informant often overindulged in wine.^[67] Another informant claimed Lattimore had worked for the Williams Drug Company in China, selling tiger's-blood pills; these pills were much desired by the Chinese, and their purveyors had access to "a wide coverage of the Chinese provinces." This also the bureau checked out; Lattimore had no connection with the Williams Drug Company.^[68] Still another informant, an officer of Naval Intelligence in San Diego, claimed that Lattimore had been a "friend and associate of Nicholas Roerich," who was alleged to have been a Soviet spy. The Japanese claimed Roerich had traveled widely in Mongolia locating sites for Soviet air bases. Again the bureau conducted a major investigation; Lattimore was found to have had no connection with Roerich.^[69]

There is no adjective adequate to describe the insanity of the times, the corruption and unreliability of the informants, or the gullibility of senators and their staffs. It was this netherworld of fanatics, psychopaths, alcoholics, con artists, and demagogues that Lattimore confronted on April 1, 1950, when he landed in New York.

Chapter Seventeen
A Fool or a Knave

Lattimore arrived in London from Afghanistan on March 30, the same day McCarthy addressed the Senate. One of Lattimore's worries was whether he would get a chance to read his mail and be briefed on all the happenings in Washington before he had to face the press. He need not have worried; the British had everything arranged. They took him to their VIP room, where his mail was waiting, as was a telephone call from the UN office in London.^[1]

The mail of greatest import was from Eleanor and the lawyer she had engaged, Abe Fortas. Eleanor's letter was almost apocalyptic: "You are going to have an opportunity of a lifetime to affect the future of democracy in this country. McCarthy has staked everything now on this one case, so that if he is thoroughly demolished now his whole house of cards tumbles and his methods and all he stands for fall with them. I am too tired to express myself sensibly, but all your friends and all the decent people in America are backing you and counting on you to come out with flying colors. You will have saved the 81 people on his State Department list, and a lot of other people who will soon be on other lists if he gets by with this."^[2]

It was an admirable pep talk, but the mood of the country was too angry, the number of liars willing to capitalize on the Red Scare too large, the need of frustrated Republicans and ultraconservative Democrats for a scapegoat too great for one lone professor to turn things around.

Abe Fortas was more realistic. In addition to warning Lattimore that the country was deranged and that Lattimore was facing a gutter fight, Fortas described what he had done to present Lattimore's case. He had requested Tydings to schedule Lattimore for an appearance before the

subcommittee and had arranged a press conference for the Mongols. Fortas also wrote McCarthy and enclosed a copy of the letter for Lattimore to read in London:

We write this letter to you at this time to give you an opportunity publicly to retract and repudiate your charges that Mr. Lattimore is a Communist or Communist sympathizer or the agent of a foreign power. We suggest that a decent regard for the welfare of your country, for the high office that you hold, and for elementary Christian values, require you immediately to put a stop to this fantastic outrage. We are required, however, to inform you that any withdrawal of your charges that you now make will not, as a matter of law, exonerate you from such legal liability as you may have in the event that Mr. Lattimore chooses to bring action against you for the statements that you have made concerning him, including your "off-the-record" identification of him as the person whom you libelously accuse of being the "top Soviet espionage agent."^[3]

But Joe McCarthy was careful of his own neck, if not those of others. He had restricted his actionable statements to the Senate; senatorial immunity would protect him. His caution became clear on April 8, when he made an impassioned speech to the Marine Corps League in Passaic, New Jersey. There he attacked Lattimore, Jessup, and Service for "following the Communist Party line" and dared them to sue him. It was clever semantics. How would one prove that he had never "followed the Communist Party line?" Everybody in the country had followed the "Party line" during the war, when Russia was our ally. Even MacArthur had uttered outrageously pro-Soviet statements. And even though Drew Pearson offered to pay McCarthy's legal expenses if the senator made specific and actionable charges outside the Senate, he never did.^[4]

After Lattimore had digested his mail in London, he met the press. This was encouraging. The doctrinaire American journalists who accepted McCarthy's hallucinations were absent, and the group at the London airport was "quite obviously assuming that 1 was innocent until proven guilty." Lattimore was particularly pleased to see Hamilton Owens of the Baltimore Sun among them; Owens flew to London to get an early story carrying Lattimore's reaction to the McCarthy charges.^[5] This decision took some courage. Owens was well aware of the sentiment against Lattimore in Maryland and of the hostility of one of the Sun's columnists. His story was upbeat and fair.

Lattimore was scheduled to arrive in New York March 31, but the flight

was delayed and did not reach Idlewild until the next day. Eleanor, Fortas, and the press were waiting. At the airport Lattimore made only brief remarks showing his contempt for McCarthy. He made a longer statement at a press conference later in the day. This statement had been carefully prepared by Fortas, and copies of it were passed out. It was a frontal challenge to McCarthy's integrity: Latimore called him a "madman" and said, "The Soviet Union ought to decorate McCarthy for telling the kind of lies about the United States that Russian propagandists couldn't invent."^[6]

Lattimore also reviewed his few connections with the State Department: being on State's payroll during the Pauley mission, since Pauley had no payroll of his own; taking part in Jessup's China policy roundtable for three days in 1949; and lecturing once to State Department personnel on Japanese problems. He categorically denied membership in or sympathy for the Communist party, a statement he later repeated under oath before Tydings. And he defended his extensive writings, which, he said, never advocated or supported the cause of communism. What he had done was "to find out and state publicly not only the weaknesses of the Communists' position in Asia, but also the points that might increase the danger that they will make progress with the people of that part of the world." Anticipating McCarthy's promise to produce testimony proving him to be a member of the Party, Lattimore threw down a challenge: "If anybody has sworn that I have been or am a member of the Communist party he is a perjurer. He should be prosecuted to the limit of the law."^[7]

The press received him well, and questions were friendly. If the Hearst people were present, they passed up this opportunity to heckle.

Before Lattimore and his family left for home, Fortas got his approval for one more operation: "a telegram to Budenz, asking him in the interests of fair play either to disavow the press rumor that he had signed an affidavit for McCarthy, or, if he had, to advise us immediately and to disclose its contents. No answer ever came."^[8]

The Lattimores had a weekend at home before moving to Washington on Monday, April 13, where preparations for appearing before Tydings were already under way at the firm of Arnold, Fortas, and Porter. One of their first activities that Monday was to release Lattimore's memo on Far Eastern' policy that he had furnished Jessup in 1949. This memo got good play in the papers; it was the lead story in the New York Times . The headlines were absolutely accurate: "Lattimore Bares His Memorandum on Far Eastern Policy. Professor Acts after McCarthy Challenges State

Department to Release the Document. He Opposed Aid to Chiang. But Urged Efforts to Convince Orientals They Should Turn to U.S. and Not Russia."^[9]

Next to the Times story about Lattimore's memo was a startling revelation from Henry Cabot Lodge, one of the two Republicans on the Tydings committee. Lodge had submitted a bill in the Senate to take the investigation of Communists in the State Department out of the hands of the Senate, where partisan wrangling and public charges against people like Kenyon, Jessup, and Lattimore were proving to be "a very defective way of promoting loyalty, since it often besmirches the character of innocent persons, weakens the position of the United States before the world, fails to find the really dangerous individuals and, by putting the spotlight on others, can actually increase the security of the real Communist ringleaders. . . . Mistakes have been made in the past and they must be ruthlessly corrected. All we can learn so far shows clearly that none of the current charges have been proven."^[10] It was a ringing condemnation of Joe McCarthy. Abe Fortas could not have put it better.

Lodge called for a bipartisan commission of twelve private citizens to take charge of the inquiry and to conduct it in confidence. Unfortunately, matters had already gone too far for his proposal to gain widespread support. The Senate Democratic leadership could not support Lodge, since calling off the public Tydings hearings would deprive Lattimore and others of a chance to clear their names. And since the Democrats believed McCarthy to be a liar, they wanted to expose him in public. Lodge was too late.

While Lattimore and his crew were getting ready for Tydings, the FBI was reversing its stance on interviewing Alfred Kohlberg. On March 30 the Washington field office, noting that McCarthy derived most of his anti-Lattimore speech from Kohlberg, recommended to headquarters that Kohlberg be interviewed. Two days later SAC Scheidt in New York supported this recommendation. Hoover, still mindful of Kearney's opinion that Kohlberg was not trustworthy, was reluctant. But fear that McCarthy would steal a march on the bureau prevailed; on April 3 Hoover reversed himself, and the next day New York agents called on Kohlberg.^[11]

The interview yielded little. Kohlberg affirmed giving McCarthy most of the documents used in his Senate speech and provided the agents with copies of some new ones. One document not previously seen by the bureau revealed Kohlberg at his mendacious best: claiming that Lattimore went secretly to Moscow in 1944; claiming that an IPR writer named

Abraham Chapman had been dishonorably discharged from the military; and stating that Lattimore had advocated turning over half of China to the Japanese in 1938.^[12] These falsehoods did not particularly agitate the bureau; Kohlberg's major debacle was yet a week off.

For three frantic days the Lattimore party worked on his statement for the Tydings committee. Eleanor Lattimore was chief of staff; Fortas was prime legal adviser, with help from Thurman Arnold and Paul Porter. Joe Barnes broke off a lecture tour to help, mostly as devil's advocate; Stanley Salmen of Little, Brown edited. Lattimore's students and associates from the Page School, including George McT. Kahin, Dave Wilson, John De-Francis, and Ruth Bean concentrated on an analysis of how McCarthy quoted Lattimore contrary to context. By the afternoon of April 5, a forty-two-page statement was ready.^[13]

Thursday, April 6, 1950, the nation's spotlight was focused as never before on a lone professor, charged with being the top Soviet spy in the United States. He appeared before a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate determined not only to defend his loyalty and integrity but also to counterattack the senator who had maligned him.

The hearing room was crowded when Chairman Tydings called the subcommittee to order at ten-thirty.^[14] Senators Theodore Green, Brien McMahon, Bourke Hickenlooper, and Henry Cabot Lodge flanked the chairman. Senator Tom Connally, chairman of the parent Foreign Relations Committee, sat with the members. Behind them were Senators McCarthy, Scott Lucas, Charles Tobey, Karl Mundt, and William Know-land. Lattimore sat at the witness table with Fortas. Tydings swore Lattimore to tell the truth and asked him to proceed. Lattimore began his statement:

Mr. Chairman, and members of the subcommittee, I wish to express to you my appreciation for this opportunity to reply to the statements about me which have been made by Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. The Senator has in effect accused me of disloyalty and treason. He made these accusations when I was in Afghanistan, and I did not hear of them until some days after they were first made. . . .

The technique used by the Senator in making these charges is apparently typical. He first announced at a press conference that he had discovered "the top Russian espionage agent in the United States." At this time he withheld my name. But later, after the drama of his announcement was intensified by delay, he whispered my name to a group of

newspapermen, with full knowledge that it would be bandied about by rumor and gossip and eventually published. I say to you that this was unworthy of a Senator or an American.

As I shall show in detail, McCarthy's charges are untrue. As soon as I heard of the substance of the charges I denounced them for what they were: base and contemptible lies. In fact, as I recall, on several occasions I used somewhat more colorful words.

Gentlemen, I want you to know that it is most distasteful to me to use language concerning a United States Senator which, to say the least, is disrespectful. To me, the honor and responsibility of American citizenship carry with them an obligation to respect the high office of a Member of the United States Senate. But that office, the position of United States Senator, likewise carries with it a responsibility which this man Joseph McCarthy has flagrantly violated. As a citizen who holds no official position, it is my right and duty to list these violations which are illustrated by the Senator's conduct in my own case.^[15]

Lattimore then listed McCarthy's main offenses: making the U.S. government the object of suspicion and derision throughout the world, instituting a reign of terror among employees of that government, using classified documents without authorization, accusing people of high crimes without giving them opportunity to defend themselves, refusing to submit alleged evidence to the Senate, and going back on his word. It was prime invective.

One thing McCarthy had done that pleased Lattimore was to make Americans conscious of the fact that Asia was important to American security. He had himself "been trying all my life to arouse interest in this area." Now there would be a public debate on Asian policy, which was all to the good. Where McCarthy and his China lobby allies were mistaken was in assuming that anyone who disagreed with them about supporting Chiang in his aim to retake the mainland was disloyal.

Then Lattimore reverted again to sarcasm:

I wonder a bit how a man so young as Joseph McCarthy, whose acquaintance with national and international affairs is so recent, can have become such a great expert on the difficult and complex problem of China and the Far East. My wonder on this score increased when I read his speech on the Senate floor. Some of his material is from Chinese and Russian sources. Or perhaps I should say that some of his exotic material on Mongolia appears to trace back to some Russian source of distinctly low caliber.

I did not know that the Senator was a linguist. But really, the mate-

rial that the Senator read is so badly translated and so inaccurate that I am sure that I should not like to place the blame for it on the learned Senator. Indeed, I fear that the sound and fury come from the lips of McCarthy, but that there is an Edgar Bergen in the woodpile. And I fear that this Edgar Bergen is neither kindly nor disinterested.

In any event, the Senator has stated that he will stand or fall on my case. I hope this will turn out to be true, because I shall show that his charges against me are so empty and baseless that the Senator will fall, and fall flat on his face. I trust that the Senator's promise that he will retire from the arena if his charges against me fail is not as insincere as his twice-repeated promise to resign if he should fail to repeat his libelous accusations in a forum which would expose him to suit. I hope the Senator will in fact lay his machine gun down. He is too reckless, careless, and irresponsible to have a license to use it.^[16]

Brave words, but they were too optimistic. The senator was never to lay down his machine gun voluntarily.

Lattimore took an hour and forty-five minutes to present his case against McCarthy. He covered the Point Barrow charge, the claim that the IPR was a tool of the Russians, and Kohlberg's attack on the IPR. "It is easy to understand the joy of Kohlberg and his associates when they found the willing hands and innocent mind of Joseph McCarthy. It is easy to imagine their pleasure when they observe a United States Senator creating an international sensation by regurgitating their own fantastic and discredited venom."^[17] He explained his trip to Yenan in 1937, his nonconnection with the Amerasia case, his distaste for Henry Wallace, his connection with the Maryland Association for Democratic Rights, the OWI letter to Joe Barnes, and the Soviet attacks on him as a "learned lackey of imperialism" and a mad scholastic.

Then he moved into the substance of China policy and the options open for the United States. There were four, as Lattimore saw it. (1) Support Chiang in an attempt to reconquer China: this was impossible. (2) Support a middle-of-the-road, non-Communist group in China: this was no longer feasible. (3) Recognize the possibility of Titoism in China and encourage it: this was his preferred position. (4) Adopt a policy of unremitting hostility toward the People's Republic: this would drive Mao completely into the orbit of the Soviet Union. In regard to the last possibility, he had a warning. Nationalist air attacks then being made on the mainland would cause Mao to seek Russian planes to counter them. This strategy would lead to the Soviets establishing air bases in China. "I person-

ally believe that if the Soviet Union establishes air bases in China they will not be dismantled when the Nationalist forces are defeated. To me, this is an appalling prospect."^[18]

After this lecture on geopolitics, Lattimore said, "Now, gentlemen, my analysis may be partly or wholly wrong. But if anybody says it is disloyal or un-American, he is a fool or a knave." He then read two pages summarizing recommendations he had made that were not followed by the State Department, concluding with a plea for open debate on the issues.^[19] The audience applauded vigorously, and Tydings declared a brief recess. The rest of the morning session was taken over with questions from Senator Hickenlooper about events in China. Lattimore fielded them easily.

McCarthy did not return for the afternoon session. It was relatively mild, with Hickenlooper again struggling through inept questions about Asian politics, Sino-American relations, Lattimore's opinions about Chiang, and so forth.

There was one bombshell at about four-thirty. It came from the chairman, Senator Tydings.

Dr. Lattimore, your case has been designated as the No. 1 case, finally, in the charges made by Senator McCarthy. You have been called, substantially, I think, if not accurately quoting, the top Red spy agent in America. We have been told that if we had access m certain files that this would be shown.

I think as chairman of this committee that I owe it to you and to the country to tell you that four of the five members of this committee, in the presence of Mr. J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI, had a complete summary of your file made available to them. Mr. Hoover himself prepared those data. [He didn't; it was probably Supervisor Branigan.] It was quite lengthy. And at the conclusion of the reading of that summary in great detail, it was the universal opinion of all the members of the committee present, and all others in the room, of which there were two more, that there was nothing in the file m show that you were a Communist or had ever been a Communist, or that you were in any way connected with any espionage information or charges, so that the FBI file puts you completely, up m this moment, at least, in the clear.^[20]

There was great elation in the Lattimore camp. Dozens of spectators congratulated him. Press comment, except for the Hearst, Scripps Howard, and McCormick Patterson group, was favorable. Lattimore says the exhilaration lasted for two days; strangers would stop him on the street

to shake hands. His father, a classicist, told him that his statement compared with Cicero's oration against Catiline.

Lattimore was particularly heartened by the presence at the hearing of Robert LeMoyne Barrett and his wife. Barrett, an explorer-philanthropist living in California, had supported Lattimore's travels until he took the job at Johns Hopkins. Now, with Lattimore's strong response to McCarthy, Barrett decided he was a solid citizen after all. From then until Barrett's death in 1969 Lattimore was again the recipient of Barrett subsidies. McCarthy never knew that he had inadvertently furthered Lattimore's travels.

David Oshinsky accurately describes the score at the end of the first Lattimore hearing. McCarthy was the big loser: "By first overstating his case and then retreating to safer ground, he seemed unsure of his own evidence. And Lattimore had proved to be a tough adversary, someone more than willing to slug it out in public. The blood had begun to flow, but most of it was on Joe's face. One reporter noted that 'a majority of Senate Republicans are clearly, if silently, exasperated and alarmed. They are deeply disturbed over the injury to the country's prestige . . . and they are certain that, politically, McCarthy's blast is going to do more harm by its backfire than it is on the target.' "^[21]

But McCarthy was not giving up. He had missed Tydings's claim that the FBI files cleared Lattimore. When he heard about it, he exploded. "Either Tydings hasn't seen the files, or he is lying. There is no alternative."^[22] But there was an alternative. The Lattimore case summary that Hoover took to the Tydings committee showed no credible evidence against Lattimore.

Tydings nonetheless muddied the waters in a press conference after the hearing. Reporters asked him whether Hoover had questioned Lattimore's loyalty and whether Hoover would hire Lattimore for the FBI. Tydings denied to the reporters that Hoover had said anything like this, though Hoover had disparaged Lattimore's loyalty. When the Tydings interview appeared in the press on April 4, Hoover wrote a strong memo to Attorney General McGrath emphasizing the "absolute necessity of being circumspect in discussion of matters in executive session because apparently some member of the Senate who was in attendance at the meeting in your office has seen fit to report in substance the comments which I made about Lattimore."^[23] Hoover cared about leaks from the bureau only when he couldn't control them.

Hoover also wanted, as much as did McCarthy, to get the goods on Lattimore. The investigation was ratcheted up a notch. One of the ways in which Lattimore might be impaled was by checking out his finances. If he had unaccounted-for income, or if his net worth was greater than his legitimate income warranted, he had to be getting paid by the Soviets. Thus, a separate investigation into his finances was launched. For the next two years the source of every penny Lattimore had deposited in a bank since 1937 was traced. More than three hundred pages of the Lattimore file report microscopic inspection of his income and investments. Every magazine he wrote for was queried about what they had paid him; since many of his articles were gratis for academic journals, this investigation did not lead far. Every job Lattimore had held for the previous fifteen years was checked out. The fee for every paying lecture he gave was uncovered. Book royalties were determined. Eleanor's income was also checked. The interest on every government bond the Lattimores cashed was calculated.

Since his publisher, Little, Brown, was itself suspected of Soviet connections, the FBI was especially careful in getting their figures. Since espionage was suspected, the bureau would need "to determine whether payments made to Lattimore were actually in keeping with the royalty earnings."^[24] No progress there: royalties matched sales.

Some of the bureau's findings were trivial to the point of farce. One check Lattimore had deposited shortly after his summer at the Vermont farm was for $6.03. It was from the Eastern States Farmers Exchange, a rebate on the purchase of paint brushes. Equally absurd was the bureau's tracing of the royalties on the copies of his books sold abroad. Lattimore wrote the introduction to Gateway to Asia: Sinkiang , by Martin W. Norins. Three copies of this book were sold in Europe, with Lattimore's earnings less than a dollar.^[25]

Some bureau inquiries revealed the narrowness of agent experience. One of Lattimore's monographs, "The Gold Tribe, 'Fishskin Tatars' of the Lower Sungari," had been published by the George Banta Company in Menasha, Wisconsin. Banta denied paying Lattimore anything, but the bureau found out that the National Academy of Sciences had subsidized the publication. Perhaps NAS had paid Lattimore directly? The Baltimore FBI office, collection center for this mass of information, wrote the Milwaukee office, in whose jurisdiction Banta was located, asking the agent there "to ascertain the address of the National Academy of Sciences, and thereafter set out an appropriate lead to determine any income which LATIMORE may have received from this source." Milwaukee replied with

just a slight tinge of sarcasm: the NAS was located on Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C.^[26]

The whole federal project came to nothing.

The day after Lattimore's Tydings appearance, Hoover approved a second avenue of investigation: interviewing Lattimore himself. The bureau was touchy about talking to possibly hostile persons. Hoover absolutely refused to let his agents talk to employees of the Washington Post , to journalists such as I. F. Stone, and to iconoclastic academicians such as Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Initial approaches to Lattimore, however, revealed that he would cooperate. Consequently, agents Ralph C. Vogel and Frank Johnston were assigned this task and briefed extensively on how to act. Ladd's memo of instructions for the interviewers is detailed and sophisticated. The bureau was afraid that Lattimore would insist on one of his attorneys being present, which would cramp the agent's style. A telephone call to Abe Fortas secured permission to talk to Lattimore alone.^[27]

Beginning on April 10 and proceeding intermittently through August 4, Vogel and Johnston spent twelve days with Lattimore, soliciting from him comments about every allegation from any informant the bureau thought even somewhat plausible. At the end of this process a 134-page transcript was prepared; Lattimore read, corrected, and signed it.^[28] There was mutual respect on both sides; Lattimore had spoken candidly, and the agents felt that he had pulled no punches. The bureau did not, of course, assume that Lattimore always told the truth, but it found no significant weaknesses.

A third investigation examined the extent to which Lattimore's writings followed the Party line. This was a specialized task for the Central Research Desk, which was not overjoyed at getting the assignment. Bureau files at that time credited approximately 125 books and articles to Lattimore's pen; they had apparently no listing of his extensive ONA articles. But even 125 items scared Baumgardner of Central Research: as he wrote Belmont on April 12, "It is quite apparent that if a detailed review and analysis of all the written works of Owen Lattimore are desired it will create a project which will take six Supervisors three weeks. It is to be kept in mind that after the entire works of Lattimore have been studied and analyzed, they must be compared and contrasted with the Communist Party line relative to China and to any other nation to which Lattimore's books may refer." Baumgardner's plea: let's be sure we want this, and even if we do, let's confine it at first to his books. Tolson and Ladd took pity on the overworked Central Research Desk and on April 17 agreed to confine the research to books. This task, they thought, should

take no more than a week.^[29] Ten weeks later Central Research produced the report.

It was not favorable to Lattimore. Baumgardner and his staff had an easy time finding statements from Lattimore with which some Communist authority agreed. In one instance, the kidnapping of Chiang Kai-shek at Sian in December 1936, they found seven specific statements agreed to by both Lattimore and the Communist party:

1. There was a widespread popular demand in China for united resistance to the Japanese.

2. The Kuomintang was responsible for the lack of unity.

3. Chiang Kai-shek's Northeastern armies were on amicable terms with the Communist armies.

4. The Chinese Communists did not take vindictive advantage of the situation to kill Chiang.

5. The Communists contributed to the happy solution: Chiang's release.

6. The release put an end to civil war and created a united front.

7. Chinese Communist policy had beneficial results.^[30]

Going about it this way, it was easy to rack up a big score against Lattimore. What Baumgardner undoubtedly did not know is now the conventional wisdom of historians of modern China: every one of these statements was substantially true. There is no significance in such a "comparison." Nevertheless, the bureau analysis did not approach the convoluted sophistry of later efforts.

Five clays after Lattimore's appearance before Tydings, Hoover wrote a letter to the attorney general that revealed how shallow Hoover's understanding of the responsibilities of his office really was.

In connection with the charges that have been made in the Senate to the effect that Owen J. Lattimore is an espionage agent and the widespread public interest which has resulted, I am wondering if you have given any serious thought to the desirability of immediately convening a Grand Jury in order that it might hear any person who has or might have information indicating espionage violations on the part of Mr. Lattimore.

In this connection, should consideration be given to convening a special Grand Jury, the thought occurs to me that if the names of the

witnesses were to be made public, regardless of the outcome of the Grand Jury deliberations there would be a wholesome public response.^[31]

This incredible proposal was answered by Peyton Ford, assistant to the attorney general, two days later. The answer was calm and designed to give no offense; Hoover's power was such that not even the attorney general felt able to lecture the FBI head on his proposed exercise in punishment by publicity: "I have discussed this matter with the Attorney General and he feels that the proposed action is premature and that we should exhaust completely the investigative possibilities of this case. Such action would probably create the general impression that we have available evidence of the commission of a crime, since grand jury proceedings are not ordinarily started unless such evidence is available. As the situation now stands, the grand jury would be unable to take any action and its failure to act might possibly be construed as a "whitewash" proceeding."^[32] Not a word about Lattimore's rights or the legal requirement for grand jury secrecy to protect the innocent—just a warning that this action might miscarry.

Tydings held no more hearings for two weeks. Speculation about what would happen when he brought on McCarthy's "mystery witness" occupied the press and the Washington cocktail circuit. The bureau was also concerned, as we shall see in the next chapter.

But the bureau had another hot potato on its hands. New York agents interviewed Kohlberg April 4, at his home, and he told them he had additional documents on Lattimore and the IPR.^[33] If they called him later, he would have this new material ready for them. He was also scheduled to go to the New York FBI office for an interview April 7 about Philip Jessup. Kohlberg, always distrustful of the FBI, showed up on the seventh with Howard Rushmore of the New York Journal-American . The agents did not want an audience; they made Rushmore wait in a different room while they talked to Kohlberg.

On April 10, when the New York FBI called him again, Kohlberg said he was going to Washington and could not give them his additional documents until he returned. The genesis of Kohlberg's trip to Washington remains obscure; apparently it arose out of a letter he received from Miller Freeman, an ultrarightist in Seattle who had written Kohlberg complaining about an interview Freeman had with Seattle FBI agents. Since Kohlberg was also unhappy with his FBI interviews, he wanted to go to the

top with his dissatisfactions. He apparently telephoned somebody in headquarters and somehow got the idea that he had an appointment with Hoover on April 13.

On the day before he was to go to Washington, Kohlberg talked to reporters James O'Connor and Philip Santora of the New York Mirror . He was, as Father Kearney had predicted, indiscreet. The Mirror edition of April 13 carried a lengthy story by O'Connor and Santora:

Alfred Kohlberg, importer and anti-Communist who furnished much of the information on which Sen. Joseph McCarthy based his pro-Red charges against Owen J. Lattimore and Ambassador Philip Jessup, yesterday disclosed the FBI will photograph the documents in his files next week. He said the files contain additional charges against Lattimore.

Kohlberg said he was notified by FBI agents that they were ordered by J. Edgar Hoover to "dig up whatever they could on Jessup right away." Later they were directed to photograph all of Kohlberg's papers.

"I told the FBI I had tried to interest them in these documents for five years," commented Kohlberg. "Now they'll have to wait until I get back from Washington, next week. . . ."

Kohlberg, a member of the IPR for 19 years, remarked at a press conference in his office . . . that Lattimore played a "very important part in the sellout of China." He pointed to what he considers one instance of Lattimore's alleged change in sentiment.

From June, 1941, to Spring, 1943, said Kohlberg, the Red Party line favored the Chiang Kai-shek regime.

Lattimore, in a book titled "America and Asia," published in 1943, paid tribute to Chiang Kai-shek as "a world statesman, a real genius." The Communist Party line shifted. In June, 1943, said Kohlberg, when Lattimore became political advisor to President Roosevelt, he recommended Chiang's ouster.

The following year, continued Kohlberg, Lattimore, in a book called "Solution in Asia," attacked Chiang's government as corrupt, reactionary, and feudal.^[34]

The story went on to describe Kohlberg's long struggle with IPR.

When Kohlberg called FBI headquarters from the Mayflower Hotel the morning of April 13, expecting to get directions to Hoover's office, he was instead connected with Alan Belmont. Belmont told him the director was unavailable, but he could see Belmont at eleven o'clock. When Kohlberg appeared at Belmont's office, the assistant director had the New York Mirror article prominently displayed on his desk. He was seething.^[35]

According to Belmont's report, Kohlberg started off by relating the Miller Freeman story. Freeman said the agents who talked to him "were at-

tempting to have Freeman make statements to their liking, rather than to get the facts." This triggered a lecture from Belmont about the bureau's objectivity; they were interested only in "accurate information," and Freeman was simply wrong.

Kohlberg then complained that different pairs of agents had conducted his interviews in New York. Why didn't the bureau use the two agents who were best informed on the subject for both interviews? Belmont explained that the two agents who conducted the first interview were specialists on Lattimore; the second interview concerned Jessup, and Jessup specialists were used.

Having listened to Kohlberg complain for a while, Belmont opened up with his agenda. Why had Kohlberg thought he was scheduled for an appointment with the director? All bureau contacts with him had specified that he was to be interviewed in New York and was not to come to Washington. This criticism threw Kohlberg into confusion. There had been so many inquiries from the press and from the bureau that he had simply gotten mixed up.

Then Belmont lowered the boom. Why had Kohlberg lied to the Mirror reporters about Hoover ordering agents "to dig up whatever they could on Jessup right away"? Kohlberg spluttered, waffled, and apologized for an "incorrect inference." And why, asked Belmont, had Kohlberg claimed that "he had tried to interest the FBI in certain documents for five years," when the FBI had considered the matter carefully, discussed interviewing him, and decided against it. Kohlberg snapped back, "Because you were afraid I would do what I am doing now," pointing to the Mirror article on Beimont's desk.

This response brought from Belmont a lecture on bureau procedure. They never made public comment on active investigations. "It was pointed out to him that publicity during a case is harmful to an investigation and that as a general rule persons contacted by the FBI respected this and did not publicize the activities of the FBI. After considerable discussion, Mr. Kohlberg advised that he would, if so directed, retain in confidence any contact by the FBI in this and other matters and would refrain from making any comment to the press."

Kohlberg then calmed down and discussed some of his conclusions about the IPR. He had no proof it was engaged in espionage, but it had nonetheless served the Communist cause. At the end of this discussion, Kohlberg "particularly mentioned that he had been in dose contact with Louis Budenz."

Belmont's report concludes, "The above interview was handled on a

rather firm basis, inasmuch as it appeared definitely necessary to set Kohlberg straight. There is no guarantee that he will not run to the papers and mention this interview. However, his attitude upon leaving indicated that he would not do so." Hoover scrawled beneath this conclusion, "Right. H."^[36] Kohlberg kept his word—until the Tydings committee released its report in July.

Chapter Eighteen
Agony at the FBI: Louis Budenz

In his March 30, 1950, speech to the Senate, McCarthy did not unleash his full anti-Lattimore arsenal. Perhaps he calculated that the Kohlberg and Utley materials and his phony Barmine affidavit would be sufficient. If so, he was mistaken. The widespread skepticism about his performance necessitated using everything he could muster. None of his early witnesses was top drawer. Kohlberg was recognized even by McCarthy's staff as disreputable. Utley was more respectable but did not make a good witness. Barmine had only hearsay to offer and was reluctant to offer that. McCarthy needed a Whittaker Chambers. J. B. Matthews provided the connection to a witness far more voluble than Chambers—the former Communist Louis Budenz.

The FBI had followed the career of Louis Budenz since his graduation from Indianapolis Law School in 1912: assistant director of the Catholic Central Verein in St. Louis, secretary of the St. Louis Civic League, publicity director for the American Civil Liberties Union, ten years (1921-31) as editor of Labor Age . The bureau had reports on his strike organizing and many arrests in Kenosha, Wisconsin; Patterson, New Jersey; and Toledo, Ohio. They knew he had worked with agitator A. J. Muste, had flirted with Trotskyism, and in October 1935 had joined the Communist party. As a Communist he served as labor editor of the Daily Worker in New York, then as editor of a Communist paper in Chicago, and finally as managing editor of the Daily Worker , where he also served as American correspondent for the London Daily Worker . Hoover had copies of all Budenz's dispatches to London; these articles agitated Hoover greatly, and he pushed hard to get Budenz indicted for failing to register as a foreign agent.^[1]

Budenz claims in This Is My Story that all through his Communist years he sought to reconcile Communist doctrine with Catholicism; by 1945 this reconciliation appeared impossible, and he contacted Monsignor Fulton Sheen about rejoining the Church. Sheen encouraged him. Without letting his Communist comrades even suspect his approaching defection, on October 10, 1945, Budenz was received back in the church at a ceremony in St. Patrick's Cathedral. The next day he took up a professorship at Notre Dame.^[2]

Sheen tipped off Hoover in advance about this defection, so the bureau was ready to move rapidly in debriefing Budenz. Special Agent J. Patrick Coyne of bureau headquarters talked to Sheen, who in turn negotiated with Budenz and Notre Dame. Budenz was wary about talking to the FBI; he was afraid that if word got out to his former Party associates, his personal security would be jeopardized. If he agreed to talk, he wanted Catholic agents to interview him.^[3] Sheen checked out this request and was assured that the bureau would maintain confidentiality. Two Catholic agents, Coyne and Winterrowd, were ordered to prepare questions to put to Budenz. They took two rooms in a South Bend hotel; technicians were in the extra room recording everything Budenz said from a hidden microphone. Budenz did not know for thirteen years that he had been recorded.

The bureau's Communist experts, working with Coyne and Winterrowd, prepared seven hundred questions to put to Budenz, grouped under twenty-one headings. Two of the headings, "Communist controlled and influenced groups" and "Communist propaganda and publications," required him to tell what he knew about the IPR. In addition, seven questions related to the Chinese Communists and their American supporters.^[4] Coyne and Winterrowd interviewed Budenz December 6-12, 1945, from three to five hours each day, skipping only one day. At the end of the series Coyne telephoned a preliminary report to Washington. Budenz, Coyne said, was cooperative and sincere: "Mr. Coyne stated he is not, however, as well informed as expected and they have confronted him with that fact, and he said he realizes this and attributes it to the fact that during the last several years, with the exception of one other man, he has been the only American Communist connected with the National Committee. The rest of them have been Moscow-trained either at the Lenin or Wilson School. He believes, and Mr. Coyne stated he was also of the opinion, that they have not taken him into their complete confidence. . . . Budenz is strictly a Labor man and knows what it is all about."^[5]

Not "well informed" about the Communist party that he had served so loyally for a decade? The slight to Budenz's ego from this disparagement

must have stung him severely. His entire subsequent career can be read as an attempt to escape this stricture, to escape the narrowness of his labor specialty, to appear as a savant on communism in all its forms and variants.

The tapes of these South Bend interviews were transcribed, and Winterrowd condensed the substance into eighty-six pages. Budenz had actually covered a lot more than labor affairs. There was at least one gaping hole, however: his knowledge of Asia was thin. In regard to the question about "persons supporting the pro-Communist Chinese" he denied that Edgar Snow was a Communist, claiming instead that "Harrison Forman was considered closer to the Communist Party than [was] Snow" and that Philip Jaffe was clearly a member. No others were mentioned.^[6]

When it came to the IPR, Budenz was hardly more expansive: "The Institute of Pacific Relations, he said, was Communist inspired '100 per cent.' He later changed this statement to say that it was controlled by the Communists. With regard to one of its main officers, Edward Clark Carter, he said that he could not say Carter was a Communist but that he was looked upon as a Communist by 'those of us who had to deal with him.'" No one else was worthy of mention.^[7]

Budenz was expansive about the subservience of the American Communists to their Soviet masters. The shadowy characters who flitted in and out of Party headquarters in New York disturbed him greatly, as did the "conspiratorial" activities of the Party. And he "identified a number of prominent people who have been on the fringe of the Communist movement in the sense that he, as a member of the National Committee of the Communist Party . . . considered them in that light . . . . Among those he named in this category was Congressman Hugh DeLacy of the State of Washington." And Budenz was more than willing to testify in behalf of the government in cases involving Communists, though he wanted a period of time to reorient his life and refresh his memory before he was called on. Coyne and Winterrowd arranged for him to contact the Indianapolis office should he recall additional pertinent information.^[8]

Budenz's stay at Notre Dame was not very satisfactory, and after a year he moved to Fordham University. There he came under the bureau jurisdiction of Alan Belmont, at that time assistant special agent in charge of the New York office. Belmont soon discovered that Budenz was intent on pursuing a career of professional witnessing. He began to make anti-Communist speeches for Catholic groups and to give interviews to journalists. In October 1946 Budenz talked to a reporter about Hans Berger (alias Gerhart Eisler), whom he described as the chief Soviet overseer of

American Party affairs. This information the bureau found "disconcerting": they were investigating Eisler quietly, but now they had to tie up personnel on surveillance. Belmont wanted assurance from headquarters that "the New York Office would not be held responsible for any control over Budenz and would not be held responsible for any statement or action by him without Bureau knowledge." He got this assurance, but the bureau did want advance word of any proposed statement or action by Budenz in the future.^[9]

In November, after Budenz appeared before HUAC, Coyne and Winterrowd met with him in Washington. In a long report Coyne revealed that Budenz thought the HUAC members "were not fast on the pick-up" when he mentioned matters of importance; they seemed more interested in personal publicity than in promoting the security of the United States. This was one of the few matters on which Budenz agreed with the Left. Ernie Adamson, of the HUAC staff, had even asked Budenz to attack several congressmen, specifically Claude Pepper of Florida. Budenz de-dined. He also told the FBI men that his book This Is My Story would be out by Christmas 1946 and that Father Cronin had written him suggesting that he affiliate with Plain Talk , a new ultraright magazine financed by Alfred Kohlberg. At the close of the interview Budenz indicated that he would be happy to assist the bureau with a brief on the Communist movement.^[10] It was a good interview. Budenz appeared to be under control.

Accordingly, the New York office began to consult Budenz regularly, averaging once a week. He was more than willing m talk about most of the questions they raised, and when he didn't have an answer ready at the first inquiry, he would think about it and refresh his memory for the next week.^[11]

On March 12, 1947, New York agents spent several hours with Budenz, getting his views on William Z. Foster, Steve Nelson, Earl Browder, and other Party notables. During this interview Budenz volunteered a new source of information for the bureau: Alfred Kohlberg had been to see him and had told him about the IPR, its pro-Communist propaganda, and how Kohlberg was trying to reform it. Kohlberg had wanted to know if Budenz could "give him some information on the members of the Executive Committee relative to their Communist tendencies." Budenz could and did. He now knew four Communists on the IPR executive committee: Edward Carter, Harriet Moore, Fred Field, and Len DeCaux. Budenz told the FBI that Kohlberg was grateful for this information and that he and Kohlberg had become fast friends.^[12]

Five months after his first talk with Kohlberg, Budenz was interviewed

about the IPR by Daniel H. Clare, Jr., of the State Department. Budenz told Clare "that he was not prepared to pass judgment upon the degree of Mr. Lattimore's association with the Party. He is aware that he is a sympathizer, but is unable to recall at this time any incidents which definitely indicated that he was a member of the Party." The bureau thought Clare's report was worthless. Belmont noted that Clare depended primarily on Kohlberg and said the report contained "many inaccuracies."^[13]

By 1947 Budenz was being used by the Immigration and Naturalization Service as a witness against various Communists in deportation proceedings. One of these proceedings was particularly painful. On September 17, testifying for the government In the Matter of Desideriu Hammer, alias John Santo , Budenz's credibility was challenged on the grounds that he had committed bigamy and violated the Mann Act. Under cross-examination by Santo's lawyer, Harry Sacher, Budenz took the Fifth Amendment twenty-two times to avoid incriminating himself.^[14] The story that carne out of the Santo hearing is best told by Jack Anderson.

The transcript [of Santo] revealed a more colorful past than was hinted at by the austere comportment of the present Fordham professor. During those halcyon days before his conversion, when Budenz the Communist was plotting murder attempts on Trotsky and stage-managing a plague of labor disruptions for which he was arrested twenty-one times and acquitted twenty-one times, and even before he formally joined the party, the good doctor was sampling the one compensatory amenity which Communist discipline, that harsh mistress, permitted her disciples—sexual philandering. While married to one woman, Budenz had lived with a second for several years. A third female showed up with him on various hotel registrations in Connecticut, Pennsylvania and New York. In the wake of all this there were three illegitimate children, a trail of forged hotel registrations and a divorce on grounds of desertion. After Budenz reconverted to Catholicism and conventionality, he tried, naturally enough, to put the most decorous face possible on things for the sake of all concerned. He faked a marriage date in his self-penned Who's Who biography; stumbled lamely in the timeless manner of errant husbands who are ambushed, through interrogatories about his incontinent past; and even took the Fifth Amendment about some of his trysts. It was a document filled with the small personal confessions which our adversary system wrenches from witnesses to large conspiracies, yet it raised valid questions about a credibility that had assumed crucial proportions.^[15]

Publicity from the Santo case grieved the bureau, which was depending on Budenz for continuing revelations about Communist functionaries and

crimes and expected to use him in important prosecutions yet to come. If he were alienated by embarrassing cross-examinations in piddling deportation cases, the anti-Communist cause would suffer. Agent Coyne was particularly worried about this development. On October 1, 1947, Coyne conferred with a Justice Department attorney who had followed the Santo case; the attorney "doubted very much if Budenz would ever want to testify again in any Government case, in view of the derogatory publicity which appeared in the press concerning Budenz" after the Santo hearing. Coyne wrote Ladd recommending that the bureau pressure Justice to curb use of Budenz for such trivia, saving him for continued use as a bureau informant and for important future trials.^[16] We do not know Ladd's response; Budenz continued to serve as a witness in relatively trivial proceedings.

The bureau was not happy with Budenz's increasing association with Kohlberg, whom they regarded as unstable. In December 1947 Budenz revealed to Coyne that he was considering establishing a relationship with Counter Attack , an ultraright magazine run by Theo Kirkpatrick, a former FBI agent for whom Hoover had a deep antipathy. Kirkpatrick was luring Budenz with access to a cache of "secret records" kept in the Counter Attack office. Coyne warned Budenz against Kirkpatrick, fearing that association with Counter Attack would further damage Budenz's credibility. The warning went unheeded. Budenz not only took up with Kirkpatrick but also became consulting editor of the magazine; he later had his own anti-Communist newsletter printed on the Counter Attack press.^[17]

In 1948 the bureau had clear warning that Budenz was capable of serious exaggeration. The New York Sun of April 27 carried a story head-lined, "Budenz Bares Communist Plot to Infiltrate National Guard." The article caused great consternation both in New York and Washington. Agents were immediately sent to interview Budenz about it. After this interview and an examination of Budenz's previous statements to the bureau Ladd sent Hoover a six-page analysis of the incident. On one of Budenz's more startling claims to the reporter, Ladd noted that "Budenz advised Bureau agents that he had no actual factual support for such a statement." Ladd's conclusion was the first explicit bureau challenge to Budenz's general credibility: "It should be borne in mind that Budenz apparently is inclined to make sensational charges which the press interprets as startling new information when, in fact, the information is old and not completely substantiated by actual facts."^[18] This, like many subsequent warnings, went unheeded. The bureau investment in Budenz was already too great to permit open acknowledgment of his unreliability.

In August 1948 New York SAC Scheidt noted another disturbing de-

velopment. Budenz had frequently mentioned his need for a set of old issues of the Daily Worker to use in "refreshing his memory" concerning the many persons and events he was giving testimony about. Now his friend Alfred Kohlberg had come to his aid. Kohlberg bought a set of the Daily Worker covering the period of Budenz's Party membership, 1935-45, and lent it to Budenz. Observed Scheidt: "Since Professor BUDENZ is using Mr. KOHLBERG'S set of 'Daily Workers,' he is to a certain extent obligated to Mr. KOHLBERG . This is not the most desirable situation."^[19]

Perhaps it was not desirable for the bureau. For Joe McCarthy, anything furthering the Kohlberg agenda was eminently worthwhile. Should Budenz support Kohlberg, and hence McCarthy, in early 1950, it would be a godsend.

At the beginning of 1950 Budenz had not yet weighed in against Lattimore. So far as anyone knew, Budenz had never met the Johns Hopkins professor and knew nothing about him. The Soviet conspiracy in which Budenz had played a role, about which he testified so extensively to the FBI, to the Foley Square trial of the top Communist leaders, and to HUAC, did not even have a China connection. When Budenz wrote his first book in 1947, he was totally unaware that China was the master key to a "Red White House"; this geopolitical doctrine appeared for the first time in his Collier's article of 1949.^[20] Even then Budenz had nothing to say about Lattimore; Earl Browder was the "mastermind" of Kremlin machinations to install a Communist government in China and thus to open the door to Communist conquest of the United States. And, according to Budenz, Lattimore was not among Browder's five accomplices.

In 1950 Budenz's flair for the dramatic burst wide open. His devoted wife knew about this tendency even better than the bureau. According to her, Budenz was a master at entertaining their children with marvelous "Pumpernickel tales" invented through the "magic of his imagination."^[21] In 1950 he turned this imagination to inventing tales about Lattimore.

J. B. Matthews, who knew Budenz well, sensed that he might be ripe for a new arena of witnessing. Clearly HUAC, court trials, and deportation hearings were being upstaged by the flamboyant McCarthy. McCarthy had written Budenz March 14 asking if he knew anything about Lattimore; Budenz did not answer.^[22] But Budenz could not turn down a call from his good friend Matthews. When Matthews phoned March 25, Budenz was cordial. Matthews recorded the conversation without Budenz's knowledge. Several days later Matthews gave a copy of the transcript to the FBI. It is startling. Had this transcript been public at the time, Budenz's credibility would have suffered immeasurably.

Budenz's public posture was that of a reluctant witness, similar to

Chambers, who testified against those he claimed to be Communists only under subpoena and with great anguish. Chambers, however, was sincere; the Matthews transcript shows Budenz to have been a hypocrite. The bureau regarded this transcript as so important that half a dozen copies are scattered through the Lattimore file, and one was sent to the attorney general. After casual preliminaries, the conversation got down to business:

Matthews : Would you be able if called upon to identify Owen Lattimore as a party member by virtue of your position on the DAILY WORKER?

Budenz : Ah, you mean if I were subpoenaed?

Matthews : Yes, that is what I mean.

Budenz : It would be hearsay identification.

Matthews : It would be, as I understand it, from one of our mutual friends—you know whom I am talking about?

Budenz : Yes.

Matthews : It would be because you had to know in your job?

Budenz : That's right. I know 400 concealed Communists, J. B. that I cannot mention.

Matthews : I understand.

Budenz : Because if I did, why there would be such a furor that I would be discredited.

Matthews : Yes.

Budenz : That's why I am taking the thing seriatim so to speak. . . . I have several irons in the fire. I am eager to expose Field and Jaffe and the whole set up.

Matthews :Yes, that whole Far Eastern business?

Budenz :Yes. The only thing is, I want to do it in such a way that I don't appear to be too partisan, you know.

Matthews :Right.^[23]

It is noteworthy that even at this late date, on March 25, 1950, Budenz still had not zeroed in on Lattimore. He would testify about Lattimore, but he was "eager to expose" only Field and Jaffe. With McCarthy's speech of March 30, when Lattimore was put dead center, Budenz's priorities shifted accordingly. He had now come full circle. Whereas in 1949 his litany of Soviet machinations did not even include Lattimore, two years

later his recollections of Lattimore's misdeeds filled eleven single-spaced pages of an FBI summary.^[24]

The FBI was late in learning of Budenz's sudden concern about Lattimore. On March 26, 1950, Hoover routinely instructed the New York FBI office to check with Budenz about his Collier's article. If the IPR had influenced China policy and Lattimore had been editor of the major IPR publication, perhaps Lattimore had "knowingly assisted Communists in such activity" during his editorship.^[25] Scheidt sent an agent to see Budenz the next day. His report to headquarters set forth the new revelations.

CONCERNING LATTIMORE, BUDENZ ADVISED THIS OFFICE ON MARCH TWENTYSEVEN THAT HE HAD NEVER MET HIM BUT HEARD ABOUT HIM MANY TIMES, PARTICULARLY AT POLITICAL COMMITTEE MEETINGS OF PARTY WHEREIN FREDERICK V. FIELD MADE REPORTS. IN THESE REPORTS FIELD STATED THAT LATTIMORE WAS GIVEN CERTAIN ASSIGNMENTS, OR HE REPORTED ON WORK DONE BY LATTIMORE. THERE WAS NO QUESTION IN BUDENZ'S MIND THAT LATTIMORE WAS A COMMUNIST. BUDENZ KNEW THIS FROM THE WAY FIELD REPORTED ABOUT HIM. BUDENZ ALSO HEARD HARRY GANNES REPORT ON LATTIMORE. BUDENZ BELIEVES HE FIRST HEARD OF LATTIMORE WHEN LATTIMORE WAS WITH THE IPR PROBABLY AROUND NINETEEN FORTY. FIELD REPORTED TO POLITICAL COMMITTEE ABOUT WORKING WITH LATTIMORE AND JAFFE. BUDENZ CONTINUED HEARING ABOUT LATTIMORE AS A COMMUNIST UNTIL AT LEAST NINETEEN FORTY FOUR. BUDENZ RECALLED THAT IN NINETEEN THIRTY SEVEN FIELD WAS REPORTING ON CHINESE MATTERS AND THE POLICY OF PLAYING UP THE AGRARIAN REFORM MOVEMENT IN CHINA AND MAKING IT APPEAR THAT THE CHINESE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT WAS REALLY THE AGRARIAN REFORM MOVEMENT. THIS IDEA CAME FROM BROWDER. THE ACTUAL CARRYING OUT OF THIS POLICY TOOK PLACE LATER. LATTIMORE WAS GIVEN THE ASSIGNMENT OF CARRYING OUT THE CAMPAIGN OF PUTTING ACROSS THE IDEA THAT THE CHINESE RED MOVEMENT WAS REALLY THE AGRARIAN REFORM MOVEMENT. BUDENZ HEARD THIS IN A REPORT BY FIELD. BUDENZ STATES ONLY A TRUSTED COMMUNIST WOULD BE GIVEN THIS ASSIGNMENT .^[26]

Rubbing salt in the wound, Howard Rushmore published an article in the New York Journal-American on March 30, 1950, headlined, "FBI Is

Probing Lattimore Here": "One witness who knew Lattimore in China has been living here for more than a decade. Yet he was never interviewed by the FBI until the McCarthy charge against the Far East 'expert' was made public."^[27]

There it was, all laid out in cold print: the bureau competing with McCarthy to see who could get to witnesses first and the demeaning claim that the bureau was acting only after McCarthy had publicized Lattimore. When the Rushmore article got to Hoover, he forwarded it to Ladd with a peremptory question: "This is what I feared. Just why wasn't this case intensified sooner?"

The bureau still did not know for sure who McCarthy's mystery witness was. Ladd ordered Belmont to find out. On April 1 Jean Kerr identified Budenz. By April 2 the bureau high command had seen the Matthews-Budenz phone transcript and knew that Budenz would be called to testify before Tydings, that his testimony would be hearsay, and that he claimed that he could identify four hundred "concealed Communists." Hoover ordered New York agents back to Budenz. On April 4 they interviewed him again. His "new" information about Lattimore was from the old Kohlberg charges: Lattimore had "played a big part publicly" in the attack on Chiang in 1943. And his four hundred concealed Communists included fellow travelers already attacked by HUAC and Kohlberg: Lillian Hell-man, Donald Ogden Stewart, E. C. Carter, Harriet Moore, Charlie Chaplin, Paul Draper.^[28]

This "information" did not seem important enough to explain all the fuss. Agents were sent back to Budenz on April 5. This time Budenz elaborated on the role played by Field and Jaffe, describing Jaffe's demeanor at national committee meetings, adding detail to what he had told the bureau on March 27, but he could not remember that the Daily Worker had ever mentioned Lattimore.^[29]

Hoover was still dissatisfied. He queried Ladd as to whether the new information about Lattimore was known when a memo on the Lattimore case was sent to the attorney general on March 22; Ladd said no, the first they heard of it was March 27, and Budenz had been "reinterviewed on April 3, 4, 5, and again on April 8." Budenz was to "endeavor to refresh his recollection concerning specific assignments of Owen Lattimore and will be interviewed again on April 10th."^[30]

Hoover was unhappy with this answer. He wrote at the bottom of Ladd's report, "Why didn't we ask Budenz why he hadn't told us sooner? We have been in almost constant touch with him for months. Also, why haven't we taken the initiative in questioning him? It begins to look like another Chambers case where we didn't press for information."

At the April 10 interview Budenz provided a substantial part of his list of concealed Communists: 136 names. Scheidt cabled the same day that

BUDENZ STATED THAT THE INDIVIDUALS HE NAMED ARE CP MEMBERS AND NOT JUST SYMPATHIZERS. HE CALLS THEM CONCEALED COMMUNISTS BECAUSE THEY DON'T ADMIT THEIR MEMBERSHIP IN THE CP AND NEITHER HE NOR ANYONE ELSE CAN EXPOSE THEM SINCE THEY ARE PROTECTED BY THE LIBEL LAWS WHICH PARTY MEMBERS ARE ENCOURAGED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF AND FURTHER A SECTION OF THE REPUTABLE PRESS REFUSES TO ANALYZE THE RECORDS OF THESE INDIVIDUALS AND CHARGES PERSONS ACCUSING THEM OF BEING COMMUNISTS OF FINDING THEM GUILTY BY ASSOCIATION. BUDENZ WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE DURING THE NEXT WEEK SINCE HE IS ON A SPEAKING TOUR THROUGH THE MIDWEST .^[31]

Surprisingly, Scheidt's cable did not include the latest Budenz "reflections" about Lattimore. One of the New York supervisors remedied this oversight in a telephone call to Duty Officer Hennrich at 9:20 P.M. Hennrich promptly wrote a memo to Belmont, who was now at headquarters in Washington. Budenz's "further reflections" were that Lattimore spearheaded the attack against Chiang Kai-shek in 1942. "Budenz recalled that the magazine 'Pacific Affairs' of the IPR carried an article attacking Chiang Kai-shek before it was officially known that the line was to change concerning Chiang Kai-shek from a policy of passive friendship to hostility. Budenz recalled that Field reported to the Political Committee that Lattimore had information that the line was changed."^[32]

Since there was no such article in Pacific Affairs , Budenz later had to correct his claim. The article attacking Chiang was by T. A. Bisson, and it appeared in Far Eastern Survey , with which Lattimore had nothing to do. Then there was a new absurdity in the report from New York: "Budenz stated that up until the Hitler-Stalin Pact the Party made a practice of furnishing all members of the National Committee with onion skin copies of the minutes of the Political Committee meetings. He recalled reading reports by Field in the minutes and Lattimore was referred to as either 'L' or 'XL.' He stated that names were never mentioned in these reports, and that individuals were referred to by symbols. These reports had to be destroyed, or returned to a responsible official."^[33]

By the time he got to the Tydings committee, Budenz had elaborated this to claim that the onionskin reports had to be torn up and flushed down the toilet; burning wasn't good enough, since it left ashes. No on-

ionskin reports ever showed up, and no other Communist or former Communist corroborated their existence. And nobody but Budenz ever claimed to have seen Lattimore referred to as "L" or "XL." Budenz's imagination was working overtime.

By the second week of April the FBI was engaged in that characteristic bureaucratic sport of damage control. It was not enough that Budenz was now telling them his new reflections about Lattimore; McCarthy, with his promise of a "secret witness" and the leaked knowledge that it was Budenz, had "captured" Budenz in the eyes of the press and attentive public. The FBI had to get Budenz back under control. Further, they had to explain their failure to extract from Budenz any information about one of their major cases despite an estimated three thousand hours of interrogation.

Assistant Attorney General Peyton Ford was pressing the bureau on this. Ford talked to Lou Nichols on April 11, saying Senator Tydings was now "out on a limb"; the bureau had better prepare a memorandum on Budenz's knowledge of Lattimore and when the bureau had obtained this information. If Budenz did testify, Ford said, the attorney general should know the background.^[34] Hoover had such a memorandum in Attorney General McGrath's hands within hours:

[In regard to Ford's inquiry] you are advised that the Bureau has conducted exhaustive interviews with Budenz over an extended period of time dating back to his initial break with the Communist Party at a time when he was in seclusion at Notre Dame University.

Since that time we have had occasion to interview him off and on at periodical intervals. He has always been most cooperative and helpful, however, there was no occasion to direct specific inquiry to him pertaining to Owen Lattimore until recently. It would appear that had information occurred to him pertaining to Lattimore that he certainly would have mentioned it since he was interviewed, for example, on April 22, 1948, regarding ——— and in connection with the Amerasia case. There was no reason to believe that Budenz knew Lattimore or would have knowledge of espionage activities. As a matter of fact, when Budenz was interviewed on March 27, 1950, he specifically stated that he did not know Lattimore personally. He then furnished certain information which he has added to on an almost day to day basis since that time.^[35]

Hoover's growing disillusionment with Budenz eventually resulted in outright skepticism. But the working-level agents were way ahead of Hoover. The New York agents, whipped into a frenzy of activity by Bud-

enz's sudden discovery of Lattimore, called in a crew over the weekend of April 8-9 to search their transcripts of Budenz interviews.^[36] This review was completed late in the day April 10. Agent W. M. Whelan telephoned bureau headquarters at 2:00 A.M. April 11 with the results: Budenz had never mentioned Lattimore.

Whelan was caustic. He reviewed the various times Budenz had been grilled about IPR, about Amerasia , and about his Collier's article and had never even hinted that he had anything on Lattimore. Whelan concluded that when Budenz was interviewed about Lattimore on March 27, 1950, he had furnished a "rationalization" of the "alleged" part played by Lattimore in painting the Chinese Communists as mere agrarian reformers; however, Budenz had furnished "no information or even allegations which tend to prove" McCarthy's claim that Lattimore was a Communist agent.^[37]

Whelan's conclusions caught the eye of Belmont as soon as he got to the office that morning. He telephoned New York, but Whelan had gone home after his 2:00 A.M. report to Washington. Belmont spoke to an agent whose name is denied, demanding another immediate interview of Budenz to find out why he had held out on the Lattimore information so long and to impress on him the importance of having a good answer.^[38]

New York had bad news: Budenz had already left for his Michigan speaking tour. Belmont then set out, with some asperity, several tasks for the New York office: check with Mrs. Budenz, get Louis's itinerary, find out if he had yet received a subpoena from Tydings, and get his day and time of arrival back in New York. An agent was to meet him at the plane and get answers .^[39]

New York must have gotten the overworked Whelan out of bed, for Whelan called Belmont later on April 11 to report Budenz's itinerary and arrival time in New York on Saturday April 15 and to give the news that Ed Morgan of the Tydings committee had wanted to serve a subpoena on Budenz the day before, but Budenz had already left. Belmont reported this conversation to Ladd:

ASAC Whelan was advised that in the event no instructions are received to the contrary, Agent ——— should interview Budenz immediately upon his return along the lines indicated above, the purpose being to find out why Budenz didn't furnish us this information regarding Lattimore before when he had full opportunity to do so . . . . I think, during the contemplated interview, Agent ——— can plant the seed in Budenz' mind that he was fully cognizant that the FBI was keenly interested in any information concerning Communism or espionage, that he had full opportunity to furnish information concerning

Lattimore during questions by agents relating to associated matters such as the IPR ——— and that he, Budenz, was negligent in not furnishing the information to the FBI concerning Lattimore prior to March 27, 1950. Agent ——— was instructed by me to plant this idea with Budenz during the contemplated interview if it could be done gracefully.^[40]

At midnight Scheidt cabled Washington. Mrs. Budenz had called. Louis had telephoned her and said he had accepted a subpoena by telephone from Tydings to testify April 20.^[41]

At 7:00 P.M. on the twelfth Scheidt cabled Washington again. He had talked to Budenz by telephone in Michigan. Budenz was now backtracking on several things, including his knowledge of Andrew Roth and his statement that Lattimore was to spearhead the attack on Chiang. But the vital matter was this: "BUDENZ ALSO WANTED TO BE ASSURED THAT THE INFO WHICH HE WAS FURNISHING THE BUREAU WOULD NOT BE MADE AVAILABLE TO SOME PERSON WHO COULD CROSS EXAMINE HIM DURING THE SENATE COMMITTEE HEARING. HE WAS GIVEN THIS ASSURANCE. BUDENZ STATED THAT HE SAW ALFRED KOHLBERG FOR A FEW MINUTES DURING THE PAST WEEKEND, AND KOHLBERG ACTED AS HIS LIAISON MAN WITH MC CARTHY ."^[42]

When Hoover saw this cable the next day, he exploded. "Did NY Office ask him why he hadn't given us the Lattimore material sooner? If not, why not? It was a perfect opening." Scheldt answered that the telephone line was not secure, so he did not ask.^[43]

Tension at the bureau was now high. Belmont spent several hours on April 14 composing a letter to Ladd answering Hoover's complaint that the bureau had not sufficiently grilled Budenz. Belmont reviewed the bureau's contacts with Budenz exhaustively, noting that "Budenz has been cooperative and thoroughly respects the Bureau. His attitude is good. However, I do not feel that we are in a position to sit him down as we did Chambers and interview him for three months to drain him dry. He has many commitments and we do not have the hold on him that we had on Chambers." Belmont had several recommendations for getting Budenz to confess his error.^[44]

Hoover still wasn't satisfied. At the bottom of Belmont's report he wrote, "O. K. but don't ponder about it too long. All very good if it is kept alive. We missed the boat with Chambers & now Budenz. We can't miss many more without getting strong public castigation."

At 9:15 P.M. Saturday, April 15, Budenz was met at LaGuardia Airport by the two agents who had been interviewing him. They were armed with half a dozen cables from Hoover telling them to ask Budenz about several

specific charges he had made about Lattimore that didn't check out; but mostly they were to find out why he hadn't leveled with them.

The agents got an earful. Scheidt cabled headquarters six hours later, at 3: 15 the next morning: "BUDENZ . . . SAID HE NEVER MENTIONED WHAT HE KNEW ABOUT LATFIMORE BECAUSE HIS INFORMATION WAS FLIMSY. IT WAS NOT LEGAL AND HE HAD DEVOTED MOST OF HIS TIME TO FURNISHING LEGAL EVIDENCE TO THE FBI. HE KNOWS HE SHOULD HAVE FURNISHED THE INFORMATION BUT STATES IT WAS HUMANLY IMPOSSIBLE . . . IN THE TIME HE HAD AVAILABLE TO WORK WITH THE FBI ."^[45]

So it was flimsy evidence that the high priest of anticommunism was about to pass on to a Senate committee, slandering a professor whom he had never met nor read, escalating the inquisition to an even higher pitch—and rescuing Joe McCarthy. Had the bureau been fair, rather than a cheerleader in the hysteria, it would have summarily scuttled Budenz as a Lattimore witness.

Instead, the bureau entered into a conspiracy with Budenz and the Department of Justice to prevent truth from emerging in the Tydings hearings. The bureau knew three things about Budenz's testimony: he thought it was flimsy, it was laughably inconsistent, and he was unwilling to face a cross-examiner who was prepared for him. Instead of informing Tydings, the committee staff, or McCarthy about the weaknesses of their next witness, Ladd telephoned Ford at Justice: "I told him that we had assured Budenz that this material would not be made available to the committee for cross examination purposes and that I hoped the Department was not furnishing it to the committee until after Budenz had testified." Ford said Justice would go along with this approach.^[46] The Tydings hearings were not a criminal trial. Had they been, the FBI and the Department of Justice would have committed an obstruction of justice.

April was Budenz month at the FBI. Hundreds of memos, telephone calls, letters, telegrams, and conferences were devoted to getting Budenz under control. The speeches he made in Michigan caused further trauma; Hoover cabled New York on the nineteenth, asking them to check out five new claims Budenz made in Michigan that the bureau was not privy to. All of them turned out to be false: IPR offices were not located in the same building as the pro-Communist China Today , and Lattimore did not place a Communist elevator operator from Indonesia with OWI as a translator. Other claims Budenz made to the bureau in confidence, which were checked out with apparently negative results, are still classified.^[47]

New York also continued its round-the-clock Budenz operation. Agents saw him every day between his return from Michigan on the fifteenth

and his departure on the nineteenth to testify in Washington. Scheidt was up all night the eighteenth, preparing an eight-page telegram to Washington reporting what they had learned from Budenz that evening; his telegram was flied at 5:12 A.M. on the nineteenth. Thomas Reeves heard from Charles Kersten that "agents grilled Budenz so intensely that when Kersten later visited him, he and his wife were in tears from the pressure."^[48]

At one point Budenz was to prepare a statement for Tydings; he didn't have time to do it. It was with some relief that he boarded an American Airlines plane at 1:35 P.M. on April 19 for Washington; he would at least get a tension-free evening with his host, Fulton Sheen.^[49] The next day was D day.

Lattimore and Fortas were of course unaware of the turmoil and bitterness inside the government. They did know that Budenz could be a serious threat. As Lattimore describes it in Ordeal By Slander , Fortas told him:

McCarthy is a long way out on a limb. The political pressures that are building up are terrific. The report that Budenz will testify against you has shaken everyone in Washington. It is my duty as your lawyer to warn you that the danger you face cannot possibly be exaggerated. It does not exclude the possibility of a straight frame-up, with perjured witnesses and perhaps even forged documents. You have a choice of two ways of facing this danger. You can either take it head on, and expose yourself to this danger; or you can make a qualified and carefully guarded statement which will reduce the chance of entrapment by fake evidence. As your lawyer I cannot make that choice for you. You have to make it yourself.^[50]

Lattimore chose to take it head-on. He never regretted it.

Since Lattimore and Fortas did not know what Budenz would claim, there was little they could do to prepare for his testimony. One rumor had it that Budenz would claim that Fred Field had somehow implicated Lattimore in Party activities. Fortas talked to Field, who responded with a letter saying that if Budenz claimed that Field had told him anything at all about Lattimore, then Budenz was lying. Fortas also got an affidavit from Bella Dodd, a former Communist who had outranked Budenz in the Party, to the effect that in all her time as a Party activist she had never heard one word about Lattimore. And Brigadier General Elliot Thorpe, who had been head of counterintelligence and a rival of General Willoughby in MacArthur's Tokyo command, was persuaded to state the results of his investigations of Lattimore during the Pauley mission: Thorpe

said Lattimore was unquestionably a loyal American. He later told Tydings the same thing.^[51]

One encouraging development buoyed Lattimore's spirits five days before Budenz's appearance at the Tydings hearings: he was asked to give the closing address to the fifty-fourth annual meeting of the American Academy of Political and Social Science in Philadelphia. This address made the front page of the Times ; Lattimore was quoted as recommending that the United States withdraw support from the Nationalist regime on Taiwan but not as yet recognize the People's Republic. He also thought the Nationalist raids against the mainland were dangerous since they might induce the People's Republic to call in the Russians to counter them. The academicians gave Lattimore enthusiastic applause.^[52]

On April 20, 1950, when Budenz appeared before the Tydings committee, the audience was quite different from the scholars Lattimore had faced. Clergy in black cloth were much in evidence; so were members of the Daughters of the American Revolution, in Washington for a convention. To this audience, Budenz was a dragon slayer.

Nonetheless, Budenz's task that day was harder than the one he had faced in the Foley Square trials of the top Communist leaders in 1949. At Foley Square he needed only to describe the extent to which admitted Party functionaries were manipulated by Soviet emissaries. He knew the defendants from working with them; he had firsthand knowledge, so there was no doubt about his standing as a witness. At the Tydings hearings, in contrast, he was making charges against a man he had never met, and his claims about Lattimore, as he had admitted to Matthews, were hearsay.

But the aura of the Party insider was still useful. Budenz began by reviewing his testimony about the Communist party as a conspiracy, not a legitimate party at all but an arm of the international Communist movement.^[53] This testimony was irrelevant to the Tydings committee's concerns about whether there were Communists in the State Department—but it was vital to Budenz's image as an informer. So was his public stance as a reluctant witness. Three times during his testimony he emphasized that he came only under subpoena, unwillingly, sacrificing his time and privacy for the greater good of the nation. Thus, he began with an outrageous lie, and it was all downhill from there.

Since his biggest hurdle was overcoming the hearsay handicap, he used a rhetorical technique based on the theme of editorial omniscience. The Daily Worker , which he had edited, was the Party organ for informing the faithful not only what they were to believe but who was authoritative in telling them what to believe. As editor, Budenz said, he had had

to understand what was occurring within the Communist movement. I also received direct instructions, well, almost hourly, as a matter of fact, but certainly every day, from the liaison officer connected with the Politburo. We had a liaison officer appointed who gave me instructions from day to day and in addition to that kept refreshing me on a list of about a thousand names which I was compelled to keep in my mind as to their various attitudes toward the party, the various shifts and changes, whether a man had turned traitor or whether he had not, and things of that sort. This list was not put down in writing because of the fact that it might be disclosed, consequently I was compelled to keep it in my mind, and this representative of the political bureau, the Politburo, kept refreshing my mind on this list of names.^[54]

Budenz had developed this claim of editorial omniscience to overcome the handicap first revealed in 1945 to the FBI's Pat Coyne during the South Bend interviews: that because he had not been trained in Moscow, Party leaders did not fully trust or confide in him. As the years went by, Budenz found that a plausible answer to skeptical bureau agents asking him "How do you know this?" was "I had to know it in my capacity as editor." The editorial omniscience ploy did not always work; in some matters, such as Budenz's claim that the IPR and China Today offices were in the same building, the FBI could force him to recant by independent investigation.

In the area of naming names, however, the tactic worked like a charm. Who could disprove the contention that Fred Field had reported to the Politburo that Lattimore had carried out the assignment to "change the line" on Chiang Kai-shek? Field could deny it endlessly, but Communists lie. Lattimore's denial was self-serving. Jack Stachel, Earl Browder, and other Politburo members either wouldn't talk or would lie. It was a foolproof scheme.

Well, not quite foolproof. If the government was prepared to spend several million dollars investigating Budenz's accusations against one individual, as it did with Lattimore, Budenz could be refuted. There had to be, if Budenz was telling the truth about Lattimore, some individual somewhere who had left the Party and who would testify that he or she had taken orders from Lattimore, or had written a piece to carry out the new policy, or knew firsthand that Lattimore had directed this campaign. There had to be some evidence that Lattimore had "been of assistance" in the Amerasia case. There was no such confirmation, anywhere in the world, of any of Budenz's charges against Lattimore, and both FBI and Justice eventually gave up hunting for it.

Unfortunately, not all the four hundred concealed Communists fingered by Budenz were cleared by massive investigations. Some of them may have been secret Communists, but who knows what damage was done to those who were not? At the very least, their FBI and passport files bear the stain of Budenz's accusations.^[55]

Apparently nobody laughed when Budenz told Tydings that he kept in his head a list of a thousand names as a requirement of his editorial job. Nobody from the FBI warned Tydings committee members that James Glasser, managing editor of the Daily Worker when Budenz was labor editor and in 1950 a former Communist, told the bureau that "based upon his knowledge of the functions of the managing editor of the Daily Worker , BUDENZ was obviously fabricating 'smears' against LATTIMORE and others, in his Senate Sub-Committee testimony. He added that although he does not know anything regarding LATTIMORE , he would wholly discount BUDENZ'S remarks as those emanating from a psychopathic liar."^[56]

Nor did the bureau publicize the fact that when Budenz's recollections of "concealed Communists" ran out well short of the promised four hundred names, Budenz "refreshed his memory" from lists of officers and sponsors of left-wing organizations such as the American Artists Congress, Artists Front to Win the Peace, Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions, Newspaper Guild of New York, People's Radio Foundation, and Win the Peace Conference.^[57]

"Editorial omniscience" was by itself insufficient to ensure Budenz's credibility. He used a companion rhetorical ploy extensively before Tydings: his hearsay was better than garden variety hearsay: it was official . In his first day of testimony Budenz described what he claimed he was told by Party leaders as "official" twenty-three times. Phrases like "the instructions and directions I received officially," "according to the official reports made to me," "it was officially reported that Mr. Lattimore had received word," "official documents," and so forth appear on almost every page of the transcript. This tactic may not have convinced all of his listeners, but coupled with his claim that Communists never lie to each other, only to those outside the Party, it got him through the pallid questioning of the committee members when they heard Budenz in executive session five days after the public hearing.

Not surprisingly, Budenz decided against reinforcing his hearsay testimony by citing the anti-Lattimore statements of his good friend Alfred Kohlberg. Rather, his corroboration was the Columbia article of September 1949 by James F. Kearney, whom Budenz described as "an expert on

the Far East." Budenz quoted Kearney's article to Tydings: "There are those who believe, though, that no Americans deserve more credit for the Russian triumph in the Sino-American disaster than Owen Lattimore and a small group of his followers."^[58] Senator Theodore Green of Rhode Island was skeptical:

Green : Do you know where Father Kearney got his information?

Budenz : I do not know, sir.

Green : Did he tell you, or did he not, that he got it from Alfred Kohlberg, of New York?

Budenz : No, sir.^[59]

Kohlberg was, however, Kearney's main source. Not until October 1950 did the FBI check out the Kohlberg-Kearney connection, to the disgrace of both.

Budenz made five charges before Tydings. (1) At a Politburo meeting in 1937 Field and Browder commended Lattimore for placing the works of Communist writers in IPR publications. (2) At another meeting in 1937 Field and Browder decided that Lattimore should be given general direction of a campaign to organize writers on China to portray the Chinese Communists as not Communists at all, but as agrarian reformers. (3) In 1943, at a similar meeting, "it was officially reported that Mr. Lattimore, through Mr. Field, had received word from the apparatus that there was to be a change of line on Chiang Kai-shek." (4) In 1944 Jack Stachel told Budenz to "consider Owen Lattimore a Communist." (5) In 1945 Stachel told Budenz that Lattimore "had been of service in the Amerasia case."^[60] None of these things ever happened.

The committee treated Budenz gingerly. The Democrats (Tydings, Green, and Brien McMahon) were more skeptical than were the Republicans (Lodge and Hickenlooper). The press was skeptical, but following journalistic standards of the day, Budenz's assertions, like McCarthy's, were news and were reported uncritically.^[61] Even the New York Times , no fan of McCarthy, carried Arthur Krock's gullible column the Sunday after Budenz's testimony under the headline, "Capital Is Disturbed by Budenz Testimony. Even Critics of McCarthy's Methods Now Take Anxious View of New Development in Inquiry."^[62] Budenz had fulfilled his role; he had rescued McCarthy.

But out of public view, challenges to Budenz's credibility continued to mount. On April 26 an important Pennsylvania ex-Communist, whose name is still denied by the FBI, told agents that

he [had been] expelled from the Communist Party———but had attended numerous Party meetings in New York City during the preceding twenty years, where Communist Party policy was discussed, but he could not recall that OWEN LATTIMORE'S name was ever mentioned as having any connection with the Communist Party. ——— that he had been following the LATTIMORE case in the papers and was of the opinion that LATTIMORE was not a Communist because the Communist Party would never allow LATTIMORE to depart from the Party line and write articles which would be critical of Russia. ——— that he knows LOUIS BUDENZ slightly and believes him to be dishonest and a psychiatric case.^[63]

This testimony never saw the light of day.

On April 28, 1950, Budenz was grandstanding again. In a speech at Peekskill, New York, he stated that he knew "who arranged the theft of the Amerasia papers. . . . Budenz said the investigation of the Amerasia case and charges that Owen Lattimore is a Communist should be closely linked and that the Lattimore and Amerasia cases are 'both interlocked and cannot be separated. If fully investigated the cases will provide one of the greatest scandals that American political history has ever witnessed.'"^[64] The FBI discovered that Budenz had, as usual, no "actual facts" to support this charge.

As the summer wore on, the FBI discovered that Budenz had few "actual facts" about anything. On May 25, reporting a recent interview designed to clarify what Lattimore had actually done about changing the party line on Chiang Kai-shek, the New York office told headquarters that Budenz "was unable to state" whether Lattimore knew about this change in advance, nor did he know whether Lattimore was responsible for publication of the Bisson article. A New York FBI report of July 18 reveals Budenz soaring far into fantasyland. In large Russian cities, he said, "nearly every child is trained in the art of paratrooping." Why? Because Stalin had no regard for the lives of his citizens and was planning "large scale attacks of suicide paratroopers carrying bombs," like the Japanese kamikaze pilots who gave their all in the Pacific war.^[65]

For all his appeal to the Catholic faithful, Budenz was beginning to lose even some of his church supporters. In a memo to Hoover May 1, 1950, Ladd reported:

Mr. John Steelman, the Assistant to the President, mentioned to Mr. Roach this morning while discussing other matters that he was becoming highly suspicious of the activities of Louis Budenz. He stated that the activities of Budenz had also aroused the suspicions of other persons, whom he indicated were attached to Catholic University here in

Washington. His contact at Catholic University apparently gave Steel-man the impression that they had a "hot potato" on their hands and did not know how to get rid of him. The undercurrent of feeling seems to be, according to Mr. Steelman, that they are sceptical of Budenz's so-called return to Catholicism. They view him as still a "good Communist." Mr. Steelman commented that some Church leaders, (names not mentioned) have told him that Budenz's testimony before the Tydings Committee certainly did not help the prestige of the Catholic Church, and although he, Steelman, has no information to prove or disprove that Budenz is still a Communist, he stated that he certainly has his suspicions. He commented, "I hope J. Edgar is keeping an eye on him."^[66]

Hoover noted laconically, "Keep possibility in mind."

1.
Owen and Eleanor Lattimore at their wedding, Peking, March 4, 1926.
Courtesy of David Lattimore.

2.
Philip Jaffe, Lattimore, Chu Teh, Agnes Jaffe, and Thomas Bisson. Yenan,
June 1937. Courtesy of David Lattimore.

3.
Lattimore and Chiang Kai-shek, Chungking, September 1941. Courtesy of
David Lattimore.

4.
Henry Wallace, Lattimore, John Carter Vincent, and John Hazard, China,
June 1944. Courtesy of David Lattimore.

5.
Vilhjalmur and Evelyn Stefansson. Courtesy of Evelyn Stefansson Nef.

6.
Owen and Eleanor Lattimore at Tydings committee hearings, April 20, 1950.
Courtesy of Acme Photo.

7.
William D. and Suki Rogers, summer 1953. Courtesy of Suki Rogers.

8.
The Dilowa Hutukhtu, about 1958.
Courtesy of David Lattimore.

9.
Lattimore in morning dress on his way to interpret for Queen Elizabeth II,
November 14, 1963. Courtesy of Diana MacLeish.

10.
A. P. Okladnikov, Ulan Bator, summer 1964. Courtesy of David Lattimore.

11.
Michael Lattimore, Fujiko Isono, Lattimore, and Chou En-lai in the Great Hall of the People, Peking, October 1972. Courtesy of
David Lattimore.

12.
Lattimore, Robert P. Newman, and Dean Alec Stewart, University of Pittsburgh, March 19, 1979. Courtesy of
Dewey Chester.

13.
Lattimore and Maria Lattimore on the Great Wall, summer 1981. Courtesy
of David Lattimore.

14.
Premier Tsedenbal of the Mongolian People's Republic and Lattimore, Ulan
Bator, summer 1981. Courtesy of David Lattimore.

Chapter Nineteen
Exit Tydings, Enter Kim Il-sung

Lattimore held a press conference April 21, 1950, the day after Budenz appeared before Tydings. He gave reporters a seven-page statement and answered questions. Invective flowed freely. According to Lattimore, McCarthy had descended to a "new low" with his attack on George Marshall the night before; McCarthy was serving as a "stooge" for the China lobby, which was out to destroy anyone who disagreed with Kohlberg as to why China went Communist. As to Budenz, his testimony was false from beginning to end. If it were not false, Budenz would give it outside of Congress, where he could be sued for libel. Lattimore was encouraged by the reporters' response: "Their questions soon showed that Budenz had flopped and that there was no 'hot Washington tip' of revelations still to come." This time Lattimore won the headline battle in the mainstream press. The New York Times story on page one the next day was headed, "Lattimore Derides Budenz as Gossip: Reply to Ex-Editor's Charges Demands an Investigation of China Lobby Group."^[1]

The favorable reception of Lattimore's press conference did not discourage McCarthy. He did have another mystery witness coming on: John Huber (alias Tom Ward), a former FBI undercover informant in the New York City Communist party. Huber had none of the liabilities of Budenz: he was not a double defector, had no multiple arrest record, had not taken the Fifth before official inquiries, had not violated the Mann Act, had served the FBI loyally, and had not joined the Communist party out of conviction. Further, while Budenz's testimony was hearsay, Huber was an eyewitness. He claimed he had met Lattimore at two Party meetings.

Huber monitored the New York Communist party from 1939 until 1947,

writing extensive reports.^[2] None of them ever mentioned Owen Lattimore. When the FBI investigation of Lattimore intensified after McCarthy's charges, the bureau systematically called in all current and former Party informants to see if any of them knew anything about the Hopkins professor. Huber was interviewed on April 14, 1950. His memory had by then been "refreshed" by contemporary headlines. He recalled that he had seen Lattimore at two Party meetings, both at the home of Fred Field.

The first meeting, on November 16, 1945, was "a farewell affair for Comrade Tung Pi Wu, who was described by Huber as the fourth highest Communist in the Chinese Communist Party. . . . According to Huber, Tung Pi Wu spoke through an interpreter thanking all those present at the affair for the splendid cooperation shown the Chinese Communist movement. Huber recalled that Lattimore had a private conversation with Tung at this affair." Only Party members were present. The second meeting, on February 17, 1946, was a fund-raiser of the Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy. Field was chair of this Communist group, and Theodore White gave the main speech. Lattimore was among the eighty-five people present.^[3]

The bureau was skeptical of this revised reporting by Huber, but it was routinely incorporated in the Lattimore file. Huber, now alerted that his "information" about Lattimore might be a valuable commodity, went to Larry Kerley, a friend and former FBI agent working for Hearst's New York Journal American . Kerley immediately alerted McCarthy; on April 17 Huber told McCarthy the same story that he had told the FBI three days earlier. McCarthy then arranged for Tydings to subpoena Huber. Kerley was also subpoenaed; his function was to establish that Huber had been a bona fide FBI informant.

April 25, 1950, was to be the day of McCarthy's triumph: the appearance before Tydings of FBI informant Huber proclaiming to all the world that, with his own eyes, he had seen Lattimore at two Communist gatherings.

Huber was not the first to testify that day. Abe Fortas had arranged for Dr. Bella Dodd, a former Communist who had outranked Budenz in the Party, to appear before Tydings. Dodd disagreed with Budenz on everything. She had never heard of Lattimore associating with the Party in any way; she had read two of his books and they did not follow the Party line; she ridiculed Budenz's tale of onionskin documents to be flushed down the toilet as sounding like "dime detective stories"; and she thought McCarthy's "smearing of public citizens [had] become a greater racket"

than horseracing or gambling.^[4] McCarthy sat through Dodd's testimony glum but confident: his bombshell was due next.

The bomb was a dud. When Tydings called for him to take the stand, Huber was nowhere to be found. Neither McCarthy nor Kerley could explain his absence. Huber had come from New York to Washington on a plane with them early that morning and had checked into the Carlton Hotel. They had not seen him since noon. A flurry of telephone calls during a short recess produced nothing. After a desultory fifteen minutes examining Kerley, the committee adjourned.^[5] Huber was the famous "Disappearing Witness" of the Tydings hearings.

Hearst papers had a field day with Huber's disappearance. Kerley put out a statement that Huber "had been stabbed and threatened" to keep him from testifying.^[6] Washington was in an uproar. The FBI tried to locate Huber; it was a week before they found him. What the agents heard on May 2 could have come from a B movie. But before they got the story of his disappearance, Huber said he wanted to change his testimony about Lattimore: he had seen Lattimore at Field's house only once, in February 1946. As to why he had not appeared before Tydings, Huber described to Scheidt what happened at J. B. Matthews's house in New York the night before his scheduled testimony. Present were Matthews, Kerley, and McCarthy; all took for granted that he would testify, but they didn't tell him what it would be like. He got nervous and told Kerley he wouldn't testify, but Kerley insisted. As the hours went by, Huber "became extremely dejected and worried." The whole group spent the night at Matthews's place, then all but Matthews flew to Washington the next morning.^[7]

In Washington, Huber "was left sitting alone in McCarthy's outer office." He was "completely worn out, tired, nervous, and hungry, as they had not fed him at all that day." He left McCarthy's office and went to the hotel where he was supposed to have a room, but he found that no reservation had been made. After much confusion he did get a room. When Kerley arrived at the hotel, Huber went out to get a haircut. Walking down Pennsylvania Avenue, he "blacked out. He next found himself on 44th Street and Seventh Avenue, New York City, soaking wet."^[8]

Scheidt then reminded Huber that he had told the New York office over the phone that McCarthy and Kerley had tried "to get him to testify to things that were not entirely accurate." What had he meant by this? "HE IMMEDIATELY BECAME EXTREMELY EXCITED, STARTED TO SHAKE AND CRY AND IT WAS NECESSARY TO CHANGE THE SUBJECT BEFORE HE OBVIOUSLY

WOULD HAVE A COMPLETE COLLAPSE. HE WAS LATER QUESTIONED ABOUT THIS AND NOTHING MORE DEFINITE COULD BE SECURED. IT WOULD APPEAR, THEREFORE, THAT EITHER HUBER IS LYING AT THE PRESENT TIME OR IS HAVING A MENTAL RELAPSE."^[9]

When Huber calmed down, he told Scheidt that he wanted to appear before Tydings to redeem himself. Since he knew so little, he wouldn't need to spend more than five minutes on the witness stand. But Scheidt was not sure that this was a good plan. Huber had failed to keep previous appointments with the FBI, was highly excitable, and told contradictory stories. Scheidt did not believe the truth was in him.^[10]

FBI agents saw Huber again on May 4; he had meanwhile been interviewed by Tydings's agents. Huber said he had told the Tydings people yet a different story. As Huber now told Scheidt, "THE PARTY AT THE HOME OF FRED FIELD AT WHICH HE SAW OWEN LATTIMORE WAS NOT A COMMUNIST PARTY MEETING AS FAR AS HUBER KNEW AND THAT AS FAR AS HUBER IS CONCERNED HE HAS NO INFO OF CP MEMBERSHIP ON THE PART OF OWEN LATTIMORE. "^[11]

The bureau meanwhile had checked out Lattimore's whereabouts in November 1945 and knew that Lattimore was in Japan, so that Huber could not have seen him at Field's house. And they looked again at Huber's voluminous reports in 1945 and 1946: there was no mention of Lattimore anywhere.^[12]

Tydings did not subpoena Huber again. Once was enough. McCarthy also washed his hands of Huber. Unfortunately, the press never carried the story of how Huber had been induced by his handlers, McCarthy, Kerley, and Matthews, to lie about Lattimore. Only the FBI knew why Huber got cold feet. Budenz did not get cold feet. On April 23, 1950, before a supportive audience in New York, he escalated his apocalyptic rhetoric another notch. According to the New York Times of April 24,

Soviet Russia's program for world revolution under the leadership of Joseph Stalin includes definite plants to threaten the United States West Coast, Prof. Louis F. Budenz declared yesterday. In a speech at the twenty-ninth communion breakfast of the New York Post Office Holy Name Society in the Astor Hotel, he warned against recognition of the Communist government in China.

The Professor of Economics at Fordham University and former managing editor of the Daily Worker said there long had been a plot by Communists in the Philippines, China and Japan to drive the "Ameri-

can imperialists" from the Pacific and then link forces with those of Harry Bridges in Hawaii.^[13]

Earl Browder appeared before the Tydings committee April 27. Browder was predictably contemptuous of Budenz; every one of the charges against Lattimore was false. So, said Mr. Browder, were McCarthy's charges against Dorothy Kenyon, Haldore Hanson, John Carter Vincent, and John Stewart Service. But Browder, although he had been expelled from the Party in 1946, still regarded himself as a Communist and refused to answer questions put to him by Senator Hickenlooper. The committee voted to cite Browder for contempt.^[14]

The next day, Fred Field took much the same line. He and Lattimore were often at odds politically, but they respected each other. Field said Lattimore was never a Communist or even a sympathizer. Like Browder, Field took the Fifth on questions about his own politics. He, too, was cited for contempt, but at his trial Judge T. Alan Goldsborough found him innocent. The Tydings committee was not a straightforward seeker of information, said the judge, but called Field to testify so he could be "grilled."^[15]

Field's testimony, on Friday, April 28, coincided with Tydings's release of letters from all living former secretaries of state and the current secretary, Dean Acheson. All stated that they had never even met Lattimore and that he was anything but the architect of American policy in the Far East. This denial did not help Lattimore; Republican senators tasting blood were not about to accept anything from officials serving under Democratic presidents.

Monday, May 1, the last anti-Lattimore witness came before Tydings: Freda Utley. She had a new slant:

I think that Senator McCarthy was wrong in his original statement that Owen Lattimore is the Soviet Government's top espionage agent in America. I think the Senator under-estimated Lattimore. Mr. Lattimore is such a renowned scholar, such an excellent writer, so adept at teaching the American people that they ought to stop opposing the great, good, and progressive Soviet Government, that it is impossible to believe that Moscow would regard him as expendable, as all spies are. To suggest that Mr. Lattimore's great talents have been utilized in espionage seems to me as absurd as to suggest that Mr. Gromyko or Mr. Molotov employ their leisure hours at Lake Success, or at international conferences, in snitching documents.^[16]

After a lengthy and distorted review of Lattimore's writings, Utley got to her main accusation. Lattimore was dangerous, and serving the Soviet

cause, by presenting the Chinese Communists as independent of Moscow. This claim Utley could not believe, and she said that Lattimore knew too much to believe it also, so he was lying. "The primary and most important fact which has determined recent victory in the Far East is the subservience of the Chinese Communist Party to Moscow, and this is precisely the fact ignored or obscured by Mr. Lattimore in all his writings."^[17]

When I interviewed Utley in 1977, twenty-seven years after this testimony, the evidence of Chinese independence of Moscow was abundant. She acknowledged this fact and implied that she had been too hard on Lattimore in 1950. She also admitted somewhat ruefully that in 1945, Chou En-lai, "one of the most remarkable men [she had] ever met," had tried to convince her that the Chinese Communists were not agents of Moscow, but she had been unconvinced.^[18]

Utley told Tydings the story of her acquaintance with Lattimore, but she omitted one salient incident, her effort to get an audience with Soviet Ambassador Oumansky through Lattimore's intervention. Had this incident been known, her explanation of why she was so hostile toward Lattimore might have been less convincing.

In Ordeal by Slander Lattimore says that Utley's testimony redounded to his benefit, since she got wound up in esoteric ideological arguments, could not find documents when she needed them, and got flustered, hence turning both the committee and reporters against her. He may have been wrong in this judgment. Tydings was unnecessarily sharp with Utley. The New York Times report of May 2 by William S. White treated her with respect.^[19]

For the next two days, May 2-3, Lattimore was again before Tydings. He felt that he was under less pressure than he had been during his earlier appearance. As he says in Ordeal ,

McCarthy's big gun, Budenz, had misfired. Huber and Freda Utley had provided only ludicrous anticlimaxes. It was my turn at last to review the whole grotesque, brutal, and long-sustained attempt at character-assassination.

Once more the Caucus Room was packed so tightly that there were people standing around the edges, against the wall. The batteries of newsreel cameras were there too, but I soon noticed an encouraging sign. Instead of the lights blazing and the cameras whirring all the time, they went on only occasionally. That meant, I thought, that the newsreels were not on tiptoe with expectation. The sensationalism of the charges against me had already been somewhat deflated.^[20]

Lattimore began by reminding the senators that McCarthy had given up his original "top Soviet spy" charge and was now struggling to make some lesser charge stick. He brushed off Freda Utley's testimony, saying he would respond to it when he had a chance to see the transcript.

But Lattimore once more provided some harsh invective. Whether he was too sharp in attacking McCarthy is still a debatable question. Many observers think that had he simply said, "McCarthy is in error," he would not have incurred the implacable opposition of McCarthy supporters. But Fortas thought he should come out swinging, and so did Eleanor. So he told Tydings:

Now, gentlemen, I of course do not enjoy being vilified by anybody: even by the motley crew of crackpots, professional informers, hysterics, and ex-Communists who McCarthy would have you believe represent sound Americanism. But on the other hand, I do not like to appear to rely upon the testimony of others to establish my own good character. My life and works speak for themselves. Unlike McCarthy I have never been charged with a violation of the laws of the United States or of the ethics of my profession. I have never been accused, as McCarthy has been, of income tax evasion, of the destruction of records that were in my official custody, or of improperly using an official position for the purpose of advancing my own fortunes, political or otherwise.

Unlike Budenz and Utley, I have never been a member of the Communist Party, or subscribed to a conspiracy to overthrow and subvert established governments. Unlike Budenz, I have never been engaged in a conspiracy to commit murder or espionage. . . .

I recognize, however, that so long as a reckless and irresponsible man like Senator McCarthy is in a position to abuse the privileges of the United States Congress, the quality of a man's life and activities, however impeccable, does not protect him from vile assault. Even our greatest living American, General Marshall, has been subjected to McCarthy's vicious, dastardly, and repeated insult.^[21]

Lattimore denied Budenz's charges categorically. He had not sought to "place Communist writers" in the pages of Pacific Affairs . Budenz's only example, an article by James S. Allen, had been accepted on scholarly grounds. Lattimore did not know whether or not Allen was a Communist.

Lattimore did know that he had always believed that the Chinese Communists were hard-line Marxists, only temporarily modifying their ideological stance to appeal to Chinese peasants. How could he have led a campaign to represent the Chinese Communists as "mere agrarian re-

formers" when he did not believe it himself? (The only thorough study of the "mere agrarian reformers" line, by Kenneth Shewmaker, upholds Lattimore completely. Utley herself first used the phrase, and Patrick Hurley and several journalists used it subsequently; Lattimore never used it.)^[22]

Lattimore expressed only contempt for the Budenz charge that in 1943 Lattimore, "through Mr. Field, had received word from the apparatus that there was to be a change of line on Chiang Kai-shek." Lattimore was fully employed with the Office of War Information then and still strongly supported Chiang, as he did until 1946. Budenz had nothing whatever to back up his claim; Lattimore said that it was "as fantastic as it is malignant."^[23]

And could Jack Stachel have instructed Budenz in 1944 to "treat as authoritative" anything Lattimore said? If so, Budenz did not follow orders. The pages of the Daily Worker for that year, as Lattimore pointed out, were totally devoid of his extensive opinions on China and Chiang. Lattimore treated as equally ridiculous Budenz's claims about "onionskin documents" and "of service in the Amerasia case," calling them "pure moonshine, or rather impure hogwash."^[24]

Lattimore's summing-up of Budenz matched his excoriation of McCarthy.

The plain fact of the matter, it seems to me, is that Budenz is engaged in a transparent fraud. Whenever someone is conspicuously accused of Communist affiliations, Budenz hops on the bandwagon and repeats the charges, garnished with more or less impressive references to Jack Stachel and other Communist characters. And I suspect that the reason why he uses, as his silent witnesses, officials of the Communist Party is that he believes that they will refuse to testify in rebuttal. But he guards himself even against this contingency by saying that if they do testify, contrary to his own statements, they cannot be believed. This I submit is about as ingenious a boobytrap as has ever been devised. . . .

The pressure on Budenz is obvious. When a new sensation breaks out in the press and a man is accused—even if the accusation is false—what is the temptation that is dangled before Budenz' eyes? It is the easiest thing in the world for his own memory to be convenient and obliging. He can then rush up and say "I remember him too"—and thus revive his reputation as a peerless informant.^[25]

The lead story in the New York Times the next day was headlined, "Lattimore Calls Budenz 'Informer' Lying for a Profit."^[26]

Tydings did not finish with Lattimore on May 2; he was called back on May 3, mostly for questioning by Hickenlooper, an ally of McCarthy. The Iowa senator had dozens of questions, many of them prompted by

claims of the underworld informants who had been drawn to the McCarthy crusade. Lattimore dealt with them matter-of-factly. He had never met or been associated with Richard Sorge. He had never met or been associated with Ho Chi Minh. He had not declassified, or even seen, secret government documents at the Ruxton picnic with Service and Roth. He was acquainted, slightly, with Alger Hiss. There were no headlines here; and since on the same day McCarthy became embroiled in a bitter debate with Tydings and other Democrats on the Senate floor, Lattimore's final appearance before Tydings went largely unnoticed.

Of course, the right-wing press continued to snipe at Lattimore, and McCarthy discovered some new malefaction every week or so. Of judicious comment there was very little. The conservative Christian Science Monitor , however, carried an article on May 12 by Marius B. Jansen, then a Harvard graduate student, later a distinguished Japanologist at Princeton. In his article, "Owen Lattimore and the China Policy," Jansen asked, "What can we learn about Owen Lattimore from his writings?" and noted that Budenz and Utley claimed those writings contained proof of Communist allegiance. Jansen did not think so. Lattimore was clearly a capitalist and often anti-Soviet, as on the Marshall Plan and Soviet activities in Iran. As to Budenz's claim that the Party "allowed occasional deviations from their line to allay suspicion," Jansen noted that "they would hardly allow those heresies on the very issues for which they were using a man." And even when Lattimore's views failed to contradict the Soviet line, they could "stem from his own area of special interest. To deny this possibility means that all loyal Americans must operate in a limbo devoid of thought and imagination until the Soviet line is apparent, at which point we take the opposite line. Surely this is a counsel of intellectual despair."^[27]

Jansen concluded, "In short, if the case against Mr. Lattimore is to be based upon his writings, we are left with the fantastic theory that the fate of four hundred and fifty million human beings on the other side of the globe was sealed by the Machiavellian activities of a man who wrote one thing and meant another; a man who, by proposing theories which were not followed, ran a government in which he was not an official."

For the rest of its run the Tydings committee investigated the Amerasia case. All the principals were called, and John Stewart Service got a thorough grilling. Beginning on May 4 Truman allowed Tydings committee members to read the files of the eighty-one State Department employees McCarthy had accused. The three Democrats on the committee spent much

time with these files, Tydings claiming to have read every one; Lodge read only twelve of them, and Hickenlooper nine. This was a sore point when the committee came to write its final report.

The most spectacular event of May was a Fiery speech to the Senate on the twelfth by Dennis Chavez, Democrat from New Mexico. McCarthy's effectiveness at stirring up anti-State Department sentiment was beginning to intimidate many moderate Democrats; Tydings urged them to take a stand. Chavez responded. He began quietly by referring to his own political career and service to the people of New Mexico, then moved into a statement of concern for the "hysteria and confusion" of the current scene, "a course so dangerous that few dare to oppose the drift lest they be the next marked for destruction." This trend was receiving impetus from statements on the floor of the Senate:

Mr. President, for the first time in my 19 years in Congress, I make the deliberate point of referring to my religion. I speak as a Roman Catholic. . . . [W]hen I feel that the church which I revere is being used by an individual as a shield and a cloak to protect the purveyor of un-American, un-Christian, dubious testimony, I am compelled to identify what is going on and protest not only as a Catholic but as an American.

Recently congressional committees and the general public have been provided with information regarding the Communist conspiracy, in America, and particularly inside the United States Government, by the man Louis Budenz. He has been speaking not merely as a private citizen. Budenz has been speaking with special emphasis as a Catholic, investing his appearances and utterances with an added sanctity by virtue of the fact that he recently went through the forms of conversion to catholicism.
My ancestors brought the cross to this hemisphere. Louis Budenz has been using this cross as as club.^[28]

Chavez then reviewed Budenz's Communist record, including conspiracies to commit murder and espionage. "Typically," he said, "these admissions are made after the statutes of limitations have expired. Smart boy. Budenz is thus protected from any prosecution which he might otherwise face." But even while he was committing these crimes, Budenz was "planning his next move." And it was a profitable one. Now he was "reveling in every minute of his new-found prosperity and sudden respectability."^[29]

Then Chavez analyzed Budenz's reluctant stance. His testimony before

Tydings showed anything but reluctance: "He was glad to appear there. He was eagerly and hopefully anticipating that call." It was an uncannily accurate thrust, as if Chavez had been listening in when Budenz told Matthews how eager he was to expose the China hands. Budenz was, to Chavez, "one of those witnesses who require the inspiration of an audience to tell his story."^[30]

Chavez's speech was more than an anti-Budenz polemic. He delved into history, citing Tacitus on the "exalted position of informers" in the corrupt Rome of Tiberius. He described the career of the anti-Jesuit Titus Oates, "the Louis Budenz of his day," in seventeenth-century England. He deplored the tendency to believe that fanatical former Communists are the best source of information on communism.^[31]

Homer Ferguson of Michigan was livid. He demanded to know precisely what testimony by Budenz was false. Chavez replied, "I think everything he has said is false." Budenz had been so warped by his Communist years that "I do not think he knows truth from falsehood anymore. "^[32]

Tydings, Lucas, and a few other Democrats asked supportive questions: Ferguson and Capehart challenged Chavez for the Republicans. Chavez had a six-point conclusion. (1) We were providing a platform from which every unreliable and discredited individual could proclaim to the world that the United States was rotting with subversives, when it was not. (2) The witch-hunt had demoralized the government, but it had caught no spies. (3) The rights and reputations of prominent individuals had been impaired. (4) Fear of thinking heretical thoughts had been implanted in the minds of teachers, researchers, scientists, civil servants. (5) We were establishing a situation where there could be only two opinions—the Communist and the anti-Communist—which played right into the hands of Moscow. (6) These staged public inquiries interfered with genuine, diligent counterintelligence.^[33]

Chavez made the front page of the New York Times . His was the first prominent attack on Budenz's credibility. Surprisingly few McCarthy supporters came publicly to Budenz's defense; the president of Fordham was predictably among them. McCarthy, in a speech to the Catholic Press Association, accused a "communist lawyer" of helping to write Chavez's speech.^[34] Budenz did not respond.

The Johns Hopkins faculty invited Lattimore to address them on May 16. It was his first chance to express his gratitude for their overwhelming support. He spoke of the dangers to independent thought arising from the

"reckless, machine gun toting politician" and the embittered China lobby. Since his battle seemed to be going well, Lattimore indulged in what, for him, was unusual levity. About the "propaganda-created myth of a university professor who pulls the strings of a whole government," he noted, "It was taken for granted throughout the hearings that I must in fact have had a heavy impact on policy in China and the Far East, and that the best I would be able to do for myself would be to plead that I had got the State Department only a little bit pregnant."^[35]

Early June 1950 was relatively quiet. Senator Margaret Chase Smith and six Republican colleagues issued a "Declaration of Conscience" as a mild rebuke to McCarthy; he snarled right back and went on sniping at Truman, Acheson, Jessup, and Lattimore. But fewer mainstream newspapers were trumpeting McCarthy's charges. As William W. Stueck puts it, "On the eve of the war in Korea, it seemed that the Democrats might emerge relatively unscathed by the furor created by Senator McCarthy's charges."^[36]

Then, on June 25, 1950, Kim Il-sung, with the probably reluctant acquiescence of Stalin, launched North Korean forces across the thirty-eighth parallel against the government headed by Syngman Rhee.^[37] This action took Washington by surprise. Truman and his advisors viewed Europe as the primary field of potential Soviet aggression; the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General MacArthur, and the State Department had all excluded Korea from the list of vital areas that the U.S. would defend.

Truman quickly decided to defend South Korea. MacArthur was instructed to use any forces available to him, and after a successful holding action at Pusan, he engineered the spectacular landing at Inchon that routed the North Koreans. The country responded positively to U.S. intervention; even Senate Republicans approved Truman's action. It seemed for a while that the opprobrium fastened on Truman for his indifference to Chiang Kai-shek would be lifted, that Truman would be seen for what he was: a vigorous opponent of communism who made the right decision when the chips were down. Across the country, Americans believed that Stalin had now shown his true colors, that the Kremlin-directed conquest of the world was under way, and that the administration had finally responded appropriately.

With the headlines now dominated by the Korean War, McCarthy's crusade against domestic communism lost its glamour. In order to be consistent, he, too, had to back the president's action. Tom Coleman, a close friend in Wisconsin, wrote McCarthy July 7 urging him to take it easy on

the administration for a while. McCarthy seemed to agree. He answered Coleman July 15, acknowledging that his access to America's front pages was gone—temporarily. But in the long run, McCarthy wrote, the casualty lists would mount, the people would wonder what actually happened in Asia, and they would "realize there was something rotten in the State Department."^[38]

Despite his promise to Coleman, McCarthy could not hold his tongue. Within a week of the outbreak of war he was blaming the Korean attack on Communist infiltration of the adminstration. In a speech to the Senate July 6 he said that "highly-placed Red counselors [were] far more deadly than Red machine gunners in Korea." On July 12 McCarthy sent an open letter m Truman, condemning Acheson, Jessup, and "super adviser Lattimore" for the Korean mess.^[39] These were no longer front-page stories, but in the long run McCarthy sold his agenda. Few people paid attention to the fact that excluding Korea from the American defense perimeter had been the idea of MacArthur and the military and that Acheson and Lattimore had followed, rather than inspired, the official position.

Until Inchon things were touch and go in Korea. The country needed scapegoats. Acheson and Lattimore were favorites.

McCarthy had his usual allies. Walter Trohan's article in the Chicago Tribune of July 10, 1950, headed "Face Saving Tag Put on Acheson for Policy Shift; Catholic Paper Also Cites Lattimore, Dulles," quoted an editorial in the current Catholic Review , official newspaper of the Baltimore archdiocese, to the effect that while Lattimore had been responsible for "setting off" the Korean War, he now had a change of heart and supported Truman's actions in Korea. But Lattimore had "not yet arrived at the point of blaming Russia for pushing her henchmen."^[40]

Lattimore addressed the Asian situation in a speech at Johns Hopkins June 28. He was, as always, concerned that U.S. policy in Korea should benefit the whole population, not just Syngman Rhee; and he emphasized that despite the current focus on Korea, which was on the fringe of Asia, our true area of interest was the Asian heartland: India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia. "All of these countries can be made allies, and very reliable allies, but they cannot be made puppets. In all of them, the passion that runs through men's veins is a passion for freedom from foreign rule. All of them are repelled by any policy that looks like restoration of colonial rule."^[41]

After this speech the Lattimores left Johns Hopkins for a month of vacation on Cape Cod. The Baltimore Evening Sun story reporting their

summer plans was headed "Aftermath of a Cyclone: The Owen Lattimores Will Rest until Fall."^[42]

On July 17, 1950, the Tydings committee released a 313-page report, signed only by the three Democrats. Lodge wrote a minority report partially agreeing with the Democrats; Hickenlooper released nothing. The Democrats condemned McCarthy in scathing terms, declaring that his charges of Communists in the State Department were "a fraud and a hoax perpetrated on the Senate of the United States and the American people. They represent perhaps the most nefarious campaign of half-truths and untruth in the history of this Republic. . . . For the first time in our history, we have seen the totalitarian technique of the 'big lie' employed on a sustained basis."^[43]

The report got wide circulation—by Democratic newspapers because of its conclusions, by Republican papers as proof that the Democrats were still soft on Communists. Few read the report to see whether its excoriation of McCarthy was justified. With Communist armies trying to push MacArthur's troops off the Korean peninsula, many Americans felt they did not need to read it. Communism was a menace no matter what Tydings said. And the same day the report was released, the FBI arrested Julius Rosenberg, charging him with espionage for the Soviet Union.

The Senate "received" the Tydings report after a bitter debate and on straight party lines: forty-five Democrats to thirty-seven Republicans. McCarthy had a field day with it: "Tydings tried to notify all Communists in Government that they are safe in their positions."^[44] It was a whitewash, he said, a partisan attempt to conceal the truth that he had struggled so laboriously to put before the country.

The Tydings report was not a thorough investigation of the loyalty and security of State Department employees as a whole: it was a reasonable examination of the evidence about the ten individuals publicly accused by McCarthy. All of them, especially Lattimore, were found to be loyal Americans. The report was essentially accurate. Only with the recent opening of FBI files has it been clear how accurate it was.

After his final appearance before Tydings, Lattimore wrote an account of his battle with McCarthy. It took about a month to produce Ordeal by Slander , which was published by Atlantic-Little Brown on August 1. Reviews were predictable: McCarthy's friends panned it, Lattimore's friends praised it. Lattimore intended Ordeal as a postmortem; he thought the battle was all but over. This assessment was an error; only the preliminary skirmish was over.

Ordeal presents the chronology of McCarthy's attack, beginning while Lattimore was in Afghanistan and carrying through to his Tydings appearance. It also describes Lattimore's reflections on the methods and significance of McCarthy's crusade and answers the more important charges McCarthy made.

There are some good lines in Ordeal . Deploring the necessity for targets of the witch-hunt to cite Communist attacks on themselves as evidence of their loyalty, Lattimore observes, "The whole idea of proving that you are not despicable by listing the people who despise you is deeply humiliating." And his "ball-bearing lies" metaphor was a favorite with reviewers: "I had yet to learn that McCarthy is a master not only of the big lie but of the middle-sized lie and the little ball-bearing lie that rolls around and around and helps the wheels of the lie machinery to turn over."^[45]

The final chapter of Ordeal expresses Lattimore's beliefs about the dangers of McCarthyism and how Americans could counteract them. As one would expect from a scholar who had spent his formative years in Europe and Asia and had then joined the academy in the United States, Lattimore assumes the virtues of reason, facts, freedom of research and speech—the pantheon of the intellectual. What he does not acknowledge is the fluctuating but ineradicable strength of anti-intellectualism in America and the amorality of partisan politics. Ordeal claims that "the witch-hunting of which McCarthy is a part is recruited from ex-Communists and pro-Fascists, America Firsters, anti-Semites, Coughlinites, and similar fringe fanatics of the political underworld." ^[46] There were such fringe fanatics in the McCarthy entourage, but Lattimore is silent about the political forces that took up the "Who lost China?" debate to recapture the presidency.

A deeper analysis would have shown how the China lobby was rooted in the American self-image as the chosen people, in Asia-first Republicanism, and in the hatred of Roosevelt and all his works. Absence of this political dimension in Ordeal was noted by Alfred Friendly of the Washington Post : "An unfortunate omission is Lattimore's failure to relate his ordeal to Republican political tactics in an election year. Without drawing such a connection, a writer of the McCarthy story cannot make it entirely comprehensible." Such fundamental analyses of the period were not to appear until Michael Paul Rogin's Intellectuals and McCarthy (1967), Robert Griffith's Politics of Fear (1970), and Ross Y. Koen's China Lobby in American Politics (1974).^[47]

Ordeal by Slander describes some of the disruptions McCarthy caused in the Lattimore household, but the most traumatic event is missing. The

Lattimores had bought a half interest in Stoddard farm, adjoining the Stefansson's Dearing farm in Bethel, Vermont. Lattimore paid $1,000 in cash for his share of Stoddard and spent more than $1,000 on repairs and improvements during the summer of 1949. Stefansson and his wife, Evelyn, had plans to make the two farms self-supporting, and they looked forward to spending future summers adjacent to the Lattimores.^[48]

When the inquisition erupted in March 1950 it became clear that Lattimore needed the $2,000 equity he had in the Stoddard farm to help meet the costs of his defense. By May the two families had decided to put Stoddard up for sale. Stefansson put ads in three newspapers, with a selling price of $4,500, which would just recover the investment of the two families.^[49] On June 6 Ordway Southard came to look at Stoddard; his was the only serious response to the ad. Stefansson had met Southard in Alaska in 1945, and in the winter of 1948 Southard had used Stefansson's library in New York, which was headquarters for the Encyclopedia Arctica Stefansson was compiling for the U.S. Navy. As Stefansson wrote Lattimore just after the contracts were signed to sell Stoddard to Southard,

I did keep hearing more and more that winter about Southard being a Communist; but my clipping bureau was then sending me cuttings from the Hearst and Scripps-Howard press saying that I was a communist; and Westbrook Pegler was calling a friend of mine, A. N. Spanel, President of International Latex, a Communist or communist tool, sympathiser and abettor. To me this sort of thing was Salem Witchcraft over again, and I perhaps leaned over backward not to appear to be afflicted with what was increasingly worrying me as mob hysteria. It goes against the grain with me, even now, to take such precautions as many are taking against situations that could involve guilt by association.

Today it was pointed out to me that you are already a victim of a guilt-by-association frame-up and that I must not let my pooh-pooh attitude become dangerous to you. So I must give you what lowdown I have, mostly hearsay, because of twin dangers: That your selling Stoddard to a "Communist" may be used against you, and that your coming to visit Dearing, contiguous to Stoddard, the week after the Southards move in, may be interpreted as a suspicious coincidence.^[50]

When Lattimore received this letter, he immediately consulted Fortas, who sensed disaster. He advised Lattimore to attempt to cancel the sale. It was too late. Southard had a valid contract and could sue if it were broken. The problem then was how to handle the inevitable explosion if

Southard did indeed turn out to be a Communist and the McCarthy forces got wind of it.

Stefansson again had a powerful homily—he called it a "sermon"—which he delivered to the Lattimores in a letter of June 17. "I have read the DEVIL IN MASSACHUSETTS and the newspaper accounts of the current witch hunt, and I do agree that in Cotton Mather's Salem of 1692, and in Joseph McCarthy's United States of 1950, those have proved to be in greatest danger who were so conscious of their innocence that they were unconscious of the danger of being suspected. So I agree it is dangerous, during a time of hysteria, to act as if innocent—I agree that, to this extent, it is wisest to 'prove' one's innocence by joining in the hysteria and running with the mob."^[51]

Lattimore, Stefansson continued, had acted courageously and not run with the mob. His recent speech to the Johns Hopkins faculty showed appropriate "outraged disdain" for the whole inquisition, but this disdain would not keep him from unjust attack.

Stefansson's fears were well grounded. Thomas J. Riley, of the Hearst papers, was digging into the facts of the Stoddard sale and talked to Evelyn Stefansson by telephone. Southard and his wife, said Riley, were Communists; Southard had run as the Communist candidate for governor of Alabama in 1942 (he received a total of 402 votes). Riley and the pro-McCarthy press didn't have all the facts straight, however. One of the false charges that filtered through to the FBI, via J. B. Matthews, was that "Alger Hiss, John Abt, and Owen Lattimore held meetings at the Stefansson home in Bethel, Vermont."^[52]

But the big splash was saved for McCarthy. On July 27 he told the Senate that revenue stamps on the deed indicated that Lattimore had bought a half-interest in the property for about $1,500 in 1949 and had sold it for between $4,000 and $4,500. "So we find a well known Communist giving Mr. Lattimore $3,000. The Communist party often handles pay-offs—contributions—by transfers of property." ^[53] McCarthy also claimed that this had to be profit since there had been no increase in property values in Vermont.

When reporters caught up with Lattimore in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, he explained that he had only received half the proceeds and hence had made no profit at all. He had sold the property through Stefansson "to a complete stranger about whom I knew nothing and of whom I had previously never heard." McCarthy's methods, he added, are "not less base and despicable than they have been right along."^[54]

Chapter Twenty
China Attacks

On August 1, 1950, McCarthy waved before the Senate the affidavit John Farrand had obtained from Willi Foerster in March; it contained the charge that Lattimore had worked with Sorge. There is no reason to believe that McCarthy had learned anything new from Foerster or any other informant; what he told the Senate was all stale stuff, and the FBI agents cringed. Willard Edwards reported in the Chicago Tribune , "McCarthy said this evidence, like that revealed last week connecting Lattimore with two known Communists in a real estate deal, was another connecting link in his charge that Lattimore was a Communist agent. The discharge of the Tydings investigating committee, after a report whitewashing Lattimore and all others accused of communism, forced him to take such evidence to the Senate floor, McCarthy said."^[1]

The mainstream press ignored McCarthy; the AP did not even report his speech. This treatment McCarthy found intolerable. On August 4 he wrote the editor of every daily newspaper in the country, enclosing the Foerster affidavit, complaining about the AP's lack of interest and noting that "the press coverage of our fight to rid the State Department of Communists left much to be desired." The editors were largely unsympathetic; AP responded that "the senator's statement lacked news value.^[2]

But Lattimore was making news in August. Traveling through New England, he accepted the invitation of a friend, William G. Wendell of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to visit Portsmouth and speak to the guests of the Wentworth-by-the-Sea Hotel after that hotel's regular Sunday night concert on August 27. When this speech was announced, there was an immediate outcry from local McCarthy supporters. The regent of the lo-

cal chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the past president of the New Hampshire Congress of Parent-Teacher Organizations led opposition to the Lattimore appearance.^[3]

The hotel president, James B. Smith, was taken aback. Not wanting to offend either his guests or the local citizenry, he polled the hotel guests: 121 opposed Lattimore's talk, 89 approved it. Smith canceled, telling the New York Times , "Like the food we serve, it must meet with the approval of the greater percentage of our guests." Mrs. William E. Travis of the local PTA was more assertive: "Just now, with the critical condition of this country, anyone about whom there is any question should not be allowed to speak. I'm just against Communism, that's all." Lattimore was hurt and angry: "I am very sorry that any group of Americans would allow themselves to be panicked into refusing an opportunity for free discussion of subjects that must be openly debated. . .. There is no other democratic process for the spread of information and the formation of opinion."^[4]

Four days later McCarthy roused the faithful with a stinging attack on Acheson and his advisers at the Fifty-second Annual Encampment of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in New York. The audience "applauded wildly."^[5]

Also in August, Alfred Kohlberg swung into action. He was reading the Tydings committee report and found a statement to the effect that Father Kearney, who wrote the 1949 Columbia article attacking Lattimore, had told the FBI that he, Kearney, "had no direct knowledge of Mr. Lattimore's activities and that the principal source of his information had been Alfred Kohlberg of the American China Policy Association." Kohlberg had met Kearney several times but did not remember discussing Lattimore. Kohlberg fired off an immediate letter to Kearney. Was this true? Had Kearney actually said that to the FBI? Kohlberg would like Kearney to put what he told the FBI in an affidavit and indicate if Kohlberg was free to use it as he saw fit.^[6]

Kearney had left Santa Clara University and was on missionary duty in the Philippines. When he got Kohlberg's letter, he was much disturbed. He had been interviewed by two men who claimed to be FBI agents in January, he had thought that anything he said would be kept strictly confidential. He understood them to ask him if he "had any further information on Mr. Lattimore than that contained in the article." He told them no, that they should contact Kohlberg. As Kearney's affidavit reads, "At no time do I recall saying, or intending to say, that most of the matter in the article in question came from Mr. Kohlberg." ^[7]

Kearney put all this in his statement, had it notarized September 21, and sent it off to his Jesuit superior, Father John K. Lipman, assistant procurator for American Jesuits in China. Kearney's letter to Lipman reveals the dominant Catholic attitude toward Tydings:

Enclosed is a copy of an affidavit I am sending to be censored by the editor of America before being turned over to Mr. Kohlberg. The question of the F.B.I. is curious. Was it a frameup? Two men came instead of one, which seemed a bit strange. They seemed very much interested in a bit of information I gave them from Bullitt, which I had intended to be, like the rest, strictly confidential.

Could you make discreet inquiries, through Blake, e.g., and see if any real F.B.I. men contacted me in January at Santa Clara. If so, why the breaking of a confidential interview, and why was it done so stupidly? I have had a very high idea of the F.B.I., and this doesn't seem to fit in. We could make it hot for Tydings, if he faked the whole thing. And I suggested as much to Kohlberg. We did speak a bit about Lattimore, as I told K., and as you may remember at the dinner in S.F. But not much. . .. Is it possible to get a copy of that Tydings report in S.F.? If not, Freddy McGuire could get one. You might pass on this info to him, if he thinks it is useful. He might be able to blow those fellows up at dose quarters better than I could do it here. (Kearney's italics)^[8]

If Freddy McGuire blew up Tydings or any of those fellows, it has escaped public notice. The Reverend Robert C. Hartnett, S.J., editor of America , told Kohlberg to use the affidavit as it was. Kohlberg used it to challenge the FBI, sending it to Hoover on October 5 with a cover letter concluding: "It seems to me that your agents inaccurately reported their interview with Father Kearney. That they did so for any ulterior motive seems to be ruled out by the fact that their interview was in January, some months before the McCarthy charges against Lattimore were made. As I intend to make this matter public, may I suggest to you, Sir, that the original reports of your agents now be made public."^[9] Kohlberg then notes that this might seem a small matter but that it was important to everyone who thought the Tydings report a whitewash.

The bureau regarded this challenge as serious enough to require the two San Francisco agents to write an expanded account of their visit to Kearney. They did, retracting not a word of their original report: Kearney had indeed claimed that he got most of his information about Lattimore from Kohlberg, and they repeated several concrete particulars Kearney had given them.^[10]

Hoover referred the whole mess to Deputy Attorney General Peyton Ford. Ford wrote back on October 21: "I think the record should be straight—but I hesitate to start a running controversy with Kohlberg. If you have any thoughts I would appreciate them." Attached was a draft letter to Kohlberg, which Hoover approved; in it Ford said the two agents "confirmed the facts as set forth in my letter dated June 22, 1950, to Senator Millard E. Tydings."^[11]

There is no record of a Kohlberg reply. There is, in fact, no further record of bureau contact with Kohlberg. His informer status with the FBI reached its zenith in June and died suddenly in October.

As for Father McGuire, it is doubtful that the Kearney suggestion reached him. He was one of the few anti-McCarthy Catholics, and he later became involved in a bitter feud with Fulton Sheen, Budenz's protector.^[12]

Budenz was under heavy pressure from the bureau to complete his "four hundred names" project. By midsummer 1950 he had dictated to an FBI stenographer the names and all he could remember about 380 "concealed" Communists. The list was amazing. As noted previously, Budenz had trouble coming up with the promised number and "refreshed his memory" from lists of officers and sponsors of left-wing organizations. In July, HUAC agents came to Budenz, telling him that the committee was "interested in obtaining the names of the 400 concealed Communists." Budenz demurred. He wanted to leave the list in the hands of the FBI. HUAC was not to be put off; the committee issued a subpoena for Budenz to appear on August 29 with his list. He did appear, but something caused the committee to leave him sitting in an anteroom until they disbanded. Willard Edwards thought it was administration pressure. ^[13]

In 1987 the FBI still declined to release the Budenz four hundred file. Even in 1950 they were unwilling to encourage Budenz to release parts of it to a confirmed Communist hater, Cecil B. DeMilie, who wanted it for his blacklist. The matter was referred to Hoover, who responded, "Since Budenz seems to talk to others freely & without clearance with FBI I don't see why he passes the buck to us in this particular matter. Pass it right back to him." ^[14]

Budenz did name many on his list before congressional committees, which gave him immunity from suit. Many of them had no Communist connections at all. Budenz got around to putting Lattimore on the list in September 1950. We will probably never know how many prominent citizens were refused passports, failed to get jobs they applied for, or were

turned down for grants or scholarships because they were on the Budenz list.

Lattimore returned to Johns Hopkins in early September. There were disturbing press reports waiting in his mail. One that particularly aroused his ire was a Chicago Tribune story of July 21. Kenneth Colegrove, political scientist at Northwestern University, was now attacking Lattimore publicly. Colegrove claimed that Lattimore was a member of "a pro-communist clique in and out of the State Department that sold President Roosevelt on the idea that Chinese Communists were only agrarian reformers; Lattimore has been an advisor of the State Department despite Acheson's denials."

Lattimore exploded. He wrote Colegrove September 5: "It is a lie, and you know it is a lie, that I ever belonged to any kind of 'pro-communist clique'; it is a lie, and you know it is a lie, that I ever 'sold' or attempted to 'sell' President Roosevelt on the idea that the Chinese Communists were only agrarian reformers; it is a lie, and you know it is a lie, that I was ever an advisor of the State Department." Lattimore asked for an apology and a retraction.^[15] It never came.

The fuss in Vermont calmed down somewhat in late summer. Stefansson, who had previously been inclined to give Ordway Southard the benefit of the doubt, had changed his mind. Southard came uninvited to visit the Stefanssons, wanting a reduction in his mortgage if he paid it off early. Stefansson refused and was outraged when Southard confirmed his Party membership. In a blazing letter to the Lattimores, which Stefansson titled "The Wretched Southards" as if it were an article for publication, he wrote that he had forbidden Southard to set foot on Dearing farm again. Evelyn Stefansson wrote Eleanor Lattimore on September 11; her mood was upbeat. "Everywhere we hear words of praise for Owen's wonderful fight. Mrs. Bundy [local Republican attorney] met a group in Barre last week of 6 women from all over the country. They were all eager for details and all convinced that not only was Owen guiltless, but he had struck such a fine blow for freedom of academic thought, etc." ^[16]

On October 16 Evelyn wrote again, still impressed by the sanity of Vermonters and happy that she and Stef would be able to meet Owen and Eleanor shortly at a conference in Philadelphia, which was the best they could do since the Lattimores could not afford to be seen in Vermont. ^[17]

But sanity in Vermont did not cancel out the fact that the country as a whole was in the grip of a growing hysteria. Passage of the Internal Security Act of 1950 (the McCarran Act) over Truman's veto on September

23 proved this hysteria. The major feature of the act was a preventive detention or concentration camp clause. This act was one of the most repressive ever passed by Congress, which rolled over the veto 248-48 in the House and 57-10 in the Senate. Senators William Benton of Connecticut and Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota later expressed shame that they too had caved in to the pressure. Humphrey congratulated Estes Kefauver for resisting it.^[18]

Lattimore continued to have trouble on the lecture circuit. There was a furious row when Wellesley College invited him to speak under the auspices of the Mayling Soong Foundation. The press was filled with attack and counterattack, pro- and anti-Tydings, pro- and anti-McCarthy. One Wellesley trustee, Mrs. Maurice T. Moore, returned early from Europe to take part in a board meeting on the matter. Mrs. Walter Brookings, widow of the founder of the Brookings Institution, wired a protest to Wellesley's president. Unlike the New Hampshire hotel, Wellesley stood its ground.^[19]

But the ground under freedom of speech was crumbling. Despite FBI knowledge of the shaky nature of evidence against Lattimore, and despite near-unanimous testimony of those who knew him that he was not a Communist, the bureau was forging ahead with its investigation, seeking—and retaining—whatever testimony it could find against him, discarding or ignoring the contrary evidence. Hoover, for instance, was never told that Budenz had described his own testimony as "flimsy"; this revealing adjective dropped out of FBI reports as they went up the hierarchy.

The Baltimore FBI office was always more suspicious of Lattimore than was headquarters. Perhaps active American Legion, Catholic church, Minute Women of America, and other local opposition to Lattimore had infected the Baltimore agents. Perhaps the suspicion was simply a desire on the part of Baltimore, the "office of origin" in the Lattimore case, to capitalize on what they hoped would be a successful prosecution. Whatever the case, on October 13, 1950, the Baltimore SAC volunteered to headquarters that his office was "in the process of preparing a report summarizing information available which will establish instances wherein LATTIMORE committed perjury in his testimony before the Senate Sub-Committee."^[20] There was no mention of espionage. It took Baltimore until December 28 to put its perjury summary together. During this period the country went from agitation to full hysteria.

The November 1950 midterm elections stirred things up. Republicans, almost without exception, ran on a "Democrats are soft on Communism"

platform. Acheson was the chief scapegoat, Lattimore a close second. Nixon, typically, rode them both: he challenged his opponent, Helen Gahagon Douglas, to state "whether she subscribes to the Acheson-Lattimore policy."^[21]

Democrats had counted on Truman's quick response to the North Korean attack to defuse the Communist issue, but things didn't work out that way. McCarthy's analysis in June was correct; as casualties mounted, so did public anxiety. MacArthur's brilliant Inchon landing temporarily eased concerns about the war, but on October 25, just before the election, Chinese forces appeared in Korea. This disturbing event again heightened public uneasiness.

The election in Maryland was particularly salient: Tydings was running. McCarthy and his staff took an active part, and there were dirty tricks aplenty, some of them carried out by Surine.^[22] At the time many respected observers credited McCarthy with Tyding's loss, and McCarthy was quite happy to accept this judgment. In retrospect, McCarthy's attacks on Tydings did not account for the outcome; but what appeared then to be the case was what really mattered, and belief in McCarthy's prowess was strongly reinforced. Scott Lucas, another foe of McCarthy, lost to Everett Dirksen in Illinois, and McCarthy claimed credit for that victory, too. Overall the Democratic vote was good for an offyear election, and the Republicans did not capture either house of Congress; but McCarthy, Nixon, Dirksen, and their friends declared victory and vowed to keep up the anti-Communist battle.

Lattimore lectured to the Maryland Furniture and Carpet Association November 14, mostly on his early experiences in China. During the question period he was asked, "In your opinion, why was Tydings defeated?" Lattimore disclaimed any expertise about Maryland politics but ventured the tentative opinion that the outcome might have been different if Tydings had fought the whitewash charge "offensively rather than defensively. The senator had nothing to be ashamed of and everything to be proud of." ^[23]

But Lattimore was in a losing battle. McCarthy and his political and journalistic allies were always attacking, Lattimore defending. November and December were not good months. Johns Hopkins was still behind him, but the country was steadily moving into McCarthy's camp. Lattimore threw himself into the academic concerns neglected during the spring. He worked particularly hard to secure an American Philosophical Society grant for Father Louis M. J. Schram, a Belgian Catholic expert on Mongolia who wanted to continue his studies in the United States; he also

tried to help the Indian Council of World Affairs in New Delhi to obtain young Mongol scholars who were neither Communist nor Kuomintang. ^[24]

The seminal event of 1950, however, was yet to come. More than the Hiss conviction, the McCarthy crusade, the Rosenberg arrest, or the original North Korean attack, it was the defeat of the U.S. Eighth Army by Chinese forces beginning on November 26 that traumatized the country. The panic about Korea and what events there meant for the United States began, in New York Times coverage, on November 29, with a three-line scarehead. For twenty-two days Korean War headlines in the Times averaged five columns in width. On November 30 Truman threatened use of nuclear weapons if pushed to it. At the height of the rout, on December 3, the Times editorialized, "In the short space of ten days, the whole world outlook had changed." An editorial December 4 claimed that the situation was "reminiscent of the days when Hitler's armies started on their march of conquest." On December 8 New York Governor Thomas Dewey instructed his civil defense leaders to prepare for "a possible million evacuees" from urban areas in the event of a nuclear war. Truman declared a national emergency December 16, and one of the many alarmist stories the next day had the federal government preparing to disperse. The crowning touch was provided by skiers in the Pacific Northwest. On December 18, 1950, they organized as "defense guerillas" to protect western mountain passes during a Communist invasion. And on Christmas Eve the Very Reverend Edmund A. Walsh, vice president of Georgetown University, said the U.S. should consider a preemptive nuclear strike against the Soviet Union.^[25]

The Chinese entry into the Korean War and the defeat of MacArthur's finest drowned out Tydings's report in a crescendo of fear and frenzy. If those State Department types were not serving the Communists, how could all this happen? America's virile self-image took a beating in Korea.^[26] The disaster there, added to the already powerful anti-Communist atmosphere, seemed to make McCarthy's case: against Acheson, against Jessup, against Lattimore. Budenz and Utley also benefited from the Chinese attack; they had said all along that communism was a monolith and that the People's Republic of China would do Stalin's bidding.

Baltimore FBI agents continued to dig up new ways of nailing Lattimore. On November 16, 1950, that office wrote Hoover suggesting an investigation of possible use by Lattimore of a pseudonym. "Pacificus" and "Asiaticus" were pen names that appeared in periodicals dealing with China and Japan. Asiaticus was clearly pro-Communist and had written

for Pacific Affairs when Lattimore was editor; but Baltimore's immediate concern was Pacificus; "The purpose of attempting to identify PACIFICUS as LATTIMORE is to determine whether it would be practical to run down articles written by PACIFICUS on the theory that LATTIMORE may have given more open expression to his pro-Communist leanings in writings under his pen name." ^[27]

The search for Pacificus hung around for months. Nobody was able to tell the bureau who Pacificus was—except, unfortunately, someone whom J. Edgar Hoover hated so much he forbade agents to contact the man. This was I. F. Stone, Washington correspondent for the Nation . Stone had been the channel for the Pacificus articles. But as Branigan wrote Belmont, "Stone [is] reportedly a Communist since the mid 1930's, has been most vituperative in attacks on Bureau and the Director and cannot be expected to be cooperative. . .. Recommendations made that (1) we do not interview Stone unless requested to do so by the criminal Div. and (2) that we advise Criminal Div. of this decision." Below this Hoover wrote, "We will not do so under any circumstances. If they want him interviewed, they will have to do so themselves."^[28] They never found out the identity of Pacificus.

Baltimore was also suspicious of Lattimore's claim to have supported Finland when Russia invaded. One of Lattimore's letters in IPR files (which the bureau had thoroughly inspected in 1950) asked Carter if he had seen any plausible explanation of the Soviet attack. Baltimore thought this letter might mean that Lattimore supported the Russians. He hadn't. The bureau decided his support of Fighting Funds for Finland had been genuine. ^[29]

Two weeks later Baltimore had five more suggestions, one of which was astounding: "numerous rather reliable sources" had indicated that Lattimore had served on the Strategic Bombing Survey. They thought this report should be checked out further. Headquarters paid no attention.^[30]

By December 28 Baltimore had prepared its 545-page perjury summary. There were sixteen charges against Lattimore that presented "the best possibility for successful prosecution," all derived from Lattimore's testimony before Tydings. Baltimore thought a case might be made that Lattimore lied when he

1. denied Communist party membership and/or support of Communist principles;

2. denied affiliations with organizations on the attorney general's list;

3. denied knowing that the Washington Committee for Aid to China was Communist;

4. denied saying that the Chinese Communists were agrarian reformers and non-Marxists;

5. claimed he supported Finland against Russia;

6. claimed that Pacific Affairs was not pro-Communist while he was editor;

7. denied knowing Fred Field was a Communist;

8. denied knowing Chi Ch'ao-ting was a Communist;

9. denied knowing Chew Sih Hong was a Communist;

10. denied knowing the China Daily News was Communist;

11. denied taking initiative in placing any person in U.S. government service;

12. described his relationship with Amerasia ;

13. described his relationship with Dr. Walter Heissig;

14. described his contact with Soviet officials in 1936;

15. described his association with Alger Hiss;

16. described the circumstances of his appointment as advisor to Chiang Kai-shek.^[31]

Of this long list, only items one and eight survived the following two years of investigation. None of them impressed FBI headquarters. They had no evidence of Party membership at all, and "support of Communist principles" was vague. As to Chi Ch'ao-ting, he had been chief aide to H. H. K'ung as Nationalist China's finance minister. If K'ung had thought Chi non-Communist, so might Lattimore.^[32]

Baltimore was reasonably sure they had done a thorough job, and they thought there was evidence to prosecute Lattimore. Just in case Justice thought otherwise, however, the report concluded, "Should the Department after reviewing [this] report, conclude that no violation exists insofar as the Perjury Statute or other Federal statutes are concerned, then it is recommended that the case be dosed." ^[33]

Baltimore did not anticipate the future interest in the Lattimore case from a powerful and unexpected source: Patrick Anthony McCarran.

Chapter Twenty-One
McCarran

In December 1950 crusty old Patrick A. McCarran of Nevada, nominally a Democrat but bitterly at odds with Roosevelt and Truman most of the time, decided to upstage HUAC and establish a Senate mechanism to root out Communists. After eighteen years in the Senate, McCarran was sixth in seniority and arguably first in power as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which handled 40 percent of Senate bills and all judicial appointments. As Alfred Steinberg said in a November 1950 Harper's article, McCarran "emerged as a greater threat to his party's program than the combined forces of the Dixiecrats and the Republicans. . .. He need play ball on no team but his own."^[1] Where McCarthy was impulsive and disorganized, McCarran was methodical and a master of Senate procedures.

Long before McCarthy discovered the anti-Communist issue, McCarran had made it his ideological anchor. Like Freda Utley, whom he later hired, he believed as early as 1941 that the Soviet Union, not Nazi Germany, was the greatest threat to Western civilization. When the State Department ordered the closing of all German consulates in the summer of 1941, McCarran denounced the action and "argued that Roosevelt should have broken all ties with the Soviet Union instead." In the middle of the war (April 19, 1943) he wrote his friend Pete Peterson, "I am convinced that there is a group in full control of this administration that proposes to turn our government over to anything but a democratic form." The party to which he belonged called itself Democrat, but McCarran said that his colleagues "in reality are nothing but communists to the very core." ^[2]

By 1945 Roosevelt wanted very much to get McCarran out of the Senate and offered him a federal judgeship. McCarran considered it seriously,

as Von Pittman discovered, but decided that the threat of domestic communism, especially in the person of Vice President Wallace, compelled him to continue to serve in the Senate.^[3]

In foreign policy McCarran's anticommunism led him to strong support of Francisco Franco in Spain; some called him the "Senator from Madrid." He won most of his battles for increased acceptance of the Spanish dictator.

The other arena that drew his concern was China. McCarran was a latecomer to this cause, not speaking out on China policy until September 1948, but he quickly gathered momentum and by 1949 was sponsoring a bill to give a billion and a half dollars to Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists. The China lobby forces in Washington welcomed him to their ranks. V. K. Wellington Koo, Chinese ambassador to the United States in 1949, gave confidential papers outlining Nationalist defense plans for Taiwan to four Americans: John Foster Dulles, Representative Walter Judd, Senator William Knowland, and McCarran. McCarran accepted the entire corpus of China lobby beliefs, including the most risible: "Everyone knows that captured Chinese Red generals have admitted that their orders came from the Kremlin," McCarran told the New York Times in January 1949.^[4]

The intensity of McCarran's anticommunism was matched by his devotion to its conspiracy corollary. The "loss of China" did not just happen. His close friend Norman Biltz, a Nevada businessman, recalled McCarran's conspiracy beliefs in an oral history:

Senator McCarran believed completely that there was one being in the United States who directed the operation of the Communist Party. He was completely convinced of this, and so was McCarthy. Patsy told me many, many times, he said, "Norm, I can't get through the cloud. I can't find that person. But I feel his influence all over Washington." And he said, "If I throw up a hundred false balloons, if I make a hundred efforts that fail, if I make a hundred mistakes, and do eventually find that one man, I will have served my country well." And he died believing it. I wouldn't dare tell you some of the people he suspected. (Italics in original)^[5]

We know some of the people he suspected. Roosevelt was one, but he died in 1945. Wallace was another, but his disappearance from national politics after the election of 1948 took him out of the running. By 1950, when McCarthy identified Lattimore as the top Soviet spy, McCarran was thinking the same thing.

Thus, it was entirely fitting that McCarran should establish in Decem-

ber 1950 a Judiciary subcommittee charged with investigating the administration of the new Internal Security Act, appoint himself chairman of this Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS), and look for the Communist mastermind. Senate Resolution 366, passed December 21, 1950, was his authorization.

This subcommittee was to have seven members. Its composition was no accident. McCarran was not about to tolerate on his board of inquisitors any senator who would dissent from what he knew to be true: treason had lost China, Lattimore was the mastermind behind it, and the Institute of Pacific Relations was the vehicle Lattimore had used to accomplish Communist ends.

McCarran needed three Democrats and three Republicans for SISS. The choice was easy. Of the six Democrats available on Judiciary, three were certifiable liberals, scoring high on the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) scorecard for the 1950 session of Congress: Harley Kilgore of West Virginia, Warren Magnuson of Washington, and Estes Kefauver of Tennessee.^[6] Of the three Democrats remaining, James Eastland of Mississippi was most in tune with McCarran; he had applauded McCarran unstintingly in a speech to the Senate on July 14, 1950, and was in complete sympathy with McCarran's views on foreign policy and internal security. McCarran delegated Eastland to introduce the resolution creating SISS on November 30 since McCarran himself was away from Washington at that time.

Only one other Democrat, Herbert O'Conor of Maryland, was a member of Judiciary in 1950; although he was less vociferous in his anticommunism, he was on record against Lattimore and against admission of the People's Republic of China to the United Nations. O'Conor would do. Recently elected Willis Smith of North Carolina had been appointed to Judiciary; he had a certifiable record in his 1950 election campaign, defeating the liberal Frank Graham by red-baiting and pandering to the segregationists. Smith was not a strong supporter of McCarthy, as were the others, but he bought the China lobby position without exception. ^[7]

The selection of Republicans presented no problem either. Alexander Wiley of Wisconsin was far too liberal, William Langer of North Dakota was ideologically unreliable, and Robert Hendrickson of New Jersey was soft on foreign policy. The other three Republicans were perfect for McCarran's purposes. Homer Ferguson of Michigan, William Jenner of Indiana, and Arthur Watkins of Utah were ultraconservative. In three years of voting, they accumulated between them 13 votes aligned with ADA positions, 102 against. All were China lobby supporters, two were

on record against Lattimore, and the third (Watkins) could not abide any supporter of Roosevelt. Watkins later deserted McCarthy's cause, but he remained a fervent McCarranite.

On the salient issues of foreign policy and internal security, McCarran had an investigating group without a single deviant opinion.

Joe McCarthy was not a member of Judiciary, but he saw that SISS would be a wonderful vehicle for furthering his interests. The Tydings subcommittee had not been to his liking: the Democrats were hostile, Lodge was lukewarm, and the minority counsel, Robert Morris, was powerless; only Hickenlooper came to his support. SISS was something else entirely; he could not have asked for a more sympathetic crew. He set about to attach himself, and his most loyal staff, to SISS.

Surine was the first to see action. He stayed on McCarthy's payroll but was soon spending most of his time working for McCarran. In a conversation with Thomas Reeves on April 7, 1977, Surine claimed to have played a major role in SISS activities; he said he had attended all the hearings, procured the most incisive evidence, and helped write the major committee report, which, according to Surine, was "the best source on American foreign relations from 1925-52."^[8] These claims are exaggerated, but Surine did play a role in a cloak-and-dagger escapade that started SISS on its way.

Edward Carter, former IPR secretary, had stored old IPR files in a barn on his farm near Lee, Massachusetts. Hundreds of letters to and from Lattimore were in the files. The FBI New York office had studied these files at Carter's suggestion, finding that only five of them were at all pertinent to the investigation of Lattimore and that "none relate[d] to pro-Soviet or pro-Communist sentiments or espionage." The SISS crew did not know the FBI had seen the files. When McCarthy got a telephone call December 21, 1950, from Thomas Stotler, the son (FBI version) or nephew (Jack Anderson version) of the caretaker at Carter's farm, McCarthy imagined that a great evidential treasure might be surfacing. Surine was detailed to follow up this call. In early January 1951 Surine arranged with Stotler to liberate the treasure; together they secretly carried the IPR files to 1. B. Matthews's office in the Hearst Building in New York. A report to the FBI said that Hearst had purchased the IPR documents; this seems unlikely.^[9]

As Jack Anderson tells the story, by February 3, 1951, the Matthews operation had made copies of eighteen hundred documents. The security of Matthews's operation was not good; news of it spread to HUAC, Senators Ferguson and Mundt, and Hearst columnists Sokolsky and West-

brook Pegler. When a HUAC agent came poking around the Hearst offices, Surine and Matthews got cold feet. The documents were smuggled back to Carter's barn.^[10]

To Matthews, Surine, and other Hearst associates, the label "Institute of Pacific Relations" meant conspiracy and subversion. This collection of documents had to be retrieved. McCarthy arranged for SISS to issue a subpoena for all the "letters, papers, and documents" in Carter's barn. Surine was then sent back to Massachusetts with Frank Schroeder, a McCarran employee, and on February 8 Schroeder served the subpoena on the legally incompetent caretaker (it should have been served on Carter). Surine and Schroeder loaded the files in a truck and drove them through a blinding snowstorm to New York, where McCarran had arranged an armed Treasury escort for the rest of the journey to Washington. The files were stored in Judiciary Committee offices, locks on the door were changed, and guards provided. As the New York Times reported February 11, 1951, "Senators assigned to investigate subversive activities said today they expected 'sensational' results from a seizure of voluminous files of the Institute of Pacific Relations."^[11] The Times account was relatively low-key, buried on page fifty-four of a Sunday edition. Hearst, Scripps Howard, and McCormick Patterson papers carried headlines screaming "Secret 'Lattimore' Files" and calling the operation a "Daring Raid."

McCarran kept up the tempo. He told the United Press on February 11 that his committee "would investigate 'fully' all matters involved in the records." By February 20 this initial enthusiasm had apparently died down. An FBI informant told the bureau that "the Senate Subcommittee and Senator McCarthy feel that nothing of any real importance is contained in these documents" and that "the primary aim of the Senate Subcommittee is to reopen the 'Amerasia' case."^[12] This turned out to be a bad tip. The IPR was the primary fixation of SISS for a long run.

One of the reasons McCarran stuck with the IPR investigation was that Robert Morris, who had moved to McCarthy's payroll after the Tydings committee disbanded, now went to work for McCarran. Morris, a former naval intelligence officer, believed that Lattimore really was the evil genius behind American failures in Asia. In the October 30, 1950, Freeman , Morris published "Counsel for the Minority: A Report on the Tydings Investigation." Tydings had been a whitewash, and the Democrats had been solely concerned with scuttling McCarthy. "But the most serious delinquency of the Subcommittee was its steadfast refusal to look into the nature of the Institute of Pacific Relations. It was serious because Budenz

had testified (and others were prepared to do so) that this very influential organization during a particularly strategic period had been controlled by the Communists."^[13] Morris gloried in possession of the IPR files; along with Judiciary Counsel Julian G. (Jay) Sourwine and SISS Director of Research Benjamin Mandel, Morris set out to study the IPR records systematically. The study lasted for a year. Not until February 1952 was Morris ready to confront Lattimore in public.

McCarthy was ready with a new challenge to Lattimore much sooner. Under Kohlberg's influence McCarthy set out to obtain evidence from the Chinese Nationalists that Lattimore had contributed to their downfall. One potential source was a foreigner in the United States for whom McCarthy had helped obtain a visa extension. This person had spent about twenty years, including the war years, in China. The FBI was still protecting him in 1981, and we know only that he was informant T-7 in the relevant documents. In early 1950 Surine approached T-7 and asked him to obtain information about Lattimore and others from Chiang's flies on Taiwan. T-7 was reluctant; he did not want to become involved in American politics. Nevertheless, Surine persuaded him that "securing such information would be of assistance to the United States Government and would be a blow struck in the war against Communism."^[14]

T-7 therefore contacted his friends in Taiwan and procured for McCarthy a seven-page report entitled "A Copied Document." It was a mishmash of rumor and invention. Its opening salvo claimed that when Henry Wallace was in Chungking in 1944 he had a "secret conference with Stilwell, Lattimore, Davies, Service, Vincent, and Ray Ludden, the purpose of which was to plot the downfall of the Nationalist regime." Such a meeting could not have taken place, as neither Stilwell nor Ludden was in Chungking at the time. Davies did not attend any of the meetings with Wallace, and Lattimore was still plotting the survival of the Nationalist regime.^[15]

The document attacked two of Lattimore's books but offered only minor additional gossip: "When Lattimore was in Chungking he had frequent associations with the bandit [Communist] representatives, Chiao Mu [Hu Ch'iao-mu] and Kung P'eng, and secretly passed on important intelligency [sic ] relating to our side to be carried back to Yenan."^[16] The first part of this is true; Chiang did instruct Lattimore to confer with the Communist representatives in Chungking. The latter part was wholly malicious and, as the FBI decided, an invention of the 1950s.

Other documents from Taiwan surfaced during the SISS hearings. An unusual one began its journey in January 1951. General Charles Wil-

loughby of the Far East Command in Tokyo, an intelligence aide to MacArthur, was trying to obtain information for his book about Sorge; he sent Lieutenant Thomas Malim to Taiwan to obtain anything in Chinese Nationalist flies that might relate to the Sorge spy ring. Malim spent about three unsuccessful weeks in Taipei; "although the Chinese authorities appeared anxious to be helpful, they were able to turn up very little of what he was looking for."^[17] Malim prepared to return to Tokyo empty-handed, but at the airport about an hour before his scheduled departure a courier came up to him with a document in Chinese. Malim was "unable to question Chinese officials about the documentation or sources of the allegations" contained in this document because of the shortness of time.^[18] The document appears to have been entitled "International Red Conspiracy Undermines China," and while the cast of characters was somewhat different from that of "A Copied Document," it represented the same genre of postfacto inventiveness.

This time the headings within the document coupled the name of the enemy American with the name of a Communist Chinese "bandit." Section one dealt with "Owen Lattimore and Madame Sun Yat-sen"; others were headed "John S. Service and Kung P'eng," "Alger Hiss and Chang Han-fu," "John K. Fairbank and Liu Tsung-chi."^[19]

Despite Hoover's many requests to Tokyo for information about Lattimore, and though this document appears to be precisely what Hoover had been requesting, Far East Command did not send a copy to the FBI. The bureau appears not to have found out about it until June 25, 1951, six months after Tokyo got it. Hoover then wrote Army Intelligence (G-2) in Washington asking for a copy of the materials given to Malim. This request was passed on to Willoughby, who sent a copy of the document to G-2 in Washington on July 7. G-2 notified the bureau that the copy was en route and "would be made available to the Bureau as soon as received." But there is no trace of the document in bureau files for five months, and G-2 did not actually get it to the FBI until December 21, 1951, almost eleven months after Malim received it.^[20]

The section of "International Red Conspiracy" dealing with Lattimore contains little about his activities in China other than what was by then available from the Tydings hearings and from Lattimore's books. He is charged with having "eulogized" the Chinese Communists throughout the world as "mere agrarian reformers" after his trip to Yenan in 1937. During his service with Chiang he allegedly pushed Mao's views as expressed in a booklet The New Epoch . During his trip with Wallace he took Wallace to see Madame Sun Yat-sen, giving the Communists "consider-

able encouragement." A long section on his activities in OWI all derives from sources in Washington and in no sense represents Chinese "intelligence." Army described the whole document as of questionable value.^[21]

This document too came to SISS and along with the T-7 document provided questions when Lattimore was called before McCarran.

There was much stir in Baltimore the second week of March 1951. Lattimore was asked to speak to the United Nations Youth Council at Baltimore City College on March 7. Acting at the request of the local American Legion, Baltimore City Council voted 13-6 to ask the school board to cancel the speech. The rationale was that the IPR was being investigated; Lattimore had been an officer of IPR; therefore Lattimore was subversive. The school board, however, declined. Lattimore spoke on schedule. There were no incidents, and all but about fifty of the two thousand students attended his lecture. His subversive message, according to the New York Times , was that the United States should have a "foreign policy that would work equally well in Asia and Europe."^[22]

But other news dominated the headlines that spring. On March 29 a jury convicted Julius and Ethel Rosenberg of atomic espionage; this case joined the Hiss conviction in the pantheon of right-wing causes. A mere two weeks later Truman fired MacArthur, and the resulting furor lasted several months. MacArthur came back from Japan as a conquering hero, and Truman endured obloquy such as few presidents ever have. When MacArthur addressed a joint session of Congress April 19, Missouri Congressman Dewey Short, with no apparent damage to the presumption of his sanity, declared, "We saw a great hunk of God in the flesh, and we heard the voice of God."^[23] Then there were the headline-making MacArthur hearings, commonly known as the MSFE hearings, jointly held by the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees. The official title was "Inquiry into the Military Situation in the Far East and the Facts Surrounding the Relief of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur from His Assignment in That Area."^[24] From May 3 to June 25, 1951, the public was treated to a daily display of the Asia-first doctrines associated with Republican conservatives. McCarran and his followers were on the sidelines cheering.

The MSFE report agrees on thirty conclusions. Most of them deal with military matters, but some are political. Among the political conclusions: the identity of our real enemy was not North Korea but international communism; Soviet domination of the People's Republic of China was clear; and the United States should support the Republic of China on Taiwan, keeping the People's Republic out of the United Nations.^[25]

A final section of the MSFE report dissects an official War Department publication entitled Our Ally China , which indoctrinated American soldiers during World War II with various subversive beliefs. Our Ally China emphasized the complexities of Chinese politics and always put the label "Communists" in quotes, implying that they weren't Communists at all. The MSFE report concludes: "American soldiers desiring to obtain more facts in regard to the problem of our Chinese ally were given a reference for further reading. That reference was The Making of Modern China by Owen Lattimore."^[26] So Lattimore stood impaled by yet another group of senators.

One minor vindication of Lattimore appeared in FBI Files during the spring of 1951. McCarthy, FBI agent Cornelius in Albany, and various informants had sniped at the Dilowa as a Communist agent in disguise. The FBI investigated the matter through army channels. Hoover requested Brigadier General John Weckerling, chief of Army Intelligence, to find out what he could about the Dilowa. Weckerling's contact in Taipei then went to his Nationalist counterpart for information. It came in a quite different shape from the T-7 and Malim documents: "The Dilowa Hutukhtu is thoroughly reliable and has a long record of anti-communist activity. He is also reported to be highly thought of by members of the Legislative Yuan of which he was at one time a member. I [Nationalist G-2] have known of the Dilowa Hutukhtu's activities over a period of about ten years and met him twice in Peiping in 1947 and 1948. From all I know of him I believe he would have no part of communism, particularly as the advent of communism into [Inner] Mongolia could have nothing but bad effects for him and his disciples."^[27]

Reader's Digest reentered the ranks of Lattimore accusers in 1951. The June issue carried an article by Elinor Lipper (alias Elinor Catala, according to the FBI) entitled "Eleven Years in Soviet Prison Camps." This was a condensation and translation of Lipper's book of the same title, published in Germany in 1950.^[28] In the German edition Lipper ridicules Henry Wallace for his naïveté in believing everything the Soviets told him during his 1944 visit to Magadan. Lattimore is not mentioned.

In April 1951 an English edition of Lipper's book was published by Henry Regnery. It contains a new section, headed "Owen Lattimore's Report," excoriating Lattimore even more than Wallace, since Lattimore had an "opportunity offered to an American scholar [that] was unique: no free foreigner had set foot in this NKVD country before, and no one has done so since." Lattimore's sin was that he, more than Wallace, should have known that what they saw at Magadan was all show put on by the

Russians; Lipper then quotes seven passages from Lattimore's National Geographic Magazine article, castigating his exuberant account of Magadan and of the Russians who entertained him. Lipper told friends that the attack on Lattimore was inserted in the Regnery edition without her knowledge.^[29]

It is hard to believe that Regnery behaved so crudely. However this insertion in the American edition came about, it was incorporated in Lipper's Reader's Digest article, and Lattimore was again deluged with hostile mail. He answered many of these letters at length, acknowledging that what he and Wallace saw and described were Potemkin villages but also pointing out assumptions and errors of Lipper's that vitiated her polemic. But his response did not get a circulation in the millions.

Lipper came to the United States on a lecture tour in 1951, and the FBI interviewed her in October. She acknowledged knowing nothing about Lattimore, not even being aware in 1944 that he had accompanied Wallace.^[30] That may be why SISS, which had invited her to testify on Lattimore, did not carry through with the invitation—at least publicly. When Wallace testified before SISS, he admitted that Lipper probably gave an accurate picture of the Magadan slave-labor camp—except for the hog farm, which he thought she knew nothing about.

Morris, Sourwine, and Mandel used the spring months of 1951 to prepare their case against the IPR and Lattimore. They had literally thousands of IPR documents to organize. And organize they did. The Tydings hearings had been haphazard and unpredictable, influenced by the tug-of-war between McCarthy and Hickenlooper on one side and the Democrats on the other. The pro-McCarthy witnesses had not been thoroughly prepared. Even Louis Budenz, by 1950 the most practiced professional witness in the country, bobbled the ball. When Tydings counsel Edward P. Morgan asked him why, if Lattimore were a Communist, the Worker had panned Situation in Asia , Budenz could only say, "Sir, I can explain to you that we had the policy in protecting people who are out beyond the party proper, to criticize them with faint praise—that is to say, to damn them with faint praise—rather, to praise them with faint damns, is the way I want to put it. Now I can give to this committee examples of that, but I just will have to have time."^[31]

There was nothing haphazard or unprepared about SISS. Seven senators and three top staffers were of one mind: the IPR and Lattimore were to be pilloried with precision. This precision was accomplished (1) by extensive staff work in order that the interrogating counsel would know

exactly what the IPR documents said and (2) by preparing anti-Lattimore witnesses. All the anti-Lattimore witnesses went through one-on-one staff interviews as well as executive session rehearsals. These rehearsals were designed to prepare them to make the best case and to screen out questions that might yield embarrassing answers. Thus, in one instance, the secret session with Nathaniel Weyl revealed that he was familiar with the IPR and was prepared to identify Fred Field as a Communist but that he would not similarly classify Lattimore. When Weyl came before SISS in public session on February 19, 1952, he was led through an elaborate identification of Field; no question was asked about Lattimore.^[32]

McCarran's justification of executive session rehearsals did not acknowledge their real purpose. McCarran wanted to avoid being tagged with McCarthyism; hence, he wanted to limit public exposure of some witnesses. He controlled leaks from executive session testimony and bragged, "Our policy of taking a witness into executive session and finding out what he knows and what he is going to testify works as a safety valve so that innocent people will not be harmed."^[33]

McCarran's public agenda was also carefully designed to load the dice against the Baltimore heretic. Only after seventeen anti-Lattimore witnesses had appeared in public session, with their accusations spread throughout the media, did McCarran consent to give Lattimore a rebuttal. McCarran's witnesses fell into two categories: the damned (IPR people) and their accusers. Only one of the approximately 170 prominent scholars who endorsed Lattimore's loyalty was called to testify; that was John King Fairbank, who "qualified" as a witness because he was associated with the IPR and was himself a target of McCarthy. The FBI had interviewed many former Communists on their roster of regular informants who said Lattimore was unknown to them; only four of them were called by McCarran, and they were not asked about Lattimore. It was a stacked deck.

Between April and July 1951, SISS in executive sessions laid the foundation for its public hearings. At least a dozen anti-IPR witnesses were prepared for the public show. Joseph Zack Kornfeder was typical. Kornfeder had been a Communist party member from 1919 to 1934. He attended the Lenin School in Moscow from 1927 to 1930 and held prominent posts with the Comintern in South America and with the American Party in New York and Detroit. In 1934 he broke with the Party but couldn't bring himself to testify against it until after World War IL In 1947 he was extensively interrogated by the FBI and went on to testify before many state and federal bodies, including HUAC. By the 1950s the

bureau had classified him as "A PROFESSIONAL WITNESS WITH NO EMPLOYMENT OTHER THAN HIS ACTIVITY IN CONNECTION WITH COMMUNIST AFFAIRS ."^[34]

Even after McCarthy began his crusade, Kornfeder knew nothing about Lattimore; the bureau asked him about Lattimore on April 14, 1950, and he "could furnish no information." Then Kornfeder offered his services to McCarthy, went on McCarthy's payroll to do research, and suddenly knew a lot about Lattimore. A thirty-eight-page speech Kornfeder wrote for McCarthy to deliver to the Senate is in Lattimore's FBI file; it was so bad McCarthy never used it.^[35]

Kornfeder was called by SISS in executive session June 8, 1951. The text of what he said about Lattimore is heavily censored, but it includes the claim that "Lattimore was, in the early 1930s, a secret member of the Communist Party." The bureau got transcripts of SISS executive sessions and analyzed what Kornfeder had said. On August 2 Belmont wrote Ladd that Kornfeder was "prone to put too much faith in hearsay evidence and conclusions"; in his Lattimore testimony, "Kornfeder makes numerous allegations which are apparently accepted by the committee at their face value with no attempts made to ascertain Kornfeder's basis for these charges; hence, it is difficult to estimate his reliability as far as this testimony is concerned, and his reliability in this regard must be considered unknown."^[36]

When SISS interrogated Kornfeder in a public session September 20, 1951, they simply refrained from asking him about Lattimore. Instead, they asked him about Comintern activities in Latin America in the 1920s, about which he knew something, and about Comintern China policy, about which he knew very little. Robert Morris did ask him about an IPR pamphlet, China Yesterday and Today , written by Eleanor Lattimore in 1946. Morris quoted this pamphlet as saying, "For not until China achieves a government in which the Chinese people are adequately represented and which brings about agricultural reforms designed to give her farmers enough to live on will the underlying causes of communism be removed." That, observed Kornfeder, was following the Communist party line. It was not an edifying performance. Nor was Kornfeder a credible witness in general; he had admitted perjury about his place of birth a year before, and shortly after the SISS appearance he admitted to Conrad Snow of the State Department Loyalty Security Board that he had lied about John Carter Vincent being a Party member. But witnesses like Kornfeder were necessary to SISS.^[37]

Elizabeth Boody Schumpeter testified in SISS executive session July 3.

A censored version of her testimony was released by the National Archives in 1987. She explained to the committee how IPR had worked to get the United States into war with Japan, thus strengthening the Chinese Communists.^[38] As to Lattimore, she interpreted a letter from the IPR files as showing that he sought the triumph of the Chinese Communists, but other charges against Lattimore were deleted by FBI censors. SISS did not call Schumpeter for public testimony. This is surprising, as she told them what they wanted to hear.

SISS heard at least nineteen witnesses between April and July, most of whom were anti-IPR. On July 10 McCarran announced that Fred Field would appear in executive session two days later and that Lattimore would follow him. McCarran had nothing to say about what questions would be asked or what the committee expected to learn.^[39]

Field faced the committee for two hours on July 12; Willis Smith and William Jenner conducted the hearing in New York. William L. Holland, executive vice-chairman of the IPR, presented himself and asked permission m sit in; he got no reply, waited for an hour, and left. Smith and Jenner were silent when reporters confronted them afterward, refusing m say whether Field was cooperative. Field and his lawyer were ordered not to discuss the hearing with reporters.^[40]

Before Lattimore's six-hour executive session on July 13, Senator Ferguson told reporters that the questioning of Lattimore would be based on "fresh material" and that the committee "was interested in finding out if there were any 'Communist influences' in IPR, adding that he did not mean to imply that there were."^[41] That may have been the last neutral statement to come from a committee member.

Lattimore's private heating was relatively free of acrimony, but it was not based on "fresh material." Morris, Mandel, and Sourwine had digested hundreds of IPR documents in which Lattimore figured and absorbed all the latrine rumors that had come m McCarthy and Surine. Their purpose was to get Lattimore on record on all this information. He was not shown any of the relevant IPR documents, nor was he informed as to who accused him of what. He sensed that Mandel was sitting in front of him with definitive answers to the questions they were asking, all relating to events ten or more years old. When he asked to be shown documents that would help him refresh his memory, his request was denied. Eight months later, when he underwent his marathon twelve days of public testimony, he realized that he had been set up: the SISS method of questioning gave him "somewhat the feeling of a blind man running a gauntlet."^[42]

But it could have been worse. There was no hectoring or badgering in executive session. McCarran did seem more restrained and moderate than did McCarthy. No headlines resulted from his executive session. Lattimore told his wife that it hadn't been so bad.

By July 30 this tinge of optimism had vanished. Carter and Field had been before the first public hearings of SISS, and Barmine was next. Lattimore wrote a Canadian friend on that date, "We are getting ready right now for another bout with the Sons of Belial."^[43] He was still dead center, with McCarran's forces deployed on every side.

Robert Morris was busy preparing witnesses and interrogations during July, but not too busy to seize on rumors and try to make something of them. On July 18 Freda Utley told Robert Morris about a rumor she had picked up at J. B. Matthews's place in New York. Lattimore was not an American as he claimed but "a Russian child adopted very young in China." Also, St. Bees, where he went to school "was a school for problem children." The St. Bees allegation did not seem fruitful to Morris, but the birthplace did. Lattimore had said under oath that he was born in Washington, D. C., though he had no birth certificate and no evidence of his birth other than what his parents had told him.^[44]

Here, to Morris, was a blockbuster with which to confront Lattimore later in public: Lattimore could not prove that he was an American, and witness X says he was born in Russia. Morris wrote Lou Nichols at the FBI, asking if this rumor were true. Nichols thought Morris was salivating prematurely; he sent an agent to the District of Columbia Bureau of Vital Statistics. When the agent returned with birth certificate number 105986, dated August 6, 1900, showing that Lattimore was born in Sibley Hospital July 29, 1900, Nichols sent a copy to Morris. No cover letter, no response. ^[45]

Despite putting a lid on publicity about SISS executive sessions, McCarran felt free to talk in public. On May 4 he told the Senate that Lattimore had started the ruckus that led to General MacArthur's dismissal.^[46] Lattimore had attacked the Zaibatsu, the Daily Worker had reported this attack, and therefore Lattimore had scuttled MacArthur. A chain of causality leading from a Daily Worker article to Truman's firing MacArthur was not beyond McCarran.

McCarran also killed a high-level commission headed by Admiral Chester Nimitz that Truman had appointed to review loyalty-security procedures. The commission members could not serve unless exempted from the conflict-of-interest statutes. McCarran, as chair of Judiciary, bottled up the bill to grant exemptions. As the New York Times editorialized on

May 28, "It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Senator McCarran and his friends, who are planning an investigation of their own, don't want competition, especially from a non-political and non-partisan body of distinguished citizens."^[47] Nimitz and his commission promptly resigned, and Truman gave up the whole effort.

D day, for McCarran, was July 25, 1951. On that day his full subcommittee, plus the Mandel-Morris-Sourwine trio, the faithful Surine, and Joe McCarthy, were on hand for their first public hearing in room 424 of the Senate Office Building. So was Edward C. Carter. McCarran called the hearing to order at ten-thirty, regretting that the hearing room was too small to accommodate all who wanted to attend. After putting the resolutions authorizing the subcommittee into the record, McCarran set forth his operating assumptions and methods in a lengthy statement. It was a prospectus to reassure those who objected to McCarthy. This committee was making no charges: "We propose to let the evidence precede our conclusions." No hearings would be televised; the committee wanted "to make a record, not to make headlines." Witnesses could have counsel of their own choosing. No witness would be subjected to "undue publicity."^[48] The liberal community listened in astonishment and applauded. Edward C. Carter was sworn as the first witness.

The Edward C. Carter who now stepped into the spotlight was not the "handsome, supercharged man who had built the IPR into the preeminent Asian studies organization," as John N. Thomas puts it. He was past seventy, failing in memory, confronting without the aid of documents a committee staff steeped in those documents and determined to make a fool of him. When Carter asked committee counsel to provide relevant dates of Fred Field's activities, dates in the papers on Morris's desk, he was simply ignored.^[49] This tactic was used many times. Even worse, Carter's counsel, Edgar G. Crossman, was thoroughly browbeaten. Ten minutes into the hearings Crossman suggested to Carter that he go back to a question that he had not fully answered. The "fairness" of chairman McCarran was clearly revealed in the following colloquy:

Mr. Carter: My attorney, as you noted, reminded me to follow up and clarify a question that I thought at the time I was speaking was left hanging in the air.

Sen. McCarran: I do not propose to let you have anything hanging in the air. The Chair will see that you have an op-

portunity to clarify anything you wish to clarify. I wish to say to the attorney, if you violate the rule of this committee we will remove you to the audience, and we will do it very fast.

Mr. Crossman: May I have—

Sen. McCarran: That is all; I have said the last word and that is all there is to it.

Mr. Crossman: May I have an opportunity to discuss that question?

Sen. McCarran: No, sir. I said no and that settles it.^[50]

Several dozen times in the 5,712 pages of the IPR hearings one finds a similar caustic rebuke from McCarran, but only to IPR witnesses and their counsel. There are almost as many, and worse, from Eastland. This first day, the committee toyed with Carter like a cat with a mouse. But it was a surrogate mouse. The committee did not care about Carter, the superannuated, bumbling former IPR head. Their real target was Lattimore.

Most of the attack on Lattimore during the Carter hearing was directed against the "cagey" letter. In 1938 IPR was sponsoring a series of pamphlets on the issues of the Sino-Japanese War. Carter and Lattimore exchanged letters about the progress of this series. In a letter of July 10, 1938, Lattimore wrote Carter:

I think that you are pretty cagey in turning over so much of the China section of the inquiry to Asiaticus, Han-seng, and Chi. They will bring out the absolutely essential radical aspects, but can be depended on to do it with the right touch.

For the general purposes of this inquiry, it seems to me that the good scoring position for the IPR differs with different countries. For China, my hunch is that it will pay to keep behind the official Chinese Communist position [on land reform] far enough not to be covered by the same label, but enough ahead of the Chinese liberals to be noticeable. For Japan, on the other hand, hang back so as not to be inconveniently ahead of the Japanese liberals who cannot keep up whereas the Chinese liberals can. . . . For the USSR, back their international policy in general, but without using their slogans and, above all, without giving them or anybody else an impression of subservience.^[51]

This semifacetious epistle enabled SISS to bully Carter extensively. Here was a clear admission that the IPR, with Lattimore's approval, was backing Soviet policy and trying to conceal it. Of course, in that context Lat-

timore was backing Soviet policy, which was opposition to Japanese aggression. But it was Lattimore's policy too, and he didn't want the Russians to get sole credit for opposing aggression. He explained it seven months later when he had a chance:

This period, 1938, was the period of maximum Soviet cooperation with the United States, Britain, France, and the League of Nations. It was the stated policy of the U.S.S.R.—almost universally credited at the time as in good faith—to support international unity and to resist Japanese and also German and Italian aggression. Even by 1938, however, I had learned through my experience in dealing with Russians as editor of Pacific Affairs , that it is a standard Soviet maneuver to try to make every act of agreement between equals look as if it were acceptance of Soviet leadership. I did not believe in any such subservience to the Russians, and I did not want the Institute to make the mistake of allowing the Russians to claim, or anybody else to believe, that agreement as to international unity and against aggression was an act of subservience to Russian policy.^[52]

The fumbling Carter could offer no such justification of Lattimore's words. He did not even remember the letter. The effect of the SISS examination of Carter was fairly reflected in the Times headline over William S. White's page-one story July 26: "Senators Get Lattimore Note Backing Russian Policy in '38." One can understand how a headline writer, under the pressures of daily journalism, could get it so perverted. One can also understand the game plan of the committee. Two weeks earlier, when the committee had Lattimore in secret session, they could have asked him to explain the "cagey" letter but did not. There would have been no headlines then, no shock value, no beginning foundation for a future committee conclusion of "Guilty as charged."

The appearance of Fred Field the next day was guaranteed to give IPR a bad name. As a trustee of the bail bond fund guaranteeing the appearance of the top Communist party officials convicted under the Smith Act, Field had refused to answer questions about the fund. This refusal brought him a jail sentence for contempt of court.^[53] Thus, Field was let out of jail for the day and escorted to the SISS hearing room by federal marshals. There he refused to answer more questions. He did admit that he had served as U.S. representative of four organizations in the People's Republic of China, that he had sought a commission in intelligence during World War II, and that he had given sixty thousand dollars to the IPR.

This was all page-one in the Times again.

After humilitating two IPR witnesses, McCarran's public statements

became bolder. Contradicting the judicious "wait until the evidence is in" posture with which he began the hearings, on July 27 McCarran told reporters that "his subcommittee 'will show how certain individuals, working together, influenced Government policies out of which came the predicament we are in today.' The predicament he referred to, he told reporters, was the hold the Communists have obtained on China with the backing of Russia. 'You haven't seen anything yet,' Mr. McCarran said, adding that so far the subcommittee was just 'laying a foundation for matters I know are coming on.'"^[54]

One of the witnesses coming on was Alexander Barmine, who was to testify concerning the phony "affidavit" attributed to Barmine that McCarthy had waved before the Senate in March. Barmine appeared before SISS on July 31. As in the case of Budenz, the FBI did not caution SISS that Barmine's credibility was in doubt. The bureau had been caustic about Barmine's sudden "discovery" of Lattimore in 1948 and noted, "Interviews have been conducted with numerous individuals in an effort to corroborate this allegation with negative results."^[55] An FBI brief of January 16, 1951, said nothing about Barmine's absurd story of the Panchen Lama visiting Lattimore; this most damaging hallucination went down the bureau's memory hole.

So Barmine appeared before SISS untainted by the bureau's doubts, basking in McCarran's praise: "I want to express my gratitude to you for coming before the committee of the Senate and before the American people and giving us the facts as to the dangers that are here with us at home. . . . The committee is grateful to you, the country should be grateful to you."^[56]

Barmine repeated what he had told the FBI and his various journalist friends: in 1933 General Berzin informed him that Lattimore and Barnes were "their men," with military expertise available to advance Soviet plans for influencing and controlling Sinkiang. Then Barmine added a new wrinkle: in 1938 General Waiter Krivitsky, also a Soviet defector, told him in Paris that Lattimore and Barnes were still Soviet agents. Barmine had never told this to the FBI. (There is no other testimony that Krivitsky said anything like this, nor do his memoirs mention Lattimore, Barnes, or the IPR.) It took the bureau a while to react to this new story, but eventually the New York office was directed to "resolve the discrepancy in the testimony of ALEXANDER BARMINE before the Senate Sub-Committee on Internal Security with information he previously furnished this office."^[57]

Barmine told SISS that he had previously advised the FBI of this charge,

but he hadn't. His only excuse now was that he "evidently became confused before the Senate Sub-Committee" and thought he had given the information to the bureau. This lame explanation was passed on to the attorney general without comment.^[58]

Lattimore had some comment. The day after Barmine's testimony he issued a statement: "Any suggestion that I was ever 'their man' is pure poppycock. In 1933 1 had no contact whatever with Russia, and had never been to Russia."^[59] Nor was he associated with the IPR at that time.

SISS was embarrassed by Barmine's 1933 date, which was obviously wrong even if Barmine were right about the rest of it. So in the final report on the IPR the committee said that in executive session Barmine had given a 1935 date for Berzin's statement. This claim cannot be verified, but in his statement to the FBI Barmine used 1933. Moreover, the text SISS issued containing his public testimony was not corrected; it still says 1933.^[60]

But it is Barmine's alleged relationship with Berzin that creates the most compelling doubt of his truthfulness. As noted before, Barmine names and identifies his Soviet coworkers ad nauseam in his memoirs—except for Berzin, who is never mentioned. Could Barmine actually have been close to the head of Soviet army intelligence? In his SISS testimony Bar-mine never mentions Berzin's full name. To reporters, however, he said his close collaborator and source of the charge against Lattimore was General Ian Antonovich Berzin. There was a Soviet general by that name. A Latvian, he had been with Lenin at the famous Zimmerwald conference and held various diplomatic positions until he died in prison April 12, 1941. This Berzin rates two and a half column inches in Who Was Who in the USSR .^[61]

There was a Berzin who from 1924 to 1937 headed Soviet army intelligence, with a year of that time as "senior adviser" to Loyalist forces fighting Franco in Spain. This was Ian Karlovich Berzin, who also rates two and a half inches in Who Was Who in the USSR . How could Barmine have made this elementary misidentification? Krivitsky, in his memoirs, gets the right Berzin. Deakin and Storry, in The Case of Richard Sorge , take pains to distinguish between the two Berzins. If Barmine "worked directly under" Berzin for fifteen years, "spent hours in long conferences" with him, and saw him "two or three times a week," is .it even possible that he could not have known the man's name and could have confused him with another Soviet general whose assignments were entirely different? To compound the whole improbable business, the SISS staff secured, from the Soviet Encyclopedia of 1927, the biography of the

wrong Berzin, had it translated at the Library of Congress, and inserted it in the IPR hearing record to prove there really was such a person. Even a casual reading shows that this Berzin could not have been Barmine's claimed boss.^[62]

Barmine was the first of the anti-IPR witnesses before SISS. As with those to come, he got kid-glove treatment. To use the legal term, he was "led" by questions well prepared to elicit only what the committee wanted to hear. Often Barmine had only to say yes to a leading question from counsel Morris: there is an instance of this leading on almost every other page of the report. The whole routine had been rehearsed in executive session. And of course, no one asked him, "Why did you claim that the Panchen Lama secretly visited Lattimore in 1949?"^[63]

Despite the extensive preparation and the mutual esteem of committee and witness, Barmine was less than perfect. Senator Ferguson asked him about other testimony he had given:

Sen. Ferguson: But the FBI did have that evidence that you have told here this morning about Mr. Barnes and Mr. Lattimore; is that right?

Mr. Barmine: Well, if you call it evidence—

Sen. Ferguson: Well, your statements that you gave here.

Mr. Barmine: Yes.

Sen. Ferguson: You mean to count that as evidence, do you not? It is what happened?

Mr. Barmine: I have to tell you that when I got this to the FBI, I just considered in the sense that I learned to understand the evidence, I was very reluctant that this thing should be used, because I think it is a very old story and since then many things could happen, and that was all that I knew, but it was after all not my direct knowledge from the workings.^[64]

For SISS, it did not have to be "direct knowledge from the workings" if it was anti-IPR. Hearsay was good enough for them.

Barmine's testimony got full play in the media. As usual, the Chicago Tribune carried the most lurid headlines: "Ex-Red Tells of Lattimore Aid to Russia. Called Agent for Secret Police."^[65] Other papers, including the Times and the Baltimore Sun , headlined a rebuttal issued by Lattimore.

The day after Barmine's testimony, Representative E. E. Cox (Democrat from Georgia) spoke to the House about the tendency of tax-exempt

foundations to give subversives lucrative grants. "'Owen Lattimore, who played such an important part in the betrayal of China and the delivery of that country into the hands of the Communists, is a past master in extracting money from the various foundations,' Mr. Cox said."^[66] Cox wanted this practice looked into and eventually formed a committee to do just that.

Hede Massing, former wife of Gerhart Eisler, testified before SISS August 2, 1951. This former Soviet spy named dozens of individuals who, she claimed, had been involved in espionage; Lattimore was not among them. She had met him, she said, only once, at a social affair.^[67]

Now SISS turned to Asian scholars for its witnesses. Thirty-seven prominent Asianists were on public record vouching for Lattimore's integrity, and according to a Justice Department document he could get support from 130 more.^[68] McCarran called exactly one of Lattimore's supporters, John King Fairbank. Six conservative, bitter anti-Lattimore professors were called, probably the entire such population.

Karl August Wittfogel was the first Asian scholar to testify against Lattimore. Wittfogel was a former German Communist who specialized in ponderous tomes explaining "Oriental despotism": how irrigation in China and other areas necessitated the development of centralized and authoritarian governments. Wittfogel and Lattimore had once been friends. By 1950 this had changed.

Wittfogel had served nine months in Hitler's concentration camps. John King Fairbank observed, "He had not liked the concentration camps he had been in in Germany and was determined to stay out of those he expected to begin operating here."^[69] There was one sure way to achieve this: join the crusade against Lattimore. This strategy proved one's patriotism.

Consequently, the scorn Wittfogel heaped on Lattimore for advocating a moderate stance toward Peking, in order not to "drive the Chinese Communists in[to] the arms of the Russians," was total. Wittfogel said, "In my opinion, this is one of the funniest remarks I have ever heard in my life. You don't have to drive them very hard. I think it is insulting the intelligence of this country to make that kind of remark. . . . To assume that Stalin will be so stupid to repeat the mistakes which he has made in Yugoslavia, to overplay his hand and to destroy all the enormous powers of attraction, is a marginal possibility. . . . Stalin will do everything not to overstrain relations and from Mao's point of view everything is to be gained by staying with Stalin."^[70]

Wittfogel ticked off the clues to Lattimore's communism. Lattimore

was friendly with Chi Ch'ao-ting, whom Lattimore knew to be a Communist. How did Lattimore know? Said Wittfogel, "I told him" (in 1935, in China). Also, Lattimore had listened with a smile when Wittfogel denied to Woodbridge Bingham that he had ever been a Communist; since Lattimore surely knew Wittfogel was lying and did not protest, Lattimore was covering up for Wittfogel. That made Lattimore a Communist. Wittfogel said Lattimore's trip to Yenan in 1937 proved him a Communist; Mao would "be very careful whom he would let in." Lattimore wanted Russia to take over Korea, which would be the "best solution." Lattimore adopted the Communist usage of "feudal," applying it to pre-Communist China. Wittfogel conducted a true vendetta against Lattimore; G. L. Ulmen, Wittfogel's authorized biographer, takes at least thirty-six pages to describe Wittfogel's Lattimore obsession.^[71]

The FBI was noncommittal about Wittfogel. They were disturbed when he told the Lattimore grand jury in 1952 something he had not told them, and Supervisor Branigan wrote Belmont a letter about it. What Wittfogel said is still secret. Wittfogel was a thoroughgoing ideologue, first as a Communist, then as an anti-Communist. He fit perfectly the pattern described by Herbert Packer in Ex-Communist Witnesses : "It seems generally true that former Communists experience a strong reaction against their old allegiance, and, in many cases, manifest an intense desire to do everything they can to abjure it. One also suspects that many former Communists abjure one set of absolutes in favor of another, that what formerly was the purest white becomes for them the deepest black, and that this tendency renders their account of the past suspect."^[72]

The witnesses following Wittfogel had little to say about Lattimore. Professor George Taylor, of the University of Washington, thought the IPR was infiltrated by Communists, of whom the most pernicious were Fred Field and Lawrence Rosinger. But Taylor thought the IPR could still be purged and serve a useful function. Morris pointedly did not ask Taylor about Lattimore.

General Charles A. Willoughby appeared next, and SISS conspicuously failed to ask him too if Lattimore were connected with the Sorge spy ring. They knew the answer would be no. The committee did, however, attempt to get from Willoughby a judgment on Lattimore's responsibility for the attack on Pearl Harbor because of the cable about the modus vivendi proposal; Willoughby did not rise to this bait.^[73]

On August 14 Elizabeth Bentley testified. She was one of the more prolific namers of concealed Communists, and during her SISS appearance

she lived up to expectations. The staff had prepared her well. All of the persons they asked her about were, she said, Communists, most of them also engaged in espionage. Clearly Robert Morris, who was in charge of the questioning, did not intend to raise Lattimore's name. But Senator Eastland blurted it out. "Do you," he asked, "know anything about Owen Lattimore?" Bentley replied that she did not. Eastland clarified, "You do not know whether he is a Communist or not?" Bentley responded, "No, I don't." Morris quickly changed the subject. Bentley's refusal to name Lattimore is curious. Lattimore was a prominent member of the IPR, and Bentley said her boss and lover, Jacob Golos, claimed the IPR was "red as a rose."^[74]

Whittaker Chambers came on August 16, though the committee did not demand much of him. He identified several spies, discoursed about the operations of the Communist underground, mentioned a number of Communists who had been connected in some way with the IPR, and was dismissed. There were no questions about Lattimore.^[75]

By mid-August 1951 SISS had established itself as a major actor in the hunt for subversives. Opinions of its probity varied widely. On August 19 an evaluation by Harold Hinton in the New York Times "News of the Week in Review" section saw McCarran's operation benignly; the headline read, "McCarran Shies Away from M'Carthy Label. His Committee Operates Like Court, Shields Witnesses from Publicity." Hinton quoted extensively from McCarran's remarks at the first public hearing, noting that SISS members "decline to number themselves among the 'scaremongers and hatemongers' whom President Truman castigated so roundly earlier in the week nor do they like to be told they are 'carrying McCarthy's load.' "Hinton did not comment on the way McCarran treated IPR witnesses and their lawyers.

An opposing view appeared in the Reporter of August 21, written by Alan Barth of the Washington Post . The Reporter headline was "McCarran's Monopoly: The Nevada Senator Has Become Judge, Prosecutor, and Hangman on Loyalty Cases." Barth noted, "The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee has, over the last six months, managed to establish himself as Grand Inquisitor and Lord High Executioner in charge of the extirpation of heresy. He has done this through his chairmanship of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Internal Security, known more familiarly as the McCarran subcommittee; with his surveillance of the Subversive Activities Control Board created under the McCarran Act; and with his frustration of the Nimitz Commission on Internal Security and Individual Rights." For Barth, what McCarran was doing was more important

than what McCarran had said SISS was going to do. "There are," said Barth, "literally no boundaries to its jurisdiction, and no check upon its power to punish."^[76]

The day after Barth's article appeared, McCarran turned his heaviest artillery against Lattimore: Louis Budenz. Budenz came before SISS on August 22 and 23, confident that this time, in contrast to Tydings, he need not fear hostile cross-examination. He was right; there was none. Instead, a carefully orchestrated mutual admiration society held forth for two days. Many of the holes in Budenz's testimony before Tydings were plugged. The hearsay nature of what Budenz had to say was carefully justified by the committee; both McCarran and Ferguson took pains to validate the acceptance of hearsay in "proving" a conspiracy.

Budenz's claims about the truthfulness of Communists when talking to each other, and about editorial omniscience, came through loud and clear. Ferguson led on the first point: "And [what you were told by Party bosses] had to be accurate for you to carry on; is that correct?" Budenz replied: "Communist information among themselves is absolutely accurate. It must be. It is the foundation of their work."^[77]

Morris set up the claim of editorial omniscience:

Mr. Morris: At the outset, Mr. Budenz, were you in a position in the Communist Party where you would have access to more secrets, to the identity of more people, than the ordinary Communist?

Mr. Budenz: Most decidedly. Indeed, more than the normal members of the national committee.

Mr. Morris: Why is that, Mr. Budenz?

Mr. Budenz: As managing editor of the Daily Worker, it was essential that I know the various delicate turns and twists of the line; not only of the line but of the emphasis of the line in the particular period of time.^[78]

The "line" on Lattimore had expanded somewhat since Tydings. There was still the claim that in 1937 Lattimore was ordered to carry out a campaign to paint the Chinese Communists as "North Dakota non-partisan leaguers"; there was still no single instance of where Lattimore had done this. In 1943, according to Budenz, Lattimore had gotten "information coming to him from the international Communist apparatus where he was located . . . that there was to be a change of line very sharply on Chiang Kai-shek." Here Budenz, apparently feeling the absence of anything specific implicating Lattimore, did a side step: "The Politburo sug-

gested that someone, and the name T. A. Bisson was mentioned in this connection, be enlisted to write an article in connection with the Institute of Pacific Relations publication on this matter." But Lattimore still got the blame, even if Bisson did it.^[79]

Then there was the Wallace trip, where "a great deal of dependence was placed on Owen Lattimore, whom I was told by Mr. Stachel at that time to consider a Communist"; and in the Amerasia case, Lattimore "had been of great assistance to the defendants." A new charge, which Budenz picked up from the Japanophiles and MacArthur supporters, was that in 1945 Lattimore had attacked the Zaibatsu, calling for a hard peace in Japan. The Party spread Lattimore's opinion "throughout the country." But Budenz did not claim that Lattimore was responsible for the firing of MacArthur.^[80]

Forty-one pages of the printed transcript show Budenz dealing exclusively with Lattimore. Budenz had done considerable homework since his last testimony about the IPR. The rest of the hearing presented, in assembly-line fashion, the sins of other Communists associated with the IPR. The routine was simple. Morris would ask, "Do you know X as a Communist?" Budenz would respond, "Yes, by official reports . . ." Then Mandel would introduce letters from the IPR flies to show how active X had been, or what IPR publications X had written. The case of Lattimore's friend Vilhjalmur Stefansson was typical.

Mr. Morris: Mr. Budenz, do you know Vilhjalmur Stefansson?

Mr. Budenz: I know from official reports that he is a Communist.

Mr. Morris: Do you know he was a member of many Communistfront organizations?

Mr. Budenz: That is where much of the discussion around him centers. He was a member of so many, I think the word countless can be used without exaggeration. . . .

Mr. Morris: Is it your testimony that in addition to being a member of many Communist front organizations, he was also a member of the Communist Party?

Mr. Budenz: That is correct. . . .

Mr. Morris: Mr. Mandel, will you put into the record letters that will indicate Mr. Stefansson's association with the Institute of Pacific Relations?

Mr. Mandel: I have here a letter dated January 26, 1939. . . .^[81]

Forty-three persons were subject to this routine.

Reporters and editors did not make much of Budenz's testimony this

time; the Times story on his August 22 appearance was subordinated to that of General Willoughby, then appearing before HUAC. The FBI was more attentive: agent L. L. Laughlin was assigned to analyze what Budenz said and was disturbed. As he reported to Ladd on September 25, "The reliability of Budenz in instant testimony must be classed as unknown. In this testimony there are at least seven instances in which Budenz either furnished information differing from that furnished previously either to the Bureau or before the Tydings Committee, or relative to certain occurrences gives testimony which he has never made known before."^[82]

Laughlin found that Budenz had reclassified the IPR from an organization "infiltrated" by Communists to a "captive" organization. The Wallace mission was upgraded from one that the Party "followed with great interest" to one in which Lattimore represented the Party. Lattimore's Yenan trip of 1937 was now a "Communist project"; Budenz had never said this before. John Carter Vincent was now "under Communist Party discipline"; this was new. Budenz's date for considering Joe Barnes a Communist was shifted back four years to 1936. Budenz for the first time located Fred Field on the onionskin copies of official reports; and he now named two new Party members, Max Granich and Kumar Goshal. Each one of these discrepancies was written up to be presented to Budenz for an explanation.^[83]

Budenz, however, was not as high a priority for the bureau as he had been in 1950. It took a month for New York to send a report to headquarters with Budenz's answers. A cable of October 20, 1951, summarized his explanations: "IN GENERAL, BUDENZ STATED THE FOLLOWING CONCERNING ANY DIFFERENCES IN HIS TESTIMONY BEFORE THE COMMITTEE AS COMPARED WITH THAT FURNISHED THE BUREAU: WHEN TESTIFYING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE, BUDENZ STATED THAT HE FURNISHES INFO WHICH HE KNOWS TO BE A FACT. HOWEVER, WHEN FURNISHING INFO TO THE BUREAU, HE FURNISHES ONLY THAT INFO WHICH IN HIS OPINION HE CAN PROVE TO BE A FACT. BUDENZ STATED THAT FOR THIS REASON, THE INFO WHICH HE FURNISHES THE BUREAU IS FREQUENTLY MORE CONSERVATIVE THAN INFO FURNISHED TO A COMMITTEE ." ^[84] No bureau comments on this explanation have been released.

Two weeks after Budenz testified to SISS, his credibility took a beating from Special Agent M. A. Jones, assigned by the bureau to analyze the 545-page perjury summary compiled by the Baltimore office eight months earlier. Jones's fifteen-page analysis, which never became public, was submitted to Lou Nichols on September 6, 1951.^[85] It was devastating. Point

by point Jones set forth the instances of possible perjury and knocked all but one of them down. Hardest hit were the instances based on testimony of Louis Budenz.

Item one was "POSSIBLE PERJURY IN DENYING COMMUNIST PARTY MEMBERSHIP, AFFILIATION, OR CONSCIOUS PROMOTION OF COMMUNISM ." Budenz's testimony on this matter was reviewed; so were all the other claims that Lattimore had been a Communist "stooge," that he had been "used" by the Party, that he was anti-Chiang Kai-shek, and so on. At the end of this review Jones was curt: "Budenz———and the majority of the other informants have no personal acquaintance with Lattimore. Their information appears to be hearsay and of no value as evidence." Also under item one Jones dealt with the massive IPR tiles. "The results of the review of the IPR files do not reflect a definite stand by Lattimore in support of Communism. This support can be assumed from some of the material, but is arguable, and does not appear sufficiently direct to controvert his sworn testimony. . . . The report sets out a number of comments from various individuals on Lattimore's books and writings. There is no indication that any of these individuals could be qualified as an expert to testify to matters of opinion in the Communist field."

Item two covered association with pro-Communist groups. Jones batted them down one by one. Lattimore may have belonged to, but certainly was not active in, the Maryland Association for Democratic Rights. He had addressed a meeting of the Washington Book Shop, but he did not deny this and did not know it was Communist-affiliated: no perjury. There was no evidence of membership in any proscribed organization. On the charge that Lattimore perjured himself in denying that he had ever said the Chinese Communists were mere agrarian radicals, Jones did not even consider the Budenz version of that charge worthy of comment. And the others who charged it were simply wrong.

The rest of the alleged perjuries were similarly rejected, except item eight: "POSSIBLE PERJURY IN DENYING KNOWLEDGE THAT CHAO-TING CHI WAS A COMMUNIST ." On the basis of E. Newton Steely's Civil Service Commission report in 1943, Jones felt that Lattimore could hardly have forgotten what Steely said and hence might have lied.^[86]

Jones drew no final conclusion. It was probably unnecessary. The Jones analysis, so devastating to the entire conduct of the SISS hearings, never left the bureau.

SISS took a three-week vacation after Budenz's appearance. On September 14, 1951, they heard their first Japanophile: Eugene Dooman. Dooman had hated Lattimore since the Pacificus article attacking him and

Grew; now for the first time he had an influential audience for his rancor. He reviewed the proposal to hire Lattimore as a State Department consultant in 1945, noted Grew's veto, and strongly agreed with Grew. He mentioned the Pacificus article ("Dangerous Experts") and claimed that it showed the writer to be subversive, but he did not publicly claim Lattimore had written it. He did claim that Lattimore was the most prominent proponent of a Carthaginian peace for Japan, since Lattimore wanted to eliminate the Zaibatsu and exile the emperor.^[87]

As Dooman told the story to SISS, Lattimore's views on Japan were accepted at the beginning of the American occupation, and the results were disastrous: "a capital tax of from 60 to 90 percent of all property above $1,000" was applied, which "almost at one stroke wiped out the capitalist class." This was a program similar to that of the Soviet Union in Poland. Senator Eastland wanted it clear what Dooman was saying: "That was a Communist system, was it not?" Dooman agreed that it was. The outcome was horrendous, according to Dooman: "Their [the capitalists'] places have been taken by hordes of black marketeers and Chinese and Formosan thugs of various kinds who have been engaged in illicit trade of various kinds and then amassed this enormous fortune." The picture of Japan in 1951 as bereft of capitalists and dominated by thugs did not strike reporters as reasonable. Even Willard Edwards's story in the Chicago Tribune skipped that part of Dooman's testimony. The Times did not cover Dooman at all. Dooman apparently did not believe that Japan would ever recover from the Lattimore-induced destruction of its capitalist class, and his contempt for those who disagreed with him on occupation policy was total.^[88]

On September 5, 1951, a new combatant entered the ranks against SISS, against witness Budenz, and against Robert Morris. This was Joseph Al-sop, prominent Washington columnist, strong anti-Communist, and vigorous supporter of Chiang Kai-shek. Alsop had been present at the Kunming conference of Henry Wallace and John Carter Vincent on June 25, 1944, at which the three conferees decided that Stilwell should be replaced by Wedemeyer as American commander in China. By 1951 Alsop disagreed violently with Vincent and Lattimore, who advocated recognizing the Peking regime. But Alsop knew that the judgments made by the beleaguered China hands were and always had been made as loyal Americans. He was outraged at the SISS attempt to condemn them as servants of the Kremlin.

Alsop's first column attacking McCarran came on September 5, 1951; the Washington Post headlined it "Investigate Everybody." Alsop ridi-

cules McCarran's attempt to "prove that the Communist victory in China was the result of a plot hatched in the Institute of Pacific Relations," defends Vincent and Wallace for their recommendation to fire Stilwell ("a profoundly anti-Communist document"), and even includes Lattimore in his exoneration: "The same rules apply to other poor wretches that McCarran is after. Prof. Owen Lattimore, a man of great learning and befuddled politics, also went along on the Wallace tour. He did not see the drafting of the report to Roosevelt, but he made no protest against it."

Now that McCarran was out to rewrite history, was he going to charge the New York Herald Tribune , the New York Times , and Life magazine with the loss of China? They had all carried dispatches from reporters who detested Chiang and sympathized with Mao. "Are they," Alsop asks, "or is Henry R. Luce, to be investigated now? And what about Maj. Gen. Patrick Hurley? Again, this reporter can personally testify that General Hurley used to say the Chinese Communists were not Communists at all, and even to boast that he had Stalin's and Molotov's assurances on this crucial point. Is Hurley to be investigated?"

This first Alsop attack did not mention Budenz's testimony on the Wallace mission. Alsop wanted to do a thorough job on Budenz, and by September 12 he was ready. "To suggest that testimony given under oath is specifically untruthful is a very grave thing to do. In all honesty, however, it is now necessary to ask whether the much-publicized ex-Communist, Louis Budenz, has not been untruthful in his testimony before the McCarran subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee." What follows is a powerful attack on Budenz: his inconsistent claims, his eagerness to give Morris the expected answers, his dependence on "official reports" that were highly improbable, his absurd classification of the Wallace cable about Stilwell as in accord with Party wishes. Alsop concludes, "The contemporary documentary evidence refutes Budenz' late-remembered verbal evidence in implication and in detail. Every word he said about Vincent would surely be thrown out in any court in the land. The hard facts cannot be escaped."^[89]

Alsop wrote another anti-Budenz article on September 14 that caught the attention of Senator Herbert Lehman of New York. Lehman told the Senate that there were "grave published charges" involving "demonstrably false" testimony before SISS and that they should be investigated. Lehman wanted to put the Alsop columns in the Congressional Record ; Senator Herman Welker of Idaho objected, and they were not entered

until September 24. McCarran thereupon exploded at Lehman: Lehman was accusing him of subornation of perjury.^[90]

Alsop's newspaper onslaught, even with Lehman's backing, did not change the ways of SISS. But the war was not over, and SISS was eventually forced to give Alsop a public hearing.

On September 20 Kornfeder was brought before the public. As previously noted, that professional witness was on such shaky ground that Morris refrained from even asking him about Lattimore.^[91]

Then it was Kenneth Colegrove's turn. He told SISS the story of his refusal to take the Japan desk at OWI, explained how he disagreed with Lattimore on the "benefits of Dutch rule in Indonesia" (Colegrove thought Dutch administration had been good for Indonesia), claimed that Lattimore told him the Chinese Communists were "real democrats," said Lattimore followed the Communist line on Japan to the letter, and jumped on the IPR with both feet. Under Eastland's solicitous questioning Cole-grove affirmed that the "Lattimore group" at the 1949 State Department conference was indeed the "group largely that had betrayed the Chinese Government to the Communists." The FBI boggled at this accusation; Colegrove had been far left until at least 1946^[92] . Within a year of his testimony he was to write a ringing defense of Joe McCarthy.

Next on the SISS agenda was Raymond Dennett. Dennett had been secretary of the IPR American Council during 1944 and 1945, but he was not an uncritical defender of that organization. He had "grave doubts" as to whether the IPR staff were "objective research workers."^[93] Hence the committee's treatment of Dennett was totally different from the harassment of Carter, Field, Lattimore, and other IPR stalwarts.

Nowhere in the IPR transcript does the committee's flagrant use of leading questions show more clearly than in the Dennett hearing. Sometimes he allowed himself to be led, as when Morris questioned him about Lattimore's role in the Hot Springs IPR conference of 1944 (see chapter 8). Other times he rebelled, as when Sourwine said to him about an IPR pamphlet, "This pamphlet distorted the facts for the benefit of the Soviet Union, did it not?" Dennett balked: "You are putting words into my mouth which I don't think I put there."^[94]

Dennett's major contribution to the committee's case against IPR lay in his description of how the IPR attempted to influence opinion by selling pamphlets to the army and navy, conferring with government officials, and inviting them to conferences such as Hot Springs. Although

he had doubts about the objectivity of some IPR staff, he resolutely rejected attempts to get him to label Jessup, Lattimore, or Carter as pro-Communist.

On September 28 William M. McGovern testified. Unlike his Northwestern University colleague Kenneth Colegrove, McGovern had never flirted with the Left. He had been ultraconservative all his life and was, from the committee's point of view, the perfect witness. Among other qualifications, he had a doctorate from Oxford. McGovern proved his worth early in his hearing, when he was asked what he thought of the Chinese Communists: "By 1937-38 I was convinced they were Communists. And that they were in close cahoots with the Kremlin."^[95]

Most notably, McGovern despised Lattimore. On almost every dimension of controversy McGovern claimed that in private conversations, Lattimore expressed opinions diametrically opposite to what he was writing at the time. On the allegiance of Mao and colleagues, McGovern claimed that Lattimore told him many times in 1937 that "they were not Communists." McGovern claimed that in a Far East Advisory Committee meeting in 1945 Lattimore wanted to "reduce Japan to beggary and impotence. . . . to reduce Japan back to an agricultural country and destroy all Japanese industry." McGovern alleged that Lattimore wanted the Japanese emperor murdered and that he seemed to advocate the same fate for the emperor's wife and children.^[96]

Eastland and Ferguson, the only two senators present, were delighted. The Times ignored McGovern, and even Wittfogel described him as a "dwarf."^[97]

The next witness was top drawer. Harold E. Stassen, "boy governor" of Minnesota, serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 1948, and in 1951 president of the University of Pennsylvania, came before SISS October 1. Stassen, a fire-breathing supporter of the rump Chinese Nationalist regime on Taiwan, had attended the State Department roundtable conference on Asian policy in October 1949 with an impressive entourage of assistants to present charts, graphs, and specific programs for reversing the Nationalist defeat.^[98] Had Stassen prevailed at the 1949 conference, and had his plan succeeded in restoring Chiang, the nation would no doubt have been very grateful.

But Stassen did not prevail. Lattimore, Rosinger, and others who thought the People's Republic was in China to stay were in the majority. The course of argument during this conference, as explained by Stassen, would make a book in itself. It took more than one SISS hearing to get it all:

Stassen appeared again on October 6 and 12, each time with "new documents" which he claimed would show the "Lattimore group" advocating capitulation to the Communists.

After Stassen's first appearance Lattimore requested the State Department to release the transcript of the 1949 conference. On October 11, this was done. Stassen's charges evaporated. Most of what he charged to Lattimore was someone else's opinion, and the rest Stassen had garbled shamelessly. William S. White's front-page story in the New York Times the next day avoided explicit judgment but made dear how far Stassen's mythical conference departed from reality. Stassen struggled once again, in his final appearance before SISS October 12, to show that his attack on Lattimore (and on Jessup, who was in the middle of a Senate confirmation battle) held water. It was a pathetic attempt, a preview of the slide into ridicule and irrelevance that marked Stassen's subsequent quadrennial attempts at the presidency.^[99]

On October 5 Budenz, wounded by the Alsop attack, was again given a chance to develop his version of the Wallace Kunming cable before SISS. However, he had little to say about Kunming; the committee moved on to Wallace's subsequent career, and Budenz recounted at great length how the Communist party had worked to get Wallace the Democratic nomination for vice president in 1944 and, failing that, to get him appointed secretary of commerce, at which they succeeded. En route to his condemnation of Wallace, Budenz named several more "concealed Communists" known to him through "official reports."^[100]

Surprisingly, Budenz was not again called before SISS, and the later vigorous attacks on his truthfulness by Alsop, Wallace, Lattimore, and Vincent went unanswered. Perhaps growing FBI doubts about his credibility spilled over into Senate channels. In later years Budenz refused even to discuss his Lattimore testimony. Donald Crosby, S. J., author of God, Church and Flag: Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and the Catholic Church, 1950-1957 , interviewed Budenz and asked him about discrepancies in his Lattimore testimony. Budenz said it "wasn't pertinent" to discuss.^[101]

The committee now turned to William L. Holland, then secretary general of the IPR. Holland was determined not to accept meekly the kind of abuse Edward C. Carter had been subjected to. He succeeded. Calmly but firmly, he refused to answer Eastland's bullying, "When did you stop beating your wife?" questions. Holland, as contrasted with Carter, was in full command of his faculties.

Sen. Eastland : Did you know traitor Harry Dexter White?

Mr. Holland : May I ask, Mr. Chairman, if the Senator would state his question again?

Sen. Eastland : Did you know traitor Harry Dexter White?

Mr. Holland : I certainly cannot answer that question, Mr. Chairman, because I have no knowledge that Mr. White was a traitor.

Sen. Eastland : Did you know him?

Mr. Holland : No, I never met Mr. Harry White. I know he was invited to one IPR conference, but he did not come.

Sen. Eastland : The information is that he was at the head of an espionage ring in Washington. That is true, is it not, in the Government in Washington?

Mr. Holland : I have no evidence which would make me believe—

Sen. Eastland : You read that?

Mr. Holland : I have read the story, but do not consider it at all convincing, but, Mr. Chairman, may I say that the Senator said, "You know that is true, do you not?" I wish it to be understood that I do not know it is true.

Sen. Eastland : All right, Harry Dexter White was an active supporter of the institute, was he not?

Mr. Holland : Mr. Chairman—

Sen. Eastland : Look at me and answer my question.

Mr. Holland : No.^[102]

Holland vigorously expressed the unfairness of months of anti-IPR publicity with no chance for the IPR to reply in the same forum. Despite the committee's reluctance to accept a prepared statement Holland had brought with him, he effectively maneuvered it into the record. Morris was particularly frustrated by Holland's stubborn defense of IPR. Morris's planned agenda for the day included fourteen points of inquiry. As adjournment approached, he complained that he had been able to cover only two of them.^[103] The committee adjourned, expecting to call Holland back the next week. It was five months before they got to him again.

SISS now encountered heavy fallout from the revised Budenz testimony. Joseph Alsop was already in print furiously objecting to Budenz's claim about Vincent. Henry Wallace now joined the fray, demanding a

chance to tell the committee that Budenz was a liar. The chance came October 17, 1951.

Alsop was afraid of what McCarran's crew of interrogators would do to Wallace, so he sought first-class counsel for the former vice president. Alsop explained what happened in a letter to Ben Hibbs of the Saturday Evening Post on October 10, 1951: "I and two lawyer friends of mine . . . called altogether 30 lawyers before we found one with guts enough to appear on Wallace's behalf. . . . I can hardly remember having been in a tighter spot; for without [George W.] Ball it was perfectly clear that Wallace would be destroyed by McCarran, and Wallace's destruction meant my own destruction, and the destruction also of the large group of in my opinion perfectly innocent men untruthfully accused by Budenz."^[104] With George Ball's help, Wallace gave a good account of himself.

For all his volleyball mania and agricultural single-mindedness, Wallace knew something about world affairs. He may have been too trusting of the Soviet Union before the Korean War. He was too willing to let Communists staff much of his 1948 presidential campaign. But when Robert Morris began picking at him for pro-Soviet statements during World War II, when everybody from Roosevelt and MacArthur on down to the lowliest private fervently cheered Soviet resistance to the Wehrmacht, Wallace rubbed Morris's nose in the anachronism: 1951 was not 1944.^[105] Goodwill toasts to Soviet arms were not subversive during World War II. Soviet toasts to American emissaries were not sly hints that those emissaries were covert Russian agents. Wallace, like Holland, stood up to SISS bullying and gave as good as he got.

One of the items Morris raised was Wallace's enthusiastic description of Magadan, a description that Elinor Lipper had ridiculed. Mandel read into the record some of Lipper's invective. Wallace did not quarrel with Lipper's claim that Magadan was part of the gulag, but he did quarrel with her castigation of him: "With regard to slave-labor camps in Magadan, she calls it Potemkin Villages . . . which is the correct name. She does not indicate any way in which I could have known that there was slave labor at Magadan. . . . I visited experiment station after experiment station, and collective farm after collective farm. Always it created a favorable and a free expression—well, Wendell Willkie testified in exactly the same way that they were a pioneer people just like the kind of people he had known in the Middle West back in the time of his boyhood; that Mike Cowles, who accompanied Wendell Willkie, testified they were a magnificent pioneer race."^[106]

Before the Wallace party left Russia to return to the United States, the

Russians held a banquet for them, with many toasts. One of the Russians, S. A. Goglidze, offered a toast that Wallace reported in Soviet Asia Mission : "To Owen Lattimore and John Carter Vincent, American experts on China, on whom rests great responsibility for China's future." This remark, to SISS, established beyond a doubt that Lattimore and Vincent were serving the Kremlin. Wallace did not think so: "I may say Goglidze made three or four other toasts . . . it was one of those regular Russian situations where you toast everybody under the sun. . . . Incidentally, Goglidze did this very subversive thing. He toasted the reelection of Roosevelt. It was a terrible kind of thing to do, but he toasted his reelection."^[107]

Mr. Morris : Mr. Wallace, do you know what was meant by the expression "on whom rests great responsibility for China's future?"

Mr. Wallace : I can't read his mind.

Mr. Morris : You do not know what he meant?

Mr. Wallace : Of course not. Who knows what anybody means at one of these toasting affairs?^[108]

Morris went on and on about the toast; about an interview Wallace gave to the Spotlight , allegedly a Communist paper; and about the instructions Roosevelt gave Wallace.^[109] When Morris wound down, Julian Sourwine began nitpicking. Wallace had made a speech in Seattle on his return from China. Did Wallace write out his Seattle speech by longhand? Was any of it written on a typewriter? Where? Was there a typewriter on the airplane? Did he have access to it? Did anyone else type any portions of this speech? Did Wallace give a copy to Roosevelt? Was it a clean copy or a messed-up draft? After twenty minutes of such trivia, Sourwine was getting nowhere. Wallace knew that neither Lattimore nor Vincent had anything to do with his Seattle speech, but he did not recall the stages of its construction.

Mr. Sourwine : I don't mean to be unduly repetitious, but sometimes a memory will come back if you try to think about it. I am sure it must be as incredible to you as to us that you have no memory whatsoever of whether you saw a rough draft of the statement, or not.

Mr. Wallace : I do not think it is incredible in the slightest, sir. I have been so active over so many years that with regard to a minor matter of this sort, I see nothing in-

credible about it. I would say it would be remarkable if I did remember. If you were in a similar position—I judge you are about the same age as I—and you were testifying, you would find yourself in the same situation.^[110]

Finally the committee got around to Kunming. The fateful conference with Vincent and Alsop was discussed again, and Wallace now had a chance to express his opinion of Budenz and of SISS gullibility about Budenz's testimony. Wallace reviewed the background of the Chiang-Stilwell controversy, the setting of the Kunming conference, and the part played by Alsop and Vincent. He speculated that had Roosevelt followed his advice promptly, Chiang might have held on to power. As to the cable, Wallace said: 'I refuse to believe that members of a great and powerful body, the most distinguished legislative body in the entire world, can possibly fall for testimony that it was following the Communist line to recommend that Stilwell be replaced by Wedemeyer in 1944. Never have I seen such unmitigated gall as that of this man [Budenz] in coming before a committee of the United States Senate to utter such nonsense. I say it is an affront to the dignity of a great and honorable body, over which I had the honor of presiding for four years."^[111]

Wallace came out of this confrontation looking very good.

Alsop had also demanded a chance to appear before SISS. McCarran did not want to confront Alsop publicly and tried to confine him to an executive session, but the columnist insisted. He was scheduled the same day as Wallace. Since Morris and Sourwine took three and a half hours to grill Wallace, Alsop was postponed to the next day. Before the committee adjourned, Ferguson and Smith, the two senators present, agreed that Alsop would be permitted to "make a presentation of some length" to begin his hearing the next morning.^[112]

Given the tenor of Alsop's attack on Budenz and the publicity coming from Lehman's use of Alsop's columns, it is not surprising that McCarran himself presided at the opening of Alsop's testimony October 18. The senator from Nevada was in an ugly mood. He still felt the sting of Lehman's accusation of subornation of perjury. And he had not been told that Alsop had permission to read a prepared statement. The fireworks started as soon as Alsop tried to explain how Stilwell had been such a friend of the Chinese Communists and how the Wallace-Vincent-Alsop recommendation that Stilwell be fired was a "profoundly anti-Communist act." Alsop began to quote Stilwell's anti-Chiang statements, but McCarran immediately interrupted. Why was he quoting Stilwell and reading a pre-

pared statement? Alsop explained that Ferguson and Smith had told him he could. McCarran huffed and puffed:

Sen. McCarran : Whether you are running this committee or the committee is running itself is a matter to be determined very shortly.

Mr. Alsop : I am not trying to run the committee in the least.

Sen. McCarran : I think you are. You are proposing to quote something now that isn't your statement at all. It is a hearsay matter. What are you going to do with that. Are you going to be cross-examined on it, and if so, how?

Mr. Alsop : I am not going to quote anything that isn't a public document.

Sen. McCarran : I understand you to say you are going to quote from someone who is not here.

Mr. Alsop : I am going to quote from a series of public documents, Senator.^[113]

McCarran's challenge dearly reveals the committee's double standard. Budenz's hearsay was quite acceptable, but when Alsop wanted to cite Stilwell's diary, that was illegitimate: "It is a hearsay matter." There was further fussing and fuming before McCarran finally gave in, not on the grounds that Alsop had any rights, but on the grounds that the Stilwell quotes were taken from a HUAC report. But the committee's invincible belief in Budenz continued. The hearsay nature of Budenz's testimony was forgotten, and phrases such as "if Mr. Budenz knew for a fact that he and Mr. Vincent were Communists" cropped up throughout the day.

Alsop's story of the Kunming cable got meticulous attention from Morris and Sourwine. SISS would not concede it even possible that Wallace and Vincent had acted to support Chiang. They did concede that Lattimore did not "guide" Wallace at Kunming (as, indeed, he could not have, having been disabled at the time). At the end, after Alsop had recommended that Budenz be indicted for perjury, Sourwine made one last effort to neutralize Alsop's testimony: "Mr. Alsop, do you see any difference between testifying that you do not believe a man and testifying that he is a liar?" Alsop replied, "The overwhelming evidence before the committee indicates he lied on this occasion."^[114]

About an hour into the hearing McCarran had to leave and turned the gavel over to Willis Smith. Smith was a no-nonsense presiding officer,

but he was not as hostile as McCarran was. The ugly confrontations ceased, and Alsop was able to present his case with some decorum. In fact, there is some evidence that Alsop began to persuade Smith that Budenz was indeed a liar. Alsop wrote Smith the day after the hearing thanking him for being fair, requesting a chance to discuss Budenz with him privately, and attacking Robert Morris as the éminence grise behind the committee's coddling of Budenz. This was the first of several exchanges of letters between Smith and Alsop. Smith responded cordially to Alsop's initiative, and in a second letter of October 23 Alsop again urged Smith to meet with him and talk the matter over face-to-face. He wrote Smith, "I find myself terrified by the new acceptance among us of these professional informers, with their unsupported and interested accusations. If honest men of every political coloring do not rise up to oppose this new tendency, I hardly know where we may end."^[115]

In a third letter, dated November 1, Alsop stated that if Morris continued in the subcommittee's employ and Budenz continued in the subcommittee's good graces, "I shall consider it a serious reflection on the subcommittee."^[116] Alsop and Smith did meet later in Washington. If Smith was persuaded, he failed to move the subcommittee: Morris continued as counsel; Budenz remained the paragon of truth.

In 1981, reflecting on his activities thirty years earlier, Alsop wrote, "I think back on the campaign of my brother and myself which began with the attempt to expose Louis Budenz, as one of the high points of my long career as a reporter. Although Budenz had been given the front page, my charging him with perjury and offering the strongest supporting evidence was held to deserve no more than three paragraphs in the New York Times . I also begged Reston of the Times to take over the hired perjurers story, with Stew and me merely supporting the Times . He told me solemnly that he did not think it 'timely.' But Stew and I kept after the hired perjurers all the same, and we got them dismissed in the end because Paul Crouch [a prominent ex-Communist witness] went too far in a Philadelphia hearing and was actually convicted of perjury."^[117]

After its bruising confrontations with Wallace and Alsop, SISS took a breather. Admiral Charles "Savvy" Cooke, a close friend of Kohlberg and a Chiang supporter, came in for some mutual admiration society palaver on October 19. Then the committee recessed for three months. The next witness, on January 24, 1952, was John Carter Vincent.

While the inquisition was being organized in the halls of Congress during the summer of 1951, a powerful drama involving Lattimore and the

future of Tibet transpired out of public notice. Lattimore was not a Tibetan scholar, but the Mongols he championed were Lama Buddhists, and Tibet was the seat of their religion. The Dilowa had lived in Tibet several years after the war and was close to the Dalai Lama and the Dalai's elder brother, the Takster Lama. From the Dilowa, Lattimore knew of the manuscript riches of Tibetan monasteries, hence his 1949 effort to interest the Library of Congress in obtaining these manuscripts before the Chinese Communists took over that exotic land.

The fourteenth Dalai Lama was young and had assumed full powers only in 1950 after a ten-year regency. The Chinese invaded in October of that year, and the Tibetans were forced to sign an agreement with the People's Republic in May 1951. But the situation was still obscure; the Dalai Lama's advisers were divided over the prospects of retaining real autonomy, some believing that the Dalai should go into exile, others believing that he should remain in Tibet and try to work under the Chinese. It was this dilemma that motivated a trip by the Takster Lama to the United States in summer 1951. The Dalai was living in a remote monastery on the Indian border; he wanted his brother, among other things, to consult the Dilowa and Lattimore as to whether he should return to Lhasa or flee to India.

The United States government was indifferent to the fate of the Tibetan libraries but quite willing to embarrass the Chinese Communists by clandestine support of Tibetan independence. This was the CIA's province; its newly created front, the Committee for a Free Asia (CFA), flew the Takster Lama to the United States.^[118]

The Takster Lama had never been out of Tibet and spoke no English. CFA obtained the services of Major Robert B. Ekvall, son of a missionary who had served on the Tibetan border, fluent in Tibetan, and a former Army Intelligence officer during and after the war, to take charge of the Takster's American sojourn.

Ekvall was known to the Lattimores. He had contemplated leaving the army to work with Lattimore's Central Asian seminar in 1946, and Ekvall and his wife spent a weekend with the Lattimores in Baltimore. Lattimore liked Ekvall and encouraged him to enroll at Johns Hopkins, but the army persuaded Ekvall to reenlist.^[119]

When the Takster Lama arrived in the United States, Ekvall brought him immediately to Washington. The Dilowa, however, was then in Berkeley, and Ekvall frustrated all of the Takster's attempts to see the Dilowa or Lattimore. As the Takster reported in a letter to the Dilowa, who in turn wrote Lattimore, Ekvall said, "It would be a good thing for

you not to talk to the Dilowa Hutukhtu about the affairs of the Dalai Lama on which you have come. Also, Lattimore is no good." The Takster was greatly upset; Lattimore was furious.^[120]

On July 23, 1951, Lattimore wrote a long letter to Ekvall. It was restrained but firm. After reviewing the Dilowa's history, his flight from Outer Mongolia after the Communists tried him, his wartime service with Chiang Kai-shek, his residence in Lhasa, his coming to the United States in 1949, and his frustration at being unable to see the Takster, Lattimore wrote:

The Dilowa Hutukhtu was recognized in Tibet as the head of the rather large community of Mongol exiles and refugees from Outer and Inner Mongolia. When the Chinese Communists invaded Tibet the Dilowa Hutukhtu was in correspondence (as he still is), with Mongol Lama disciples of his in Kalimpong, on the India-Tibet frontier. Through correspondence forwarded by them, he is also in unbroken contact with the Dalai Lama personally and with certain of the elder statesmen of Tibet, such as Tsarong Shape. His advice and counsel is valued by them.

The Dilowa Hutukhtu's sole concern with Tibet and its politics is the preservation and continuity of his religion. He has feared that if a Chinese Communist "soft policy" should tempt the advisers of the Dalai Lama to urge the Dalai Lama to return to Lhasa, all would be lost. He is sure, from his own experience in Outer Mongolia, that it would only be a matter of time until the church would be dispossessed, the Dalai Lama deposed or disposed of in one way or another, and the "reincarnation" of a successor to the Dalai Lama prohibited. The branch of the Buddhist religion of which the Dalai Lama is head and the Dilowa Hutukhtu a distinguished prelate would then be extinguished in the world. Rather than let this happen, the Dilowa Hutukhtu is convinced that the Dalai Lama should go into exile, there to maintain at least a spark of the eternal flame of his religion. . . .

It would be a tragedy if, because of his personal friendship with me, the Dilowa Hutukhtu should be involved in the personal vilification and denigration to which I have been subjected and if, as a consequence, there should be sown in the minds of the Tibetans doubts and suspicions that their pathetic national tragedy is being wantonly subjected to mishandling, through no fault of their own, by contamination with the most corrupt and shameful, and to them obscure and frightening, side of American politics.^[121]

Ekvall responded the next day. The Takster's inability to see the Dilowa, he said, was due to ill health. The Takster was in the hospital but would receive the Dilowa as soon as he was able.

Ekvall eventually made good on his promise. Unfortunately, by then the moment of truth had passed. The Dalai Lama returned to Lhasa from his mountain hideout near the Indian border and began the uneasy coexistence with the People's Republic of China that ended in 1959 with the Tibetan uprising and the Dalai Lama's escape to India.

In December 1951, when the Dilowa was back in Baltimore, Ekvall let the Takster visit Lattimore. Eleanor Lattimore reported the visit in a letter to the Robert LeMoyne Barretts December 10:

We didn't hear anything more for a long time, but a week or so ago we had a phone call from Ekvall saying that the Takster Lama wished to call on us. He and a disciple and a keeper (doubtless from Central Intelligence) turned up and we gave a luncheon for them. Then in a few days Dilowa told us Takster and his disciple would like to come for a weekend. So last weekend we had the three lamas here (two Living Buddhas in one house!) It was lots of fun. Dilowa says this means Takster has declared his independence. But of course it's too late now to make any difference. One could certainly argue that if it hadn't been for McCarthy the Dalai Lama might not have gone back to Tibet and the Lama Buddhist religion, and a link between Tibet and the West, might have been preserved.^[122]

Nineteen fifty had been a disastrous year for the Lattimores. Abe Fortas, writing to a friend who had inquired about how things were going, said, "The McCarthy charges resulted in a serious financial drain. We were forced to get reimbursement from Lattimore for out-of-pocket expenses such as mimeographing and long distance telephone calls, and this ran into a substantial sum of money. We did not, as you know, charge him a fee. The Lattimores incurred expenses, on the whole, which for them were quite staggering. . . . The most serious trouble has been the spiritual and emotional drain upon these really fine Americans this savage attack has caused both of them to age perceptibly."^[123]

A year later they had spent more and aged more. Lecture invitations had dried up: in 1949 Lattimore had more than a hundred; in all of 1951, only three. There were now almost no social invitations in Baltimore since people were afraid to be seen with them. With the hiatus in SISS activities after October 1951, Lattimore began to think about accepting standing invitations he had to lecture to the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Central Asian Society in London. As Eleanor wrote the Barretts, "We thought that this Christmas would be a good time to get away and get a breath of fresh air before McCarran started up again."^[124] Lattimore

wrote the two societies in London, got enthusiastic responses, and applied for passports in late November.

Ruth Shipley presided over the passport barony. She was ferociously anti-Lattimore, convinced that Budenz and Barmine had told the truth, and determined to apply the McCarran Act of 1950, which had a clause saying, "It shall be unlawful for any officer or employee of the United States to issue a passport to, or renew the passport of, any individual knowing or having reason to believe that such individual is a member of such organization [World Communist movement]." On December 6, 1951, Shipley wrote an eleven-page letter to her superior saying that Lattimore's passport request should be denied.^[125]

There followed a bitter battle within the State Department. Senior officers, including Chief of Security Carlisle Humelsine, Undersecretary James Webb, and Counselor Charles "Chip" Bohlen, disagreed. They thought Lattimore was not a danger to the security of the country and should be allowed to lecture in London. Shipley was overruled; the Lattimores got their passports December 17.^[126] It was one of the few battles Shipley lost.

While waiting for their passports, and not anticipating that harassment from McCarran would last indefinitely, Lattimore indulged another fancy. In fall 1951 Delhi University invited him to lecture there during the next academic year. Delhi had no funds, but the Fulbright program had brought them many prominent American scholars. Wishing to avoid embarrassment, Delhi consulted the Fulbright committees in India and Washington; they were told that if Lattimore applied on his own, he might be turned down, but if the Indian government made an official request, it would be honored. Nehru himself wrote the letter on behalf of his government; the American embassy in Delhi endorsed the request. It was turned down by the State Department. Eleanor reported to the Barretts, "The Indians are furious and consider it an affront to them, and it's all very embarrassing. I suppose we should know better than to make these foolish plans. But the whole situation is so unreal and fantastic that we just can't make ourselves feel like lepers."^[127]

But the British lectures were still on. Before the Lattimores left for London, there were two ominous developments. John Service was fired on December 13, and John Carter Vincent began yet another State Department loyalty-security hearing on December 17. Lattimore was connected with both men.

The Service dismissal sent shock waves throughout the State Department. He had been examined, and cleared, six times; now the Civil Service Commission Loyalty Review Board, considering the most recent State

Department clearance, recommended to Secretary Acheson that Service be fired. For the public record, the reason given for the reversal was a reconsideration of the Amerasia case. But the board was lying. Its decision against Service was based on the faked reports from the Chinese Nationalist government in Taipei. McCarthy partially gave away this lie in a speech on January 15, 1952, when he said that Service "was known to have shared living quarters with a 'Soviet espionage agent.' "William S. White, writing in the New York Times after Service was fired, concluded accurately that the Service firing had "a significant meaning in partisan politics: a kind of vindication for Mr. McCarthy."^[128]

Owen and Eleanor Lattimore arrived in the refreshingly calm climate of the British Isles in late December. The British, who viewed McCarthy as insane and the accusations against Lattimore as hallucinations, received them warmly. Had he chosen to, Lattimore could easily have ignited British attacks on McCarthy and followers. The American embassy in London feared just such a development and followed Lattimore's activities. The embassy report on Lattimore's visit eventually reached the FBI, which in turn forwarded it to the Justice Department. One paragraph of this report was especially revealing:

In general, Mr. Lattimore attempted to avoid discussion of current Far Eastern problems and preferred to confine his lectures to his field of specialization, the nomadic tribes of Asia. . . . [He] explained privately to English friends that he would prefer not to talk on China policy because he was critical of American policy (on grounds that it is tending to isolate the Chinese Communists and to force them into greater dependence on the Soviet Union) and he was loath, as an American citizen traveling abroad to criticize his Government's policy. He has stated that his embarrassment in this regard is the deeper because of the fact that, with this one exception, he is wholeheartedly in support of American institutions and American policies. Perhaps it would be well to report a specific question put to him at Chatham House by Sir John Pratt, the well-known British fellow-traveler, whose ardent support of the Communist cause in Korea has proven so embarrassing for the British Government. At the end of Mr. Lattimore's lecture Sir John rose from his chair from among the audience and asked the following weighted question: "Do you, Mr. Lattimore, know of a single intelligent and well-informed American who does not believe that the South Koreans began the fighting?" Mr. Lattimore is said to have hesitated a moment for emphasis and to have replied: "Sir John, I do not know of a single intelligent and well-informed American who does not believe that the North Koreans began the fighting." (Italics in original)^[129]

By any standard, Lattimore's 1952 tour of England was restrained and judicious. This restraint was due partly to his belief that one does not wash the family linen before foreign publics, but it was partly because he did support American policy except in Asia. But there was another reason: the venue was conducive to moderation. Lattimore himself had not changed; the feisty combatant of the Tydings hearings still existed beneath the calm exterior. When he returned to an overheated Washington, where his good friend John Carter Vincent faced an SISS inquisition, Lattimore's outrage was rekindled.

Chapter Twenty-Two
Venom: Twelve Days with SISS

By the time SISS adjourned in the fall of 1951, the New York Times was among those observers skeptical about McCarran's boasts of fairness and objectivity. That paper observed, in an editorial, that it was one thing to criticize China policy but quite another to assert that Communists in the IPR were responsible for that policy: "Furthermore, the committee has permitted the loyalty of various individuals again to be impugned without giving them the opportunity to reply immediately and in public."^[1]

William S. White, writing in the Times shortly after Senate Judiciary killed the Nimitz commission, observed of SISS, "That group has become incomparably the most powerful of all, as far as Congress is concerned, in raising the Communist issue against the White House." White gave the committee credit for some amenities, such as no leaks from executive sessions, but concluded, "It remains the opinion of many observers, however, that the subcommittee suffers in objectivity because all of its members are far to the right of the Administration, and therefore the ordinary interplay of different opinions and different interpretations is not at work here."^[2]

The American Civil Liberties Union did not distinguish itself in the Lattimore case.^[3] Nonetheless, the ACLU did protest McCarran's procedure. Patrick Murphy Malin, ACLU executive director, in a letter to the Times printed November 16, 1951, said, "As we informed Senator McCarran on October 26, his committee has, to date, refused to permit counsel for the IPR to cross-examine witnesses against it and to have access to the IPR files, which are now in the committee's exclusive custody. . . . The right to cross-examine one's accuser is essential to fair procedure and should cut across all political or partisan lines."^[4]

These opinions hostile to McCarran did not lessen the atmosphere of fear and intimidation. Few of the many groups that had invited Lattimore to speak before 1950 were willing to have him now. He did get an occasional audience; when he opened the 1951 season at the Yale Law School Forum on October 22, the auditorium was packed to the doors, and a loudspeaker carried his address to an overflow room. Lattimore's talk dealt mostly with the substance of U.S. Asian policy, but in response to questions he commented on the McCarthy-McCarran crusade: "America is a country in which democracy is so sound, so deeply rooted, that in spite of the temporary hysteria and fear, we shall pull through because the people will pull us through."^[5] It was a particularly inaccurate prophecy. The people, like the Congress, would gladly have thrown Lattimore to the wolves. The judicial system pulled him through.

At the time, however, Lattimore sought an opportunity to confront the witch-hunters. He had fumed through the testimony of a dozen hostile witnesses, answering their front-page publicity with press releases of his own, which, if reported at all, were buried in the back pages (except in the Baltimore Sun , which gave him good coverage). On November 6, 1951, he wrote McCarran:

It has repeatedly been reported in the press that your subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee has promised that I will be given an opportunity to refute publicly the false and slanderous allegations that have been made about me before your subcommittee. Months have now gone by without my being given this opportunity, and I am now informed that your subcommittee will hold no more public hearings until January. This long delay greatly increases the injury done to me.

I trust that you will notify me at an early date when I can expect to have a public hearing. It will, of course, take me at least a week to make arrangements and preparation for the hearing, and I should therefore appreciate as much advance notice as possible.^[6]

McCarran replied curtly that Lattimore would be heard "at the convenience of the committee" and that it would indeed not be before January.

SISS staff kept busy despite the abeyance of the hearings. One of the tipsters feeding Ben Mandel claimed that a highly revealing report on Lattimore had been written by a Brigadier Menzie of the British Army to the U.S. Army in 1943. Mandel tried hard to obtain such a report from the Secretary of Defense; that office searched extensively and denied that such a report was in its files.^[7] Mandel thought Army was stonewalling. He called the FBI in on his search, hoping they could move the military bureaucracy. FBI agent L.L. Laughlin reported to FBI headquarters on

November 28, 1951: "Mr. Mandel stated that he had received information from an authoritative source, which he described as 'the best,' indicating that Brigadier Menzie delivered to the Pentagon in 1943 an elaborate report on Owen Lattimore. Mandel advised that according to his information, Lattimore originally had been working for the British but he double-crossed them and when they found out about it the British turned him in to the American authorities, at which time the elaborate report in question allegedly was furnished to the Pentagon. Mandel described this report as containing 'a gold mine of information' which he was quite anxious to get hold of."^[8]

The bureau was puzzled. They had implored Army for everything in its files about Lattimore. They checked again and satisfied themselves that there was no Menzie report. Six of the eight pages of the Belmont to Ladd letter burying the Menzie phantom are still denied in the interests of national security.^[9]

Don Surine and Robert Morris chased the next will-o'-the-wisp. In August 1950 Surine contacted the FBI about an allegation that Lattimore had once reported the theft of a pair of field glasses from his car while parked in New York City. These were no ordinary field glasses; they were Russian made, embossed with the hammer and sickle. The bureau had checked out this story in 1950; the New York Police Department (NYPD) could find no record of this alleged theft.^[10] Surine turned the tip over to Morris when SISS started operations.

On August 30, 1951, Morris wrote NYPD asking for another check of their records. Sure enough, the incident was there, classified as a "loss" instead of a "theft." But Morris did not know what to do with this new intelligence. Plaintively, he wrote Lou Nichols on January 14, 1952, enclosing the NYPD report: "You probably have done some work on the within matter. If there is anything that we can learn on it I would appreciate it." Several Lattimore case officers considered the "loss" of Lattimore's field glasses and reported, "In view of the fact that he [Lattimore] has advised the Bureau that, on at least two occasions, he traveled in the Soviet Union, the last time in 1944, his possession of these field glasses seems to be logical and it is not believed that an interview with him on this point would be productive." The bureau told Morris to forget it.^[11]

McCarran, before he went off to Nevada for a winter break, gave U.S. News and World Report an interview. Seven pages of that magazine for November 16, 1951, carried his ringing endorsement of SISS, his complete faith in Budenz and other friendly witnesses, and an interim report on what SISS had concluded about IPR:

McCarran: The IPR originally was an organization with laudable motives. It was taken over by Communist design and made a vehicle for attempted control and conditioning of American thinking and American policy with respect to the Far East. It was also used for espionage purposes to collect and channel information of interest or value to the Russian Communists.

Q: Was that during the war?

McCarran: During the war and before the war. It has always been the thought of the Kremlin to control Asia. They have the same thought with reference to India today. They are going to use many of the same methods on India that they used on Asia, and they're going to use some of the same people as much as they can. I take that as a fact, on the basis of information from a number of sources. They always intended to get into Asia. . . . That plan has been, to a certain extent, accomplished. Central Asia, continental China, is Communist today. You've got to come to the conclusion that today Communist China is the vassal of the Kremlin. There is no doubt in my mind at all as to that.^[12]

This hardly sounded like an "interim" report. McCarran had made up his mind: the IPR was guilty as charged, and McCarran had already done his best to see that "the same people" who delivered China to the Russians were not going to be free to run around the globe as Communist agents and deliver India to the Russians. His Internal Security Act of 1950 took care of that.

When SISS got going again in January 1952, John Carter Vincent was the first witness. The committee heard him in executive session January 24-26 and in public session January 30-31 and February 1-2. Vincent was the assigned target of Senator Homer Ferguson; in four of Vincent's seven appearances Ferguson was the only committee member present. As SISS hearings for IPR-tainted witnesses went, Vincent's was mild. Ferguson and Sourwine divided the questioning and were gentlemanly and polite. Vincent was courteous and accommodating. Only one sharp exchange occurred, when Vincent accused Sourwine of knowingly making a false inference.^[13]

The SISS objective was clearly to use State Department and IPR documents to trap Vincent into making false statements. Vincent's widow told

Gary May in 1971 that Ferguson said in her hearing during a committee recess, "Come along to the hearing today. We're going to get Vincent on perjury."^[14]

There were no revelations, and no minds changed, during these seven days. Vincent, a conservative and dignified Southern Baptist, was as innocent of communism as was the angel Gabriel. But Ferguson thought otherwise, and the rock-bottom China lobby creed he took into the hearings was not shaken in the slightest by Vincent's testimony. Ferguson believed that the Chinese Communist party was irrevocably subservient to the Kremlin; that Service had committed espionage and that Vincent shared that guilt by contributing fifty dollars to Service's defense fund; that Henry Wallace, with Vincent's guidance, had attempted to bring down Chiang by foisting General Wedemeyer off on him; that Dooman was accurate in claiming that State Department directives to General MacArthur had destroyed the capitalist class of Japan; and that Lattimore—always coming back to Lattimore, through hours of questioning—had always followed the Communist line, yet Vincent had wanted Lattimore appointed as a State Department adviser.

Sitting at the committee table with his stack of documents, Sourwine demanded that Vincent recall details of minor meetings, conferences, dinners, decision sessions, even the furniture in the room where he interviewed a Chinese personage eight years earlier. Vincent had had significant matters on his mind as he administered the China and Far Eastern desks, accompanied the vice president to Asia and the secretary of state to Potsdam, and carried out the duties of a Foreign Service Officer Class One. Yet Sourwine chastised him for not remembering whether he had sent his regards to Madame Sun Yat-sen via Mrs. Edward C. Carter in June 1944. Ferguson picked up this memory lapse:

Sen. Ferguson: Mr. Vincent, do you have the same difficulty in your work in the State Department, advising with other officers, of remembering things that have happened as you have here on the witness stand?

Mr. Vincent: If it is a matter of going back—

Sen. Ferguson: Are you as uncertain in your work there about what has happened as you are here?

Mr. Vincent: Senator, this all happened 7 or 8 years ago.

Sen. Ferguson: Can you answer that question?

Sen. McCarran: You better answer that question.

Sen. Ferguson: It is necessary for a foreign officer and a diplomat, such as you are, to remember things for 7 years, is it not? You have to keep them all in mind?

Mr. Vincent: These incidents here, as I say, I do not recall. . . .

Sen. Ferguson: I am asking. Are you usually in as much doubt?

Sen. McCarran: I think that is a simple question and easily understood. Why do you not answer it?

Mr. Vincent: If they were matters which I considered of as little importance as some of these things brought forward here, I would be in the same degree of doubt.^[15]

At the end, Ferguson, apparently with serious intent, asked, "Do you believe it was a fair hearing?" Vincent, for the first time, lied: "Yes, sir."^[16]

After Vincent, the SISS script called for a run of "Fifth Amendment Communists." Not all of those now called had been Communists, but several invoked the Fifth Amendment on principle, believing that Congress had no right to inquire into their political beliefs. There were ten of these minor witnesses, only three of whom had any significant relationship with the IPR. The others had attended a conference, had written an article, or had been ordinary dues-paying members. Most of them had never met Lattimore.

SISS learned nothing from them. When the FBI reviewed these transcripts, Branigan found that "any pertinent data contained therein" was already in bureau files.^[17] Most of these witnesses, possibly all, were heard first in executive session, so the committee knew it would learn nothing from them. But it did "establish a record": here were ten subversives, unwilling to admit their past (and present) misdeeds, all connected in some way with the IPR.

Interspersed in the series of Fifth Amendment takers was one significant witness, Nicholas Poppe, also brought in to skewer Lattimore.

Poppe had been professor of Oriental languages in Leningrad, 1925-41, and head of the Mongolian department of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Though he claimed not to have been a Party member, he had been trusted enough to be allowed access to Mongolia. When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Poppe moved to the Karachai region in the Caucasus, teaching in a pedagogical institute. When German troops reached Karachai, Poppe defected and helped the Germans set up a quisling government.^[18] This government immediately appropriated all Jewish property and soon rounded up the Jews in the area for gassing. Poppe's ac-

count has it that he was sympathetic to the Jews and that he saved the lives of a small mountain tribe (the Tats) who were ethnic Iranians but practiced the Jewish faith. Whatever his actions in the Caucasus, he was soon brought to Berlin to work in the infamous SS Wannsee Institute. Poppe claimed that at Wannsee he worked exclusively on Mongolian and Siberian intelligence and did not contribute to SS depradations in German-occupied areas.

After the war Poppe attached himself first to British, then to American intelligence units. He was a hot property; the Russians wanted him for war crimes. But by 1947 the United States was actively seeking former Nazi experts on the Soviet Union; Talcott Parsons of Harvard's Russian Research Center pressed the State Department to have Poppe brought to this country. In May 1949 Parsons succeeded, but Harvard administrators refused to hire Poppe. The University of Washington in Seattle took him on, and he spent the rest of his career there as professor of Far Eastern languages.^[19]

When he was attempting to secure academic sponsorship for emigration to the United States, Poppe had sought the assistance of Owen Lattimore. Lattimore knew of Poppe's work for the Nazis and refused to endorse him.^[20] George Taylor, Poppe's superior at Seattle and an early witness before SISS, introduced Mandel to Poppe. Mandel was delighted to learn of Poppe's animus against Lattimore and arranged to have him testify on February 12, 1952.

Poppe's testimony was somewhat disappointing to SISS. Poppe denigrated the Soviet World Atlas (about which Carter and other IPR officers had been ecstatic and which Lattimore had reviewed favorably) and claimed that all the Soviet officials who briefly joined IPR in the 1930s were espionage agents. As to Lattimore, Poppe praised Mongols of Manchuria and Inner Asian Frontiers of China but thought Lattimore's treatment of the Mongolian People's Republic (MPR) in Solution in Asia was wrong. The MPR was not a progressive country, and Lattimore downplayed the "internal troubles" of 1932, which Poppe said constituted an "overt revolt of the entire population." Thus, Lattimore's picture of the MPR was not scholarly.^[21]

Senator Arthur Watkins, the only committee member present, drew him out:

Sen. Watkins: Then he would be putting into his books the Soviet line?

Mr. Poppe: Yes, of course, and even involuntarily.

Sen. Watkins: Do you mean that he did not do it purposely?

Mr. Poppe: No; I don't know how, but I only say that one who takes his information always from only those papers, he depends greatly upon the ideas expressed in them, so I don't know whether purposely or not.

Sen. Watkins: It would give the American people, then, who read the books, a distorted, a completely distorted picture of what was going on?

Mr. Poppe: Yes, a distorted picture.^[22]

But Poppe refused to be pushed into saying that Lattimore was ideologically motivated; he was just ill informed. Watkins dropped the subject.

Poppe, in his 1983 Reminiscences , is ambivalent about Lattimore. He is bitter that Lattimore pointed out publicly his work for the Nazi SS, but he acknowledges that the Lattimore case "reminded me of what I had witnessed on a larger scale in the Soviet Union. . . . His case should never have happened because under the provisions of the Constitution of the United States, Lattimore had the right to express any opinions, even controversial ones."^[23]

Having put into the record, and the headlines, a long series of anti-Lattimore testimony, SISS was Finally ready for its chief target. Between February 26 and March 21, 1952, SISS engaged Owen Lattimore in twelve days of acrimonious interrogation. It was the longest appearance of a single witness before any congressional inquiry up to that time. And it was front-page news.

Whether McCarran at this time believed Lattimore was the "one being" he had told Biltz about as directing the whole Communist movement in the United States we do not know. Certainly Lattimore was the arch-heretic; as such, his appearance required the presence of the arch-inquisitor. McCarran himself was present for the entire Lattimore run, and there were no one-man hearings. A majority of the subcommittee was present each day; on six of the twelve days all members were present except Eastland. McCarthy attended seven times.

Writers who later held that the SISS hearings were "conscientious and productive" (H. Bradford Westerfield) or "sober and devastatingly factual" (James Rorty and Moshe Decter) cannot have read the transcripts. The Lattimore hearings were nothing but blatant harassment, what Victor Navasky calls a degradation ceremony.^[24] Had the committee wanted to hear both sides fairly, they would not have held off giving Lattimore a

public hearing m challenge Budenz for six months, nor would they have allowed twelve other hostile witnesses m appear without rebuttal in the same forum. The timing alone indicates bias.

So does the contrast between the committee's coddling of anti-Lattimore witnesses, the failure even to acknowledge challenges to their credibility, compared with its bruising confrontation of Lattimore. Lattimore himself put it well: "One of the most shocking things that has happened in the proceedings is that not one of the witnesses against me has ever been asked in examination or cross-examination a question that would test his motives or his reliability."^[25]

Further, SISS ignored all the evidence favorable to Lattimore that had been developed in the Tydings hearings, much of which had been reported in the press. This evidence was known to Morris, who had been minority counsel during the Tydings hearings. The entire corpus of evidence on the basis of which Tydings concluded that McCarthy's charges were fraudulent was totally disregarded. The biased selection of Asian "experts" called by McCarran has already been mentioned.

For seven of Lattimore's twelve days of testimony, Abe Fortas accompanied him as counsel; on five days, Thurman Arnold substituted. Fortas and Arnold were two of Washington's outstanding attorneys; the committee treated them like dirt. McCarran had been hard on counsel for IPR witnesses from the beginning. He had warned Edward C. Carter's counsel on opening day in July 1951: "Any witness called here may have the privilege of being accompanied and advised by counsel of his choice; but witnesses' counsel will not be permitted m testify nor to ask questions. This is not a trial, but an inquiry, and we intend m proceed in an orderly way." But when Carter's counsel suggested a clarification to Carter, McCarran shut him up peremptorily. Fortas and Arnold got the same treatment.

On the first day of Lattimore's hearing a contretemps developed during which Willis Smith defended the committee's treatment of anti-IPR witnesses on an unusual basis:

Sen. Smith: Do you understand that this is a trial or is it in the nature of a grand jury procedure? You know the difference?

Mr. Lattimore: I am sorry I don't.

Sen. Smith: You know that a grand jury proceeding is one in which you are trying m get facts on which to base a charge. This is a grand jury. In a trial you say, "This man is accused of being guilty. Is he innocent or guilty?"

You see a distinction, I know, between these. You understand that this was an inquiry in the nature of a grand jury proceeding to see what are the facts on which charges might be based.^[26]

Shortly after this exchange, Lattimore protested that his lawyer was unable to counsel him:

Mr. Lattimore: I am sitting here under conditions in which my own lawyer is not allowed to tender advice to me while I am asked rather complicated questions involving legal points which might be pitfalls for me, to which I have to reply to the best of my ability.

Sen. O'Conor: Mr. Lattimore, is that not begging the question? You were advised, and if you were not advised, you are now, that on any of these so-called complicated questions if you are unable to comprehend them you have the right to consult with your counsel. Why do you give the impression in the record that you are being deprived of the right to consultation with counsel?

Mr. Lattimore: Senator, my counsel is not allowed to intervene at any time.

Sen. O'Conor: You are allowed to consult him.

Mr. Lattimore: At any time he thinks I may need advice and I in my ignorance may be at the most need of advice at any moment—

Sen. O'Conor: It is evident that you know when you need advice, and you know better than anybody else when you need it. . . .

Mr. Fortas: I wish to address myself to this program that the distinguished Senator Smith raised—that is, about procedure. It is, after all, a legal question. It is very difficult for a lawyer to sit here and hear statements that affect the interest of his client and to be in a position where he can't say anything. I am sure that all of you distinguished gentlemen who are lawyers appreciate that.

Now as to Mr. Lattimore's consulting with me, he is sitting here under an intense barrage of questions from one, two, three, four, five distinguished gentlemen, and his concentration is intense upon those questions, and he obviously can't be expected to know

when to consult counsel. Now of course I have a very fundamental difference of opinion with Senator Smith as to the purpose of a Senate investigation. I believe that the purpose of a Senate investigation is to develop the facts, both sides of the facts, impartially and fairly. . . . But it does seem to me that when Mr. Lattimore is confronted with a choice as to whether this is a grand jury or a petty jury proceeding he is obviously at a serious disadvantage. . . . I beg your pardon, Senator, for getting emotional about this, but I do believe that it should be said.^[27]

Wasted effort. O'Conor simply reiterated that Fortas "has the right to advise with [Lattimore] at any time."

Fortas may have rejected Smith's grand jury analogy, but it was in many ways apt. And the committee held firm to its determination that Fortas was not to intervene, to protest the wording of a question, or to warn his client of a booby trap.

There was a further prohibition on Lattimore's counsel. On February 28 Ferguson asked Lattimore if he had "ever worked for any government other than the United States." Lattimore had worked for Chiang Kai-shek, but he was not sure whether that meant working for the government of the Republic of China.

Mr. Lattimore: May I qualify that answer, Senator? I worked for Chiang Kai-shek.

Sen. O'Conor . The question is as to any other government. It admits of a direct answer: You were or you were not. And if you were, and desire to make any explanation, that is perfectly in order. But you ought to answer the question directly first.

Mr. Lattimore . I don't think I can, Senator. I want to ask for the opinion of you gentlemen on this subject. I was in the employ of Chiang Kai-shek, who was at the head—

Sen. Ferguson: Please answer: Were you or were you not in the employ of any other government?

Mr. Fortas: Point of order.

Sen. McCarran: You have no right to ask for a point of order. Just a minute, Mr. Chairman [O'Conor was temporarily serving as chairman]. Just a minute. I object to that way of proceeding. This gentleman has no right to ask for a point of order, and he is no part of this body.

Mr. Lattimore: Let me rephrase the beginning of my reply. I do not believe—

Sen. McCarran: Just a moment.

Sen. O'Conor: Just a second, Mr. Lattimore. The question is one which, in the opinion of the Chair, does admit of a direct answer. He either was or was not. Now, he can make any explanation he desires after he has answered the question.

Sen. McCarran: Mr. Chairman, just a second, before that goes any farther. I advised this gentleman when he first came in here of what his province would be. Now, that was no part of it, your breaking in with any point of order. Now, if you do that again, you are going to be excluded from this committee.

Mr. Fortas: That is up to you.

Sen. McCarran: That is all right, and don't do it again.

Mr. Fortas: That is up to you.

Sen. McCarran: I will certainly do it.

Mr. Fortas: You have the power.^[28]

Neither Fortas nor Arnold was actually ejected, despite occasional protests at McCarran's constant bullying. McCarran simply slapped them down again.

But the full force of McCarran's spleen was directed at the witness. Lattimore began his appearance by reading a fifty-page defense of his career and attack on his accusers. "Senators, I have asked for this public hearing because your proceedings have resulted in serious damage to my reputation as an objective scholar and patriotic citizen, to the Institute of Pacific Relations with which I have been connected, and to our Government's Foreign Service personnel and the conduct of its foreign policy."^[29] After this first sentence Sourwine interrupted, and the acrimony began. Sourwine was spelled by McCarran, O'Conor, Smith, Ferguson, Jenner, and Watkins. For three days Lattimore tried to read his statement; he was interrupted and challenged after almost every sentence.

One of Lattimore's caustic remarks was in response to a demand that he name the members of the China lobby, on which he blamed much of IPR's troubles. He named Kohlberg, William Goodwin, and William Knowland (Republican from California), whom he called "The Senator from Formosa." This remark set off howls of outrage. Ferguson blustered, "That is a Communist line, is it not, 'the Senator from Formosa?'" Lattimore said no: he had read it in the newspapers, but he did not read

Communist papers. There followed ten minutes of badgering for Lattimore to come up with a specific paper and issue where he had read it. Finally Fortas intervened, "Can you give this witness a rest, please?" McCarran for once obliged.^[30]

When the committee resumed, it was back to the China lobby.

Sen. McCarran: Let us name the Senators who belong to the China lobby, is that the question?

Sen. Smith: The persons who constituted the China lobby, and among them he named one Senator, and I would like to have him name the others, because he said or he referred to the State Department victims of the China lobby, and I want to know who constitutes the China lobby, the personnel, and the names.

Sen. McCarran: That calls for names, Mr. Lattimore.

Mr. Lattimore: All right, Senator. Before naming any further names—

Sen. McCarran: That calls for names, Mr. Lattimore.

Mr. Lattimore: Senator, I'll mention any further names only with great reluctance—

Sen. McCarran: Your statement in that regard will be stricken from the record. Name the names. That is what the answer is.

Mr. Lattimore: I am naming these names with the greatest reluctance.

Sen. McCarran: That is stricken from the record. Call the names.

Mr. Lattimore: I have characterized people as being—

Sen. McCarran: Call the names, Mr. Lattimore.

Mr. Lattimore: . . . in the lobby as being different—

Sen. McCarran: Do you want to answer the question or don't you?

Mr. Lattimore: Senator, before—

Sen. McCarran: I ask you to answer the question now.

Mr. Lattimore: Senator, yes, I will answer the question.

Sen. McCarran: Your other statements will be stricken from the record, and you are called upon to name names, and now do so.

Mr. Lattimore: Very respectfully, Senator, you are—

Sen. McCarran: Let's name the names and answer the question of the Senator from North Carolina.

Mr. Lattimore: Senator, I have mentioned Mr. Alfred Kohlberg. I understand that an employee of the China lobby has been a Miss Freda Utley. I understand there is a great deal of private Chinese money in this country—

Sen. Smith: Now that does not answer my question.

Sen. McCarran: The last part of the answer will be stricken from the record.^[31]

Some things may have been stricken from the record, but in general it appears that no one on the committee staff ever bothered. It was like this for twelve long, bitter days.

McCarran at one stage decided to belittle Lattimore's educational attainments.

Sen. McCarran: Mr. Lattimore, are you a teacher in Johns Hopkins?

Mr. Lattimore: That is right.

Sen. McCarran: Of what institution are you a graduate?

Mr. Lattimore: I am not a graduate of any institution.

Sen. McCarran: Are you a graduate of any high school even?

Mr. Lattimore: I finished my studies at a high school in England—

Sen. McCarran: Did you graduate from high school? Can you not answer that question?

Mr. Lattimore: Senator, I just want to make a point here that I went to school in England where they do not graduate.

Sen. McCarran: Please answer the question. Did you ever graduate from high school? You can answer that "Yes" or "No."

Mr. Lattimore: All right, Senator.

Sen. McCarran: What is your answer?

Mr. Lattimore: I didn't graduate from a high school. I went to school in England; I left school at the age of 19 and there was no such thing as graduation ceremonies or diploma or anything of that kind.^[32]

An hour later Freda Utley came back into the discussion. Lattimore expressed the belief that since she had been hired by SISS, she "undoubtedly aided in recruiting witnesses and in rehearsing their stories." Another explosion. Did he know this of his own knowledge?

Mr. Lattimore: I don't know for a fact.

Sen. Smith: Then you are making statements here under oath, that are not the truth, so far as you know?

Mr. Lattimore: I am making statements of strong opinions.

Sen. Smith: We do not want any more opinions. We want statements of fact. You are sworn. If you do not know a thing to be a fact, we do not want you to be sitting here quoting somebody else's opinion. You are just wasting the time of everybody.

Mr. Lattimore: Senator, a great many statements of opinion against me have been entered into the record. Am I not to be allowed to state my own opinions?

Sen. Smith: No; you state facts. That is what we want.^[33]

As a matter of fact , Lattimore was right. The opinions of Budenz, Barmine, Wittfogel, Dooman, Kornfeder, Stassen, and all the rest of the IPR-haters were strewn throughout the record. SISS wanted to hear them and received them kindly. Lattimore's opinions did not fit the SISS ideology.

There were, of course, moments of sanity in the hearings when both committee and witness were on good behavior. But generally the hostility of the committee drew out the anger of the witness. When it came to the vital question, "Have you ever received any orders or instructions or suggestions, directly or indirectly, from any Communist or pro-Communist source?" Lattimore had again to qualify his answer. He had been in Yenan: naturally there were suggestions from Mao and Chou. He had tried very hard to get the Russians to participate in Pacific Affairs , and they had some suggestions as to how that would be possible. But the committee didn't want any qualifications; they wanted a yes or no. So they asked him the same question five times . Finally the committee accepted his answer: no orders, no instructions, suggestions only from Russians and Chinese.^[34] They didn't believe it, of course, but they moved on to other things.

Time and time again he was instructed not to "give reasons," not to explain, even not to think, just to answer yes or no. Time and time again McCarran blustered, "That will be stricken from the record." Only once did McCarran backtrack. It was in a discussion of Lattimore's query to Carter as to where, if at all, he could find a plausible justification for Russia's attack on Finland. Morris was questioning. He asked Lattimore a convoluted question about whether he or Carter wanted to justify the Russian invasion.

Mr. Lattimore: My answer is "No." May I explain.

Sen. McCarran: I do not think it is necessary for an explanation. The answer is "No." That is all there is to it. It is a question of the construction of the language.

Mr. Lattimore: I think I have something pertinent to say on the subject.

Sen. McCarran: I do not think there is anything pertinent. When you say "No, it is not interchangeable," then it is not interchangeable. That is your decision.

Mr. Lattimore: May I explain why the answer is "No"?

Sen. McCarran: No. The language speaks for itself.^[35]

But the senator had gone too far. There was a "disturbance" in the rear of the room, which McCarran at first sought to quell by threatening to clear the room. But the disturbance continued, and the senator relented. "Just a moment. I think the Chair ruled erroneously, and I want to correct my ruling· I refused to permit the witness to explain his view on the first two lines, or three lines of the letter. I think I ruled hastily and I want to correct that ruling· I want him to have that opportunity. You may have it now."^[36] Noblesse oblige.

Harassment of the witness there was aplenty, but the attempted entrapment was worse. Arnold, in Fair Fights and Foul , evaluates the procedure accurately: "The most striking fact about these questions and the manner in which they were propounded is that they were not asked in order to obtain information, but for the purpose of entrapment, for the committee, having seized the voluminous files of the Institute of Pacific Relations, was armed with documents dealing with the details the witness was commanded to dig up from the recesses of his memory of events of ten to fifteen years before" (Arnold's italics).^[37]

This judgment was not confined to friends of Lattimore. The most compelling evidence of entrapment comes from the testimony of Warren Olney III, assistant attorney general under Eisenhower, to whom fell the task of supervising Lattimore's prosecution in 1953. Olney was genuinely troubled by the Lattimore case, as he told an interviewer for the Earl Warren Oral History Project:

Lattimore was questioned in very, very great detail. He answered all of the questions completely. . . . I do believe that Lattimore's experience . . . where he answered every question, was one of the major reasons why later people who were called before those committees would take the Fifth Amendment. It was not because they necessarily felt they'd

done anything wrong, but because the questioning was being used not just to pull out the truth, but to try to lay a trap by getting some kind of a wrong answer along the line where there was contradictory evidence on which they could base a perjury charge. Lawyers, of course, advising their clients who were called as witnesses in that predicament, very properly would advise them to take the Fifth Amendment, not answer any questions.^[38]

But Lattimore did answer questions, for twelve days. And the entrapment sometimes worked.

At Carter's suggestion Lattimore had lunched with Soviet Ambassador Constantine Oumansky just before he went to Chungking as adviser to Chiang. When asked in executive session, he said the Oumansky luncheon was after the German invasion of Russia. IPR files contained a letter showing that he had misdated the luncheon; it occurred before the German invasion of Russia, and Lattimore was off by several days. To SISS, this misdating was sinister; before the invasion the United States and Russia were enemies; after the invasion we were allies. Lattimore was not told in executive session that the committee had a letter showing his date to be wrong.

On March 3, 1952, Morris confronted Lattimore with the text of his executive session testimony, where he misdated the luncheon. No hint was given that the committee possessed a letter showing a different date. But Lattimore was put on record again:

Mr. Morris: Now, Mr. Lattimore, I will ask you some questions on the basis of that transcript. Did you testify that your meeting with Mr. Oumansky was after the Hitler invasion of the Soviet Union?

Mr. Lattimore: Yes, I believe I did. I couldn't guarantee that, just to the best of my recollection.^[39]

It was not just entrapment; it was sleazy entrapment. Lattimore did not pretend to certainty in his answer. FBI evaluations of the Lattimore case noted this disclaimer.

Lattimore's attitude toward SISS was one of injured innocence. He knew they were out to prove him guilty of something and had suborned perjury to do it. He displayed his outrage fully in his prepared statement. As Murray Marder of the Washington Post put it, the statement "poured on the subcommittee a rolling denunciation representing eight months of accumulated ire." The New York Times also commented on Lattimore's

truculence: "Occasionally an old hand who knows how far he can go—John L. Lewis, for example—will talk back to the Congressmen, but most witnesses watch their manners. On Capitol Hill last week there was a series of hearings that produced such bitter exchanges between witnesses and committeemen that veteran observers could not recall a precedent."^[40]

Was Lattimore's disdain for the committee justified? No doubt it was. But many of his friends thought it unwise. When speaking troth to power, humility is often called for. However, a softer attitude on Lattimore's part would have made no difference. He was dead center in the sights of the inquisitors, and no substitute victim could have replaced him. And if the confrontation with SISS produced nothing else, it produced some prime—and often hilarious—invective.

When Ferguson asked him if Russia were dominating the war in Korea, Lattimore snapped, "If I knew the answer to that question, Senator, I would be in Wall Street making a lot of money." When Lattimore pointed out the obvious bias against the IPR in McCarran's 1951 U.S. News interview, Sourwine attempted to justify that bias on the basis of the five volumes of testimony SISS had by then accumulated. Lattimore responded, "I have no idea, Mr. Sourwine, of how much the committee had scooped up or what it scooped it up in, but I am aware that the hearings are not complete, that this is a prejudgment in a hearing that is still under process where most of the accused have not yet been heard."^[41]

Sourwine was also the butt of a jibe when Lattimore accused the committee of trying to beat up on him:

Mr. Sourwine: Does your ego, sir, compel you to the conclusion that this subcommittee is after you rather than investigating the Institute of Pacific Relations?

Mr. Lattimore: Not my ego; my epidermis.^[42]

Then there was the attempt of the committee to pin the downfall of Chiang on Lattimore because he had recommended that new persons be put in charge of China policy in 1945. Shortly after Lattimore's recommendation, Grew, Dooman, Ballantine, and Hurley retired or were removed from the China scene and were replaced by Vincent, Acheson, Butterworth, and others thought to be sympathetic to the Chinese Communists. Willis Smith caught the sarcasm this time.

Sen. Smith: Mr. Lattimore, it is a fact that at the time Mr. Grew and at least some of these other men were fired, we did not have the same situation in the Far East with

respect to the Communists being in dominant control that we have today?

Mr. Lattimore: I presume you are right. That was some time ago, wasn't it?

Sen. Smith: Yes, so that since these men who were known as anti-Communists were relieved of their duties and their positions communism has made great advances in the Far East?

Sen. Jenner: That is why they were removed.

Sen. Smith: I am just asking for the facts.

Mr. Lattimore: Is your argument, Senator, a post hoc, ergo propter hoc?

Sen. Smith: I believe you said you did not want to indulge in legal or technical language, so I am asking you in plain language if, after these men were removed, it is not a fact that there have been great advances by communism in the Far East?

Mr. Lattimore: Yes. Of course, the advances of communism since the death of Julius Caesar have been even greater.^[43]

Harold Stassen came in for a full share of Lattimore's contempt. Stassen's ten-point charge against Lattimore's contribution to the State Department's 1949 roundtable on China was dissected point by point. Lattimore commented on point ten:

10. That no aid should be sent to the non-Communist guerrillas, nor to the Chiang Kai-shek forces. I said nothing of the sort.

In his second hearing, after the full record had been released, Mr. Stassen backtracked. He did not, of course, admit error. That would have been out of character for a Presidential candidate. He attempted to cover up by quoting some member of what he had labeled the "Lattimore group" (who, he said, had "not differed" from each other) in support of each of his ten points. He quoted me in connection with only 1 of the 10, and that in a way to distort my meaning.

Confronted with the absurd discrepancies between the kind of conference that he had pretended to describe and the kind of conference that was revealed when the full transcript was finally published, Stassen tried to escape by doing acts on the flying trapeze, as if he were a road-show McCarthy swinging through the air with the greatest of ease from "205 names" to "57" names and all the rest of it.^[44]

A few minutes later Lattimore said, "Mr. Stassen at that moment was fellow-traveling with Senator McCarthy, and I should say that Senator

McCarthy is a graduate witch burner."^[45] The committee did not take kindly his challenges to its good faith. In the end, perhaps Lattimore's irreverence and sarcasm prodded McCarran m go m the extremes he reached in getting Lattimore indicted.

An interesting contrast in hearing room atmosphere occurred in a break between the tenth and eleventh Lattimore appearances. John King Fair-bank was brought before the committee. Perhaps the faithful six who had attended most of the Lattimore hearings wanted a rest; for Fairbank, Smith presided, with only Ferguson and Watkins present. The tone of the Fair-bank hearing was completely different from that prevailing for Lattimore. Fairbank thinks this difference may have been because McCarran, who was absent, was "cynical and innately evil like McCarthy," whereas Smith, Ferguson, and Watkins were not. But the latter three were as abusive of other witnesses as McCarran had been of Lattimore. More likely, Fair-bank's approach was more to the committee's liking. He began with acknowledgment that "the subcommittee has been grappling with the problems posed by Communist subversion. We know today that this is a real and vitally serious problem." Smith observed that "Mr. Fairbank's statement does not seem to be of quite the flavor of Professor Lattimore's statement," and Watkins agreed: "I think it is entirely different, from what I have read of it." In addition, Fairbank's attorney, Richard Wait, went out of his way to ingratiate himself with Senator Smith. Wait "found a relative and other things in common" with Smith. Wilma Fairbank did not like this approach; she said to Wait indignantly, "Why do you butter up that man?" Wait replied, "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar."^[46]

But Fairbank's testimony was not at all honey. He flayed Budenz, Bentley, McGovern, and the other anti-IPR witnesses at every opportunity. What he did not do was rub the committee's hypocrisy in their faces. Smith began the hearing with a statement derogating hearsay. Lattimore would have thrown that back at Smith with asperity, since Budenz's only contribution was hearsay. Fairbank stood his ground but refrained from sarcasm and invective. He emerged from the hearing unscathed.^[47]

The substance of the Lattimore hearings, like the rest of the SISS product, did not impress the FBI. On April 1, 1952, Branigan wrote Belmont that the transcripts "have been thoroughly reviewed insofar as they pertain to the IPR and Own Lattimore, and it has been found that the pertinent information appearing in this testimony was already in Bureau files and had been forwarded to the Department."^[48] But the committee did put Lattimore on public record under oath about a number of items pointing

toward a perjury indictment. He was led to repeat his executive session claim that he had never handled Lauchlin Currie's mail when Currie was out of Washington. He emphasized again that he had never published an article by a person he knew to be a Communist, except the Russian author. He repeated his statement that he did not know in the 1930s that Asiaticus was a Communist. He said that he didn't believe that Chi Ch'aoting was a Communist. He insisted that he had made no prearrangements for the 1937 trip to Yenan. He again misdated his luncheon with Oumansky but said he couldn't be sure.^[49]

Dozens of the bizarre charges brought to McCarthy by underworld informers (discussed in chapter 16) came up in these hearings, along with the selling of the Vermont farm, the Moscow trials, and the modus vivendi cablegram. Lattimore fielded them all. But his explanations were not persuasive to the committee. At the end of the twelfth day McCarran declared that the committee had something to say.

What I am going to say now comes from the unanimous committee that has heard this hearing. It has been the settled practice of this committee to reserve its conclusions, with respect to the substance of the testimony that is taken, until the conclusion of the hearings on the particular matter under investigation. After careful consideration, however, this committee feels it proper at this time to make a statement with respect to the conduct of this witness, as a witness, during the time he has been before us. . . .

The committee has been confronted here with an individual so flagrantly defiant of the United States Senate, so outspoken in his discourtesy, and so persistent in his efforts to confuse and obscure the facts, that the committee feels constrained to take due notice of his conduct. . . .

Suggestions have been made that the committee should seek to discipline Mr. Lattimore for his contumacious and contemptuous conduct. Clearly Mr. Lattimore did, on many occasions, stand in contempt of the committee. Clearly he took that position voluntarily and intentionally. Mr. Lattimore used, toward the committee, language which was insolent, overbearing, arrogant, and disdainful. He flouted the committee, he scoffed at the committee's efforts, he impugned the committee's methods, and he slandered the committee's staff. His language was frequently such as to outrage and offend both the committee as a whole and its members individually, and, apparently, with intent to do so.

There has been no striking back on the part of the committee. The committee has employed no sanctions against Mr. Lattimore because,

through forbearance, it has been found possible to make progress without disciplinary action. Despite Mr. Lattimore's recalcitrance at many points . . . the committee has preferred to err, if at all, on the side of allowing the witness too much latitude, rather than on the side of allowing too little.^[50]

Then McCarran reviewed a dozen instances where he believed Lattimore had lied. His whole oration came to twenty-five hundred words. The conclusion was muted but clear:

The precise extent to which Mr. Lattimore gave untruthful testimony before this committee will never be determined. Human limitations will prevent us from ever attaining the complete knowledge of all his activities which would make it possible to assess each statement he has made and to catalog fully whatever untruths he may have uttered. That he has uttered untruths stands clear on the record. Some of these have been so patent and so flagrant as to merit mention at this time, as illustrative of the conduct and attitude of the witness. . . . When, in the face of the record, he undertook before this committee a deliberate attempt to deny or cover up pertinent facts, this witness placed himself in a most unenviable position.

The hearing is dosed.^[51]

Pure Kafka.

Newspaper accounts of the last day of the Lattimore inquisition naturally played up McCarran's "2,500-word tongue-lashing." The anti-Lattimore press carried little else. Some papers acknowledged that there was another side to the story: the Baltimore Sun headlined the statement Lattimore made in response to McCarran: "Senators' Charge He Was Untruthful Is 'Savage, Unfair' Attack: Lattimore." The most thoughtful comment was also in the Sun: John W. Owens's article "The Committee versus the Professor." Owens noted that "scarcely anybody remembers that the original charges were not only that Professor Lattimore was Russia's 'top espionage agent,' but was the principal 'architect' of American policy in the Far East. Scarcely anybody remembers that Senator McCarthy said he would stand or fall on this, the 'most important' case in his campaign against the State Department."^[52]

These charges, observed Owens, had long since disappeared. The McCarran committee had issued no significant "finding of fact." What was a concerned citizen to believe? Perhaps now it was appropriate to

reflect on this unprecedented twelve-day confrontation between citizen and solon. Owens's reflection was that "the Lattimore manner and method apparently rest upon a decision that, in the United States, a citizen who is before a congressional committee has as much right to insult a Senator as a Senator has to insult a citizen. He kicked off the proceedings before the McCarran Committee by taking the hide off its members, quite as energetically as they removed his hide at the close of the proceedings." Owens wondered whether Lattimore had established a "new school of deportment before congressional committees."

He had done so, of course, and it was controversial. Lattimore believed that his confrontational style had affected the fainthearted who knew he was innocent but were afraid to say so. As he expressed it in a letter to Vincent, "Intimidation has spread widely and deeply. People find it more and more easy to take refuge in rationalizing. . . .' of course, everybody knows he isn't a Communist, but he shouldn't have talked back to senators in a manner not becoming a scholar and gentleman.' Thus we have a new standard. Senators can hit a man below the belt and keep it up day after day; but if he hits back straight from the shoulder, that is not 'becoming.'"^[53]

Of course, many supported Lattimore's stand. One of the more poignant letters he received was from Barbara Tuchman: "You can have no idea what a lift one gets from a statement such as yours to the McCarran committee yesterday. If enough people will take courage from your words & attitude to fight back against the creeping glacier of McCarthyism, perhaps we can hold off the ice age of personal freedom that seems to be descending on us."^[54]

Another supporter was Vincent, then in "exile" at the U.S. legation in Tangier. "I have just read carefully and with great appreciation your statement before the subcommittee. It is a masterful work of fairness, intelligence, and righteous indignation. . . . [My wife] will join me in saying catch the next freighter for Morocco and visit us in Tangier, where such committees do not exist and free enterprise is rampant—(is this latter phrase pro- or anti-Communist?)"^[55]

Johns Hopkins was no sanctuary. McCarran's blast at Lattimore was sent to all faculty members; the Times said the campus was in an "uproar." McCarran disclaimed any knowledge of the mailing. The Hopkins trustees discussed the Lattimore situation at a meeting on March 28; Carlyle Barton, chair, said that the publicity was embarrassing but that nothing could be done about it until "those fellows in Washington" came up with an answer.^[56]

The Philosophical Faculty (arts and sciences) of Johns Hopkins deliberated in anguish about Lattimore's contretemps with the Senate. Their academic council produced a two-page report on the matter that fussed and fumed and got nowhere. Its conclusion: "It would seem suitable at a future date—when calm judgments can be reached—for an appropriate academic body to be requested to consider whether the evidence produced indicates his [Lattimore's] unfitness as a scholar." The copy of this document in Lattimore's flies is undated, there are no names on it, and it is heavily edited, some changes obviously in favor of Lattimore, some opposed to him.

The date for calm judgments never came.

Chapter Twenty-Three
Matusow, Bogolepov, the CIA, and Other Liars

On March 13, 1952, during a break in the Lattimore series, SISS listened to another of the unstable personalities attracted to the informing business: Harvey Matusow. Matusow had joined the Communist party in 1947 but became disillusioned by 1950 and signed up as an FBI undercover agent. His actions were not discreet; the comrades began to suspect him and expelled him in 1951. His expulsion made him available to the government for public testimony. As he later explained his witnessing career, he invented whatever was needed to make the headlines. He testified before HUAC, worked for the Ohio Un-American Activities Committee, gave evidence to the Subversive Activities Control Board, and testified against various teachers and labor leaders.^[1]

These appearances whetted Matusow's appetite for the big time. He wanted to testify in the IPR hearings. He was already in the "major leagues," but the IPR and Lattimore was the world series. As he later wrote,

When testifying on youth activities before [another] McCarran committee, I had said, with seeming casualness, "While I was working in a Communist bookstore in New York, I sold Lattimore's book, Solution in Asia ." I added that it was used as official Communist dogma on the subject.

This immediately aroused Morris' interest and he asked me to testify. . . .

On Thursday, March 13, 1952, the hearing room was full. No one but the committee members knew who the witness was slated to be. Senator Eastland of Mississippi was acting as chairman.

I didn't come right out and attack Owen Lattimore. I first had to

establish myself as an expert on Communist activities relating to the Far East. I referred to the Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy and its selling publications which were printed in China. I rattled off a list of authors who had written on the subject of China. My bait was taken.

I painted a picture of the operation of a "Communist bookshop network," stating that there were such shops in every major city in the country. I deliberately dropped big names, and I implicated Henry Wallace by saying I had seen and sold a pamphlet of his that was printed by the Institute of Pacific Relations . . . .

This was all part of the broad picture of "subversion" with which I attempted to surround Lattimore. . . .

I climaxed my testimony with the dramatic assertion that Owen Lattimore's books were used as the official Communist Party guides on Asia. Once again, I told a complete falsehood.

The results of my testimony were most gratifying to me when I saw the newspaper headlines:

"Matusow Says He Believes Lattimore Red," "Lattimore Book Had Official Red OK, Witness Says," "Lattimore Book Had Party Line," "Charge Lattimore Book Is Red," etc.

I made front pages across the United States, thanks to Owen Lattimore. . . . I had reached the top rung of the ladder.^[2]

This 1952 testimony was swallowed whole by SISS; Senator Eastland received it eagerly. Even the FBI was taken in by Matusow, who was described as an informant of "known reliability."^[3]

After the Lattimore testimony was finished on March 21, 1952, the hearings lost their luster. Headlines were fewer. Though IPR hearings went on until June 20, never again did a witness attract six of the seven committee members; most were attended by a single senator.

William C. Bullitt, who appeared April 8, brought out only three committee members. Bullitt was a heavyweight, and it is surprising that his testimony was not more highly regarded. He had been the first American ambassador to the Soviet Union (1933-36) and then ambassador to France (1936-41). In 1947 Henry Luce sent Bullitt to China; his "Report to the American People on China" in Life , October 13, 1947, is regarded by many as the most influential single broadside supporting Chiang. By 1952 Bullitt was a power in the China lobby.

Bullitt had met Lattimore in Moscow in 1936; Carter arranged for Lattimore to confer with the ambassador. The recollections of the two men about this conference diverge strikingly. Bullitt told SISS that Lattimore

had claimed the Mongolian People's Republic was fully independent, that there was no Soviet control whatsoever, and that the United States should recognize the MPR.^[4]

Lattimore's version is quite different. He did want to recognize the MPR, not because it was totally independent, but because recognition would increase its independence.^[5] Furthermore, Lattimore wanted to give the proper Soviet authority a piece of his mind about Te Wang. As he told me in 1987, "Soviet officials had been bitterly attacking Te Wang, the non-Communist Inner Mongolian leader. They accused Te Wang of being pro-Japanese. I told Bullitt that Te Wang was a true Mongol nationalist and represented a better chance for the future of Inner Mongolia than the Soviet-supported puppets. Bullitt then suggested I tell that to the Vice-Commissar for Far Eastern Affairs."

Both men agreed that they did have a session with the vice-commissar. Bullitt does not say what happened at that session; Lattimore said only that the commissar listened. SISS never heard Lattimore's response to Bullitt's version. The Bullitt charge, however, is presented twice in the SISS final report.

There were other minor anti-Lattimore witnesses. One of them was David Nelson Rowe, a sinologue at Yale who appeared before Senator Watkins March 27. Rowe had resigned from the IPR board in 1950; his major disagreement with IPR leaders was the position they took against colonialism. He appears to have been one of the few Americans who thought the Europeans wrought well in Asia and should hang onto their colonies.^[6]

Rowe also supported Kuomintang authoritarianism. Perhaps his most revealing statement was about a discussion he had after the war with John Paton Davies. Davies thought that the Nationalist government was incompetent and unstable and hence the United States should not support it anymore. Row told Davies, "Well, when old Chiang Kai-shek wants to restore a bit of order by shooting a few people, you people get revolted by the idea, but in some cases there is nothing else you can do." Davies did not like this idea, according to Rowe.^[7]

Even more unusual, Rowe deprecated Chinese nationalism. The Chinese would not mind being satellites of the Russians. Their attitude, according to Rowe, would be "We don't care whether the Western world thinks Russia is dominating us. That word doesn't express it at all. This is a workable, happy, satisfactory marriage for mutual adjustment, mutual interest; that is all it is. Let us put it this way: The Chinese in their relationship of ideological subordination to the Russians feel privileged, they feel privileged."^[8]

Could there be a greater contrast with Lattimore's beliefs? When Morris asked Rowe about his conclusions as to Lattimore's politics, Rowe was ready: "My subjective opinion, for what it is worth, in the light of my 20 years of study in the far eastern field, is that as of today among far eastern specialists in the United States Lattimore is probably the principal agent of Stalinism. Now, I use this word 'Stalinism' by design."^[9]

Rowe hit the jackpot.

The Baltimore FBI office was also impressed. Agent Alden read a headline in the Baltimore News Post March 27: "Rowe Sees Lattimore Agent of Stalinism." Alden cabled headquarters suggesting that Rowe should be interviewed if he had not been already. Hoover's letter to Baltimore a week later said that Rowe's testimony "had little probative value."^[10] There was no FBI interview. But Rowe had joined the pantheon of right-thinkers whose testimony was enshrined in the SISS final report: he gets fifteen listings in the index.

After Rowe, SISS was in the doldrums for a while. Fred Field appeared, took the Fifth, and enlightened no one. T. A. Bisson, a prominent IPR writer, testified and did not take the Fifth. He had much to say and gave a good account of himself. Only Ferguson was present; there was little probing of the witness, and nothing came of it. Then the committee called Eleanor Lattimore and Catesby Jones, a student of Lattimore's who had helped put together Lattimore's explosive opening statement. Only Senator Watkins was present. He wanted to know every movement Lattimore, his wife, Catesby Jones, Lattimore's attorneys, Lattimore's secretaries, Lattimore's other students, and any other participants on Lattimore's side had made during the twelve days of Lattimore's testimony. Mrs. Lattimore answered all the questions she could and was dismissed. Nothing came of this questioning either. Edward C. Carter was brought back before the committee; that session also was unproductive. SISS was only marking time.^[11]

Enter Ivar Nyman, his real name, alias Igor Bogolepov, the name he used while working with SISS and the CIA.

Nyman was a double defector. Born in Siberia in 1904, he graduated from the University of Leningrad in 1923 and joined the Soviet foreign office. He was drafted into the army; worked for the general staff; participated in the Geneva Conference on Disarmament in 1927-28; returned to the foreign office; had a tour of duty with Soviet forces in Spain in 1937; and was arrested as a Trotskyite and imprisoned in Moscow, then rehabilitated in 1938. He was then, so he said, assigned to work with Foreign Commissar Maxim Litvinov as a counselor. In 1939 Litvinov was

replaced by V. M. Molotov, and Nyman was assigned to head Soviet broadcast operations in the Baltics. When Hitler attacked Russia in June 1941, Nyman retreated with the Soviet army to Leningrad. In the fall of 1941 General Andre Vlassov got in touch with him. Vlassov, a disillusioned Soviet officer, defected to the Germans and tried to organize a "liberation army" of captured and defected Russians to fight with Germany; his aim was to establish a non-Communist regime in Russia. Vlassov solicited Nyman's help, and they defected together.^[12]

Nyman had a hard time of it. The Gestapo at first imprisoned him. Interrogation established that he was neither a Jew nor a commissar, so he was released by the Gestapo and turned over to the Wehrmacht. Since he had had journalistic experience, he was for a year "leading a powerful transmitter for the German Government on the outskirts of Berlin, carrying out the anti-Communist propaganda." Nyman had intended to join Vlassov's army of liberation, but he became disillusioned with the Germans, and when his radio operation was shut down in 1944, he "retired to a German farm in Bavaria, working as a manual worker and waiting until the American troops came and the war was over, which was in April, 1945."^[13]

Nyman and other Russian refugees greeted American troops warmly, he said, but as it became dear that most Russians in Allied zones were going to be sent back to the tender embraces of Stalin, he went into hiding. By then he desperately wanted to come to the United States. By 1947 the cold war was on and the U.S. Army was recruiting Soviet refugees; Nyman got a job with the Army Intelligence School at Regensburg. He was regarded as a significant source of information about his homeland. Both the CIA and the FBI debriefed him extensively. An FBI document says, "Nyman was interviewed on two occasions in 1950 relative to Owen Lattimore and the IPR. He made no concrete allegations against Lattimore but did mention that he had been told by a Soviet official, name unknown, that Lattimore was the most suitable man in the U.S. to promote pro-Soviet propaganda relative to Mongolia. Concerning the IPR Nyman could offer no information of an evidentiary value."^[14]

How SISS learned about Nyman is obscure, but in the summer of 1951 Senator Willis Smith went to Paris for an executive hearing with him. Nyman was quick on the uptake. Whereas in 1950 he knew nothing about the IPR and very little about Lattimore, by the time Smith talked to him he knew a lot. Smith recommended that he be brought to the United States for public testimony.^[15]

McCarran agreed. He prevailed on Major General Bolling, Army G-2,

to bring Nyman stateside. As V. P. Keay wrote Belmont on June 15, 1951, "He [Bolling] stated that he had been telephonically contacted by Senator McCarran, at which time the Senator indicated to General Bolling that he would like to have the Army arrange to have one I. Nyman brought back to the United States from Germany. . . . He stated that Senator McCarran has apparently perfected arrangements whereby Nyman will not need a visa. He will be flown to Westover Field, Massachusetts, and then secretly brought to Washington, where the McCarran Committee has made arrangements to have Nyman and his wife quartered at a hotel."^[16] It was a cloak-and-dagger operation to match the seizure of the IPR files.

But something went wrong. Nyman was not delivered to Washington until April 3, 1952, a full ten months after McCarran apparently had everything arranged.^[17] Meanwhile, SISS staff had worked with Nyman in Germany, and his "information" about Lattimore had grown exponentially. When he testified on April 7-8, 1952, his discussion of the subjects SISS wanted to hear about filled thirty-nine printed pages.

Nyman (now called Bogolepov) was obviously a prime witness; five senators attended his first hearing. And while everything he had to tell about Lattimore was hearsay, he at least claimed to have seen Lattimore—in 1936 when Lattimore and Carter visited Soviet offices in Moscow. It was then, Bogolepov said, that he heard Soviet officials, in the presence of Lattimore and other foreigners, discuss the supersecret Soviet "route through Mongolia to Manchuria." Such a route may or may not have existed, but Bogolepov proclaimed his shock at hearing it discussed in the presence of foreigners. When Lattimore and his party left the office, Bogolepov quizzed Kara-Murza, chief Soviet Mongolian specialist, as to who they were: Comintern or not? Kara-Murza replied, "No, they are not Comintern, not Comintern people, not quite Comintern people, but that is quite all right with him." This alleged conversation transpired in 1936; Bogolepov was recreating it in 1952.^[18]

Bogolepov said that just before he left for his Spanish assignment, he was reporting on the prospects for getting the Mongolian People's Republic into the League of Nations. At a meeting of the Board of Commissars of the Foreign Office, Litvinov said that "the situation is still not ripe. We have to prepare the terrain." Morris picked up this nuance:

Mr. Morris: Prepare the terrain?

Mr. Bogolepov: Yes; prepare the terrain for the action.

Sen. Eastland: You mean you had to prepare public sentiment.

Mr. Bogolepov : That is right. That is what I would like to say. "It is necessary," said Litvinov, "to mobilize the writers and journalists and other people, to describe for the Western World the progress which is achieved in Mongolian Popular Republic, to say how life is progressing," and so on and so on. This was the first decision which was taken after my report. The second part of decision, the second point, was considering who will make this in different countries, whom we have to charge with this—how do you say, sir?

Sen. Eastland: You mean the man who will be placed in charge of mobilizing public sentiment in the west?

Mr. Bogolepov: That is right, whom we have to ask to do the job.

Sen. Eastland: Who was that man who was decided upon?

Mr. Bogolepov: Litvinov asked the officer of Mongolian desk of the Foreign Office, who was present—

Mr. Morris: What was his name?

Mr. Bogolepov: Parnoch, P-a-r-n-o-c-h—whom he would recommend, and before Parnoch could give his answer he asked "Lattimore, perhaps?"

Sen. Eastland: Litvinov said "Lattimore?

Mr. Bogolepov: "Lattimore, perhaps?" yes. And Parnoch answered, "Yes, we will try to do that."^[19]

After this incident Bogolepov left Moscow for Spain and did not know whether Lattimore had actually been charged with this mission.

But he told SISS a lot more about the IPR. He painted a picture of Soviet eagerness to place articles in Western journals that was totally unbelievable. Soviet IPR writers were to send their own manuscripts to American colleagues, making IPR journals "media for infi1tration of ideas favorable for Soviet foreign policy in the Far East."^[20] Lattimore found this testimony risible. The one thing he had tried hardest to do, as editor of Pacific Affairs , was to pry articles out of Soviet writers.

Bogolepov mid the senators about Western writers who published books taken wholly from Soviet propaganda handouts. Among such writers were, he said, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, British socialists, and John Hazard, the Soviet expert who accompanied Vice President Wallace. This revelation whetted SISS appetites. Weren't there others? Yes, said Bogolepov, but he had to be careful. Senator Ferguson then asked, "You are not rich enough to defend yourself in a libel suit?" Bogolepov agreed that was it. Then Ferguson pointed out that in testifying before a congressional com-

mittee he could not be sued for libel. That brought forth more examples: Frederick Schuman, former ambassador Joseph Davies, Michael Sayers, and Albert Kahn had all cribbed Soviet propaganda and put it out as their own.^[21]

One of Bogolepov's claims has been contradicted by a CIA agent who knew him at Regensburg. Bogolepov told SISS that until 1939 members of the Russian bourgeois class were not permitted to be Party members. Since his father was bourgeois, he could not join the Party. Peer de Silva, a twenty-seven-year veteran of the CIA, writes of Bogolepov in Sub Rosa: The CIA and the Uses of Intelligence: "I did know that he had come from Leningrad and that his family had been high in the Party structure in the prewar years. They had had privileges granted by the Soviet bureaucracy to their senior officials—an apartment in Leningrad, a telephone, a car, and they were able to buy food and clothing at the well-stocked Communist Party stores."^[22] By 1952 Bogolepov wanted to distance himself from the Party; thus, he told SISS a new and different story.

Despite the high hopes of SISS for major impact from Bogolepov's testimony, it rated only page sixteen of the Times , and even Willard Edwards could not get it on page one of the red-baiting Chicago Tribune . After SISS, Bogolepov stayed in the United States for a while, speaking at the Harmonic Club of New York on December 6,1952, and testifying, along with Alfred Kohlberg, before the House of Representatives Select Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations on December 17. Both these appearances were chronicled by the Times .^[23] Then Bogolepov disappeared.

One of the most fantastic episodes of the Lattimore saga took place in Washington State during the dosing months of the IPR hearings. On May 17, 1952, Harry A. Jarvinen, a Seattle travel agent who regularly reported the comings and goings of Seattleites to the CIA, attended a dinner party with CIA agent Wayne Richardson. Jarvinen, an immigrant from Finland, had had trouble with various government agencies and was anxious to ingratiate himself with his CIA friends. After a few drinks Jarvinen conjured up a scenario in which, aping the 1949 flight from the United States of Comintern agent Gerhard Eisler, Owen Lattimore was planning to flee to the Soviet Union. Jarvinen told Richardson that Lattimore had bought a ticket on Air France to fly to Paris on June 21, then on to political asylum in the Soviet Union.^[24]

Richardson relayed this startling information to his CIA superiors in Washington, D.C. CIA headquarters seems not to have been particularly intelligent at the time. Without doing any checking whatsoever, the CIA

sent a cable to the State Department on May 26: "OWEN LATTIMORE WILL LEAVE ON A TRIP TO THE USSR VIA AIR FRANCE JUNE TWENTY-ONE, NINETEEN FIFTY-TWO, ARRIVING PARIS JUNE TWENTY-TWO, NINETEEN FIFTY-TWO. DATE OF TRAVEL TO KIEV AND MOSCOW VIA AEROFLOT ARE OPEN. HIS TICKETS HAVE BEEN PAID FOR AND HAVE BEEN FORWARDED TO HIM "^[25]

One can imagine the turmoil in the State Department. If Lattimore departed secretly for the Soviet Union, the escape would set off a roar of anger from McCarthy and McCarran. The administration would be unable to defend itself from such embarrassment. Few public officials seemed to notice that Lattimore had been convicted of no crime, was not under indictment, and had the full rights of any American citizen.

State acted on this cable by requesting the Customs Bureau to place a stop order at all ports of exit, detaining Lattimore should he attempt to leave the country.^[26]

The CIA also sent a message about Jarvinen's hot tip to the FBI. On May 29 the bureau swung into action as Belmont prepared a message for Hoover's signature instructing all appropriate offices to investigate details of Lattimore's trip. Despite the fact that this request went out over the Memorial Day weekend, within twenty-four hours the FBI knew (1) that Lattimore did not have an Air France reservation to Paris on June 21 or any other date; (2) that he did not have a valid passport; (3) that the CIA claim (relayed to FBI by telephone) that he was to depart from LaGuardia was false, since Air France did not fly from LaGuardia.^[27]

Bureau knowledge that the Jarvinen tip was almost certainly a hoax was not immediately transmitted to State and the CIA. In Seattle, Jarvinen got cold feet and told his CIA friend on June 6 that Lattimore had canceled his trip. But the CIA did not pass this information along to State either; the bureaucratic machinery ground on, and Customs issued its stop order five days after the FBI and the CIA knew there was no trip planned. On June 12 the CIA furnished the bureau with Jarvinen's name as the original source. Hoover ordered an immediate interview with the Seattle agent. Jarvinen affirmed his original claim and insisted Lattimore had canceled.^[28]

While the CIA and the FBI sat on their knowledge that Lattimore had no trip scheduled, the press learned of the travel ban on Lattimore. The person named was too prominent, the action taken against him too unusual, for the bureaucrats in Customs to maintain secrecy. Rumors began to circulate in Washington and Baltimore. The Baltimore Sun and the Scripps Howard chain began pestering State about Lattimore, and other newspapers joined in. Finally, at 5:10 P.M. on June 20, the State Depart-

ment press officer, Michael J. McDermott, went before reporters with a formal statement. Major dailies across the country headlined McDermott's announcement in their next editions. Paul Ward's story in the Baltimore Sun was the most comprehensive. It began: "Governmental action to confine Owen Lattimore to the United States has been taken on receipt of information from an 'official agency' to the effect that the Johns Hopkins professor planned an 'illegal' sortie behind the Iron Curtain, the State Department disclosed late today. The action—first of its kind taken against any American citizen—was initiated June 3 and without querying Lattimore as to his intentions, according to a department spokesman. He added that it would be fair to call the action 'a precaution against his skipping the country.' "^[29]

The reason McDermott gave for preventing Lattimore's departure was that Lattimore did not have a valid passport for travel behind the Iron Curtain. This point, as Ward noted, "raised more questions than it answered." The skeptical journalists did not believe a stop order would be placed against an unknown person who might attempt to leave for forbidden lands without a validated passport. McDermott's press conference illuminates the interagency battles that got under way. Several reporters questioned him about how the State Department knew Lattimore planned to go to Russia. Would State stop him if the information wasn't solid and bordered on the fantastic?

A . The State Department does not take action on fantasies or inanities. We had information from an official agency, and it had to be given credence.

Q . Would the booking of passage be considered evidence?

A . Yes.

Q . Did Lattimore book passage?

A . I haven't said so.

Q . You haven't answered the question.

A . I won't.

Q . Was the agency that made the allegation the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency)?

A . I don't hear you.^[30]

One person who heard, and commented predictably, was McCarthy. As the New York Times reported on June 26, he claimed that "the State Department will use every bit of power at its disposal to get Lattimore out

of the country within the next two or three months." His truth had to be hidden, conspiratorial, and manipulated by the Kremlin.

Unbelievably, no one had asked Lattimore about his plans until after the State Department briefing on June 20. The next day Attorney General McGranery instructed the FBI to interview Lattimore. Baltimore agents found him the same day; he had no trip planned and had not bought or reserved tickets to Paris, Moscow, or anywhere else. On the same day Seattle FBI agents called on Jarvinen again. This time he came clean: the story was a complete hoax, made up to enhance his prestige as an informant to the CIA. Now "he was considerably upset and chagrined at the amount of trouble, effort, and money expended on the basis of his original falsehood."^[31] Thus, on June 21, the same day that the Lattimore escape story gained universal exposure, the FBI learned that it had always been a hoax.

The truth in this case struggled to get established in the nation's media. Powerful biases were at work, especially in the right-wing, pro-Chiang papers. Since they had defined Lattimore as the bad guy, he probably was up to something nefarious. And of course he was a heretic, whether or not McCarthy was right about his being a spymaster.

Hearst dispatches on June 22 probably had the highest error rate in their coverage of the Lattimore-Jarvinen affair. David Sentner's story in the (Hearst) Seattle Post-Intelligencer of that date stated that Lattimore's itinerary included England, where he would lecture to the Royal Geographic Society; that the stop order was tied in with SISS; that Lattimore had booked steamship passage from New York; and that the initial tip came to the State Department from the FBI.^[32] It would be hard to be more wrong.

The McCarthy-McCarran forces in the Senate were also active in putting out false information. McCarran let it be known that his committee would discuss Lattimore's trip and possibly reopen its IPR investigation. Jay Sourwine shared the SISS stock of rumors with Lou Nichols at the FBI: the tickets had indeed been issued for Lattimore's trip; they had been issued by the World-Wide Travel Service; they were ordered by Seattle attorney Ben Kizer; they were picked up by Kizer's son-in-law. Nichols told Sourwine not to "get out on a limb"; Sourwine was grateful for the tip.^[33]

With several agencies acutely embarrassed, the bureaucratic game of eluding blame began. The FBI was the easiest agency to defend. Even though some Hearst papers attributed the Lattimore escape story to the bureau, too many officials knew the truth for this version to take hold.

The CIA had more trouble. At first they defended themselves in whimsical fashion. Reporter Ed Guthman of the Seattle Daily Times attended a "not for attribution" session with a high official of the agency. The CIA spokesman stressed that his agency was prevented by. law from having an internal security function within the borders of the United States but could solicit information: "'We have been in the habit of going to this informant in Seattle and picking up a basket of oranges (collection of information). In this basket of oranges, there apparently was an apple (the tip on Lattimore). We don't know if it was wormy, since we only deal in oranges. So we picked up the apple and handed it to the F. B. I, which deals in apples. We also gave it to the State Department, because it, too, seemed to be concerned with this apple.' The 'apple,' the C.I.A. spokesman asserted, was handed on exactly as it came in, without comment or evaluation. "^[34]

This was a lie. The form of the CIA message was not that of a "raw and unevaluated" tip, as the agency claimed. If the claim's accuracy was unevaluated, the CIA would have used cautious phrasing such as "We were told that Owen Lattimore . . ." or "A usu. ally reliable source asserts that . . ." Receiving such a message, the State Department would have been on guard.

But the CIA did nothing of the kind. "Owen Lattimore will leave on a trip," the message read. The recipient, State, was predictably outraged in the days after the story broke to be taking the brunt of criticism. This outrage was clearly expressed in a story in the New York Times headlined "Tip on Lattimore Called Unqualified": "A high State Department official said today that the Central Intelligence Agency had represented a false report that Prof. Owen Lattimore had planned to visit Moscow as a confirmed fact. He denied that the agency had relayed the tip with a warning that it was 'raw and unevaluated data,' as C.I.A. officials had asserted privately."^[35]

There is no question about who was right here. The CIA passed the story to Edward R. Murrow with the same cocksureness: "Everything was fourteen-carat, Lattimore was going to skip, they had it from a reliable source."^[36]

The rest of the story was also a comedy of errors. Jarvinen was indicted for giving false information to a government agency, but when he came to trial on September 18, 1952, CIA Director Walter Bedell Smith forbade the Seattle agents to testify. The FBI agents, to whom Jarvinen had also lied, testified willingly, but the defense attorney made Jarvinen into such a hero that FBI testimony was disregarded by the jury. Jarvinen's "spec-

ulations" about the subversive Lattimore were "fired by his long hatred of Communism incurred in his native Finland."^[37] Jarvinen's wife and mother wept openly while testifying to his true-blue Americanism. The jury deliberated seven hours and found him not guilty.

This was a miscarriage of justice: FBI files show not only that Jarvinen was guilty but that he had come m the United States illegally, had been under a deportation order for several months, and even after entering legally had been in trouble with one U.S. agency or another for years. And the anticommunism pose was dubious. On March 7, 1942, when he was ordered deported by the Hartford, Connecticut, office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, he asked to be sent to Finland or Russia.^[38]

Cold war hysteria caused many malfunctions of the American judicial system, most of them unjust penalties imposed on innocent people. But there were cases in which guilty parties, pandering to the climate of the times, went free. Jarvinen was such a case.

SISS wound up its public hearings on May 29, 1952, with a bevy of six top-drawer witnesses: General Claire Chennault, Elizabeth Bentley, Whittaker Chambers, Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, Herbert Philbrick, and Hede Massing. Despite the stars, they got little press. It was a mutual admiration society meeting. Four senators were present, but not McCarran. Morris led the questioning.

All six witnesses agreed that Stilwell was a bad man; that Marshall's restrictions on supplies to Chiang's forces, and similar actions, caused the fall of the Nationalist government; that the People's Republic of China was a Soviet satellite; that Service, Davies, and other China hands were insubordinate and subversive; that there were still, in 1952, Soviet agents in the U.S. government; that Lattimore's luncheon with Oumansky was damning, whenever it occurred; that it was very difficult for a Communist to break with the Party; that Frederick Field could not have acted as a loyal American; that it was difficult to get documentary evidence that a person has been a Soviet spy; that General Berzin knew for a fact that Lattimore was a Soviet agent; that hearsay evidence of Communist activity was probative; that Communists could not be objective; that witnesses who took the Fifth Amendment were still Communists; and similar cosmic revelations.^[39]

One might say the hearings closed with a whimper.

The bang came when, on July 2, 1952, SISS released its 226-page report.

The hearings had been biased; the report was venomous. The report was as unrepresentative of the hearings as the hearings were unrepresentative of the facts about Lattimore and the IPR. The report was skewed in its portrayal of what the subcommittee had done, highly selective in its review of the "evidence," totally reflective of McCarran's paranoid view of the internal Communist menace. But it was cleverly written. The crudities, bullying, and partiality to ex-Communists displayed in the hearings by the seven SISS members and the Morris-Mandel-Sourwine trio disappear in the report. The report is nothing but a brief for the condemnation of IPR and the prosecution of Lattimore and Davies.

One of the many falsehoods about SISS enshrined in our tribal history is that its IPR report was approved by the entire Senate Judiciary Committee. William F. Buckley, Jr., is the foremost disseminator of this myth. We do not know the precise vote when the report was considered in full committee; however, the minutes of the meeting of Tuesday, July 1, 1952, show that none of the three liberals on the committee voted to approve it. Estes Kefauver was absent, and Harley Kilgore and Warren Magnuson each asked "that it be made a matter of record that he refrained from voting on approval of the report."^[40]

For a document that was to have such extensive repercussions in the political world, the Senate itself treated its release with remarkable casualness. When McCarran presented it on the Senate floor, he was the only Democrat in the chamber. Ferguson suggested that the presiding officer, Senator Harry Cain, issue a quorum call so that if anyone thought there was "anything wrong with the report" they could ask questions. McCarran shot down this request: he knew press coverage and China lobby promotion would determine the ultimate impact of the report. Since the normal press run of congressional reports at that time was only fifteen hundred, McCarran got approval for an extra five thousand—and there may have been a reprinting.^[41]

SISS came to thirty-two somewhat overlapping conclusions, the more notable being:

The IPR has been considered by the American Communist Party and by Soviet officials as an instrument of Communist policy, propaganda and military intelligence.

The IPR disseminated and sought to popularize false information including information originating from Soviet and Communist sources.

Members of the small core of officials and staff members who controlled IPR were either Communist or pro-Communist.

The effective leadership of the IPR often sought to deceive IPR contributors and supporters as to the true character and activities of the organization.

Owen Lattimore was, from some time beginning in the 1930's, a conscious articulate instrument of the Soviet conspiracy.

After the establishment of the Soviet Council of IPR, leaders of the American IPR sought and maintained working relationships with Soviet diplomats and officials.

John Paton Davies, Jr., testified falsely before the subcommittee in denying that he recommended the Central Intelligence Agency employ, utilize, and rely upon certain individuals having Communist associations and connections.

Owen Lattimore and John Carter Vincent were influential in bringing about a change in United States Policy in 1945 favorable to the Chinese Communists.

And there were two recommendations for "departmental activity": (1) "that the Department of Justice submit to a grand jury the question of whether perjury has been committed before the subcommittee by Owen Lattimore"; and (2) "that the Department of Justice submit to a grand jury the question of whether perjury has been committed before the subcommittee by John P. Davies, Jr."^[42]

Television had not yet carried the flavor of a congressional inquiry into the nation's living rooms. Two years later, when the Army-McCarthy hearings exposed the Wisconsin senator's bullying to a wide audience, the public was appalled. The IPR hearings probably would have had the same outcome—but there was no television. Journalists who packaged the SISS report for their readers had not waded through the 5,712 pages of hearings and exhibits. McCarran planned it well. The public got his story, and almost nothing but.

The New York Times began a story on the front page, carrying over to page four; at the end the Times gave brief rebuttals by Lattimore, Davies, and William Holland of the IPR. The Baltimore Evening Sun gave the story a scarehead, with the Davies and Lattimore rebuttals featured early in the story.^[43] This was uncommon. Mostly, the nation's papers presented pure McCarran. Time and Newsweek took the report at face value.

Face value in this case was totally misleading. The report carries no reply to complaints of IPR officers that they had been denied, for the first nine months of the hearings, access to their own files. There was no ac-

knowledgment of failure to test the credibility of the former Communists and pro-Chiang professors. Unbelievably, the report claims that SISS made "the closest scrutiny of the qualifications of Messrs. Barmine and Bogolepov"; it did nothing of the sort. Joseph Alsop and his vigorous attack on Louis Budenz are never mentioned. Dennis Chavez's derogation of Budenz's credibility is not even hinted at, much less answered. The dozen or so "concealed Communists" named by Budenz who sent the subcommittee sworn statements calling Budenz a liar are not mentioned. A mere two pages discuss the crucial Kunming cable, totally distorting it.^[44] The testimony of all anti-Lattimore witnesses is emphasized; the testimony of the few pro-Lattimore witnesses, when acknowledged at all, is belittled.

There is one clear indication that SISS did not want to rest its case to any great extent on the testimony of Budenz, its most prestigious witness. Of the 24 anti-IPR witnesses, the one who gets most space in the report is Nyman/Bogolepov, cited on 47 pages. Budenz comes in fourth, with 21 citations, behind Barmine (25) and Poppe (22). Stassen, for all his bluster and many appearances, rates a mere two citations.

The report does not respond to IPR Secretary Holland's complaint that several boxes of IPR publications he sent the subcommittee in March 1951 were sitting unopened on the floor outside Sourwine's office on October 10. There was, said Holland, "no evidence in the subcommittee's record to indicate that the Institute's publications have been analyzed."^[45] Not one of the prominent business and academic figures who controlled the IPR and who were alleged to have been "hoodwinked" by a subversive IPR staff were called to testify, despite Holland's repeated calls for them to be questioned. Ray Lyman Wilbur, a cabinet member under Herbert Hoover and then president of Stanford; William R. Herod, president of International General Electric; Philo Parker, president of Standard Vacuum Oil Company; Robert Gordon Sproul, president of the University of California—all were active trustees, but none was called. Not a single colleague of Lattimore at Johns Hopkins was called. No liberal or centrist Asian scholar was called except Fairbank, but there were six ultrarightists.

Budenz, Bentley, and Chambers were called, but not the ex-Communists Bella Dodd or Earl Browder. SISS ignored the many former Communists the FBI had interviewed about Lattimore who said they knew of no Communist activity or connections on his part; as late as 1982 the names of these informants were still denied. McCarran did get an FBI report that he requested on the Dilowa.^[46] It showed in the strongest language that the Dilowa was an enemy of the Communists and that Lattimore's sponsorship of the Dilowa was profoundly anti-Communist. This

information never appeared in the report. Lacking most of the SISS files, we cannot know how much similar evidence McCarran suppressed.

Harry Truman was not fooled. On July 5, 1952, alter digesting the news about the SISS report, he wrote Attorney General McGranery:

Attached is a copy of an editorial from the Washington Post on the report of the McCarran Committee. It seems to me that this editorial has the right approach to the matter.

I do not want to prevent anyone from being prosecuted who deserves it; but from what I know of this case, I am of the opinion that Davies and Lattimore were shamefully persecuted by this committee, and that if anyone ought to be indicted as a result of these proceedings they are not the ones. If you find anything in the record that seems to indicate that the case should be laid before a grand jury, I wish you would let me know before that is done.^[47]

Though Truman wasn't fooled, many journalists and academicians were. Perhaps the most influential work coming from a scholarly press was a cold war tract by H. Bradford Westerfield, Foreign Policy and Party Politics , published by Yale University Press in 1955. Westerfield accepts many of the China myths: there was "much validity" in Hurley's charges against the China hands, and John Carter Vincent was very slow in reaching the conclusion that "the Chinese Communists were accepting guidance from Moscow."^[48] Most damning, SISS had told the truth:

No brief summary here can do justice to the massive weight of evidence accumulated by the McCarran Committee during its long investigation in 1951 and 1952. By the standards reasonably applicable to congressional probes, this one was conscientious and productive. Its 5,000 pages of testimony, with extensive and orderly documentation, deserve more respectful attention than they have received from most liberal critics, many of whom have not even bothered to read the committee's 200-page report. Unfortunately, there is room here only to state a personal conclusion: that a Communist solution for Asia was favored by a large enough proportion of the active participants in the American IPR to affect substantially the content of its publications and the character of its public relations work and contacts with government.^[49]

Alan D. Harper, in The Politics of Loyalty , is more moderate but still finds that SISS "was able to discover evidence of a Communist cell within the Institute." He attributes the China hands' "tolerance of the Yenan group" to their "mistaken assumption that these were not real Commu-

nists," although not a single foreign service officer under attack ever took that position. As to Lattimore: "The subcommittee, working at its job as McCarthy never did, established a serious question about Dr. Lattimore." SISS did work at its job; but what was the serious question it established about Lattimore? Harper does not tell us.^[50]

Among nonacademic intellectuals, the pro-McCarran opinion is much more pronounced. Perhaps the shoddiest polemic in the whole war over the "loss" of China is Irving Kristol's article on Lattimore in Twentieth Century magazine. It out-McCarrans McCarran. For Kristol, Lattimore was the quintessential Stalinoid apologist, and the IPR hearings caught him directly in the cross hairs.^[51]

James Rorty and Moshe Decter, writing under the auspices of the American Committee for Cultural Freedom, denigrate McCarthy but accept almost the whole corpus of McCarranism. SISS had an "overwhelming weight of evidence."^[52] And there are others. The public got McCarran's story.

As late as 1980 the McCarran picture of the IPR found its way into the best-selling novel The Spike , in which Arnaud de Borchgrave and Robert Moss set out their scenario for the Soviet Union to take over the world. They were a bit off in their target date: the Soviet conquest was to be accomplished by 1985. And the conquest was to be achieved not by force of arms but by disinformation, the peddling of disguised KGB propaganda, just as in McCarran's scenario the IPR had paved the way for Stalin's takeover in China.^[53]The Spike is grounded on the historical comparison to IPR. Thousands of readers who otherwise never heard of the IPR have read McCarran's version as set forth in The Spike .

The right-wing literature supporting McCarran ranges from the extremes of Robert Welch and the John Birch Society to the more moderate National Review and the book on McCarthy by William F. Buckley, Jr., and Brent Bozell. None of it is probative. Buckley particularly is a font of misinformation. He dissociates McCarthy from SISS, whereas FBI files show that McCarthy worked constantly with SISS; indeed, McCarthy attended more SISS hearings (eighteen) than did any other nonmember. Buckley also attempts to paint SISS as ideologically balanced, claiming that liberals Kilgore, Magnuson, and Kefauver "voted unanimously" for the IPR report. As we have seen, this claim is false.

So McCarran triumphed: in the Senate, in the press, in academia. The next step was to be in court.

Chapter Twenty-Four
Roy Cohn as Torquemada

J. Edgar Hoover despised Lattimore. In the early stages of the investigation Hoover scribbled notes on several reports such as "Press vigorously investigation of Lattimore." When McCarthy made his flamboyant charges, claiming that Lattimore was the boss of the Hiss ring, Hoover let his predatory interest in Lattimore and his impulse toward drama run away with him. As noted earlier, Hoover asked for a grand jury with witnesses announced in advance to secure a "wholesome response."^[1] What he meant was an intensification of the inquisition. He failed to get the grand jury in 1950, but the right-wing press, McCarthy, McCarran, Budenz, and the China lobby provided as much intensification as he could have wished. Paradoxically, Hoover's FBI analysts gradually calmed down his eagerness to prosecute Lattimore.

Bureau investigation turned up nothing to support a Lattimore indictment. Budenz, the most spectacular witness, was a zealot and had only hearsay. Barmine and Bogolepov were no better. Utley did not impress the bureau as a potential witness. The IPR files had nothing incriminating; after each release of SISS transcripts, Supervisor Branigan wrote Belmont that there was nothing new in them.

The main push in the bureau for a Lattimore prosecution came from the Baltimore office, as witnessed by the 545-page report that office forwarded to headquarters December 29, 1950, listing sixteen possible instances in which Lattimore might have perjured himself before Tydings. Headquarters turned this report over to Agent M. A. Jones, who is not otherwise identified but appears to have been a lawyer specializing in perjury at bureau headquarters. Jones spent many months evaluating the Baltimore report; not until September 6, 1951, did he write Nichols giv-

ing his judgment. In fifteen pages he knocked down every potential charge except one: Lattimore might have lied when he told Tydings that he did not know Chi Ch'ao-ting was a Communist. Jones thought Lattimore must have seen E. Newton Steely's report on Chi in 1943: "This directly contravenes Lattimore's testimony, but appears to be the only evidence that directly does so." There is no conclusion in Jones's document, but it destroys every suggestion from Baltimore except the Steely incident.^[2]

On April 25, 1952, Branigan wrote Belmont that despite the continuing intensive investigation of Lattimore, there was still no evidence of a crime. But the SISS testimony had not yet been analyzed, and there were still six witnesses to locate. Branigan did not have much hope for them. He ended his memo to Belmont, "It is anticipated that this investigation will be closed when the leads, at present outstanding, are covered, at which time the [Justice] Department will be furnished a closing summary report."^[3]

Two weeks later D. M. Ladd reported to Hoover on "the background and status of the perjury investigation in instant case." Ladd repeated much of Branigan's earlier memo; the outstanding leads were now down to four; when these were covered, the case would be closed.^[4]

On May 7, 1952, Budenz got another black eye within the FBI, which had obtained galley proofs of a new Budenz book, The Cry Is Peace . These proofs were analyzed both in Washington and New York. The bureau was pleased that Budenz praised the FBI, but the analysts were appalled at his errors. Whether at bureau instigation or not, printing was held up until some of them were corrected. Among other errors, Budenz "drew unwarranted conclusions" from SISS and HUAC hearings; misrepresented Hiss's status with the Communist party hierarchy; connected Agnes Smedley with the IPR; got the arrest of Judith Coplon wrong; and claimed that Philip Jaffe had been proved to be a Soviet spy.^[5]The Cry Is Peace did see print in 1952, but not from the respectable New York publishers (McGraw-Hill and Harper Brothers) who had handled his earlier works. Peace came out in Chicago from Henry Regnery Company, a right-wing house. Budenz never again had a book published by a major house.

By May 27 there were only two outstanding leads. Hoover instructed Baltimore that as soon as these were covered, "you place instant case in a pending inactive status at the same time submitting a report covering the results of investigation not already reported."^[6] Despite McCarran, the FBI was clearly ready to be done with Lattimore. Any initiative now had to come from Justice. That Department turned the case over to Edward J. Hummer for evaluation.

Hummer, a former FBI agent, had worked closely with Father John F. Cronin, who had investigated Communists in trade unions for the National Catholic Welfare Conference in 1945-46. Hummer fed information from the bureau to Cronin, who in turn reported to Richard Nixon on HUAC. Hummer's anti-Communist credentials were impeccable. In 1981 Cronin told me that Hummer "might ultimately be credited with the indictment of Alger Hiss and (for better or worse) the rise of Richard Nixon." In analyzing the Lattimore case Hummer was working first with FBI reports, the Tydings transcripts, and press reports, and then with transcripts, as they became available, from the IPR hearings. He did not have the bureau's Budenz file and hence was not aware of the many derogations of Budenz's credibility. Hummer shared Hoover's dislike of Lattimore: Lattimore was too friendly with Communists, not hostile enough toward the Soviet Union, and too naive about Soviet expansionism. However, in his forty-page evaluation of the Lattimore case dated June 17, 1952, Hummer did acknowledge that Lattimore could at least explain his association with Communists: "He himself attempts to justify these associations in his statement, 'For many years I have made every effort to keep in touch with as many people as possible who are informed about the Far East, and I have obtained as much information as I could, whether they were Communists, anti-Communists, liberals, conservatives, businessmen, politicians, Army officers, or scholars.'"^[7]

Hummer knew a viable prosecution from a bunch of garbage, and his forty pages show overwhelmingly that taking this case before a jury would be a waste of time. He also realized how biased the McCarran witnesses had been. The FBI had at least gotten testimony from some acquaintances of Lattimore, the overwhelming majority of whom proclaimed his honesty and loyalty even when they disagreed with him. SISS, in contrast, had mostly hearsay, and what was not hearsay was from those few "experts" who despised Lattimore:

During the course of this investigation, the FBI interviewed several hundred individuals who could conceivably prove or disprove the allegations of espionage or membership in the Communist Party on the part of Lattimore. As was expected, many had no personal first-hand information. The majority concluded, based on a review of Lattimore's writings, that he was a loyal American and generally took the view that he is an honest, intelligent man of liberal persuasions and therefore could not be a Communist; that at one time he obviously believed that the Chinese Communists were merely a progressive agrarian movement, as did many others who now know the Chinese Communists are

Moscow-directed. [Lattimore did not believe this; Hummer had obviously not read his writings.] A minority of those interviewed using the same standard, namely, a review of Lattimore's writings, came to the conclusion that Lattimore was a Communist or at least a Communist sympathizer and Soviet propagandist. . . .

Most of [this minority] have one thing in common: they are nationally known as staunch anti-Communists. From their pens have come numerous books and magazine articles warning of the dangers of the Communist conspiracy. However, since they do not possess first-hand personal information concerning the Communist Party membership of Lattimore, their statements that he is a Communist, based upon a review of Lattimore's writings, are inadmissible in a court of law. The only way to get their statements and conclusions before a jury would be to indulge in the novel but doubtful expediency of qualifying them as expert witnesses. By the same token Owen Lattimore could produce over 170 prospective witnesses, mostly college professors and scholars interested in Far Eastern studies who would testify that, based on a review of Lattimore's writings, they have come to the conclusion that he is not a Communist or pro-Communist.^[8]

Hummer reviewed every one of the perjury counts being considered. None of them would hold up in court. Even the Chi Ch'ao-ting count would have to depend, in Hummer's view, on the testimony of Wittfogel, and it would be Wittfogel's word against Lattimore's. The new counts suggested by McCarran, which Hummer could not be certain of until he got SISS transcripts, did not impress him: "As indicated at first blush and again without attempting to prejudge the alleged 'untruths,' they do appear trivial and there is some doubt as to their materiality. The instance of meeting Ambassador Oumansky could be further developed."

Hummer's conclusion: no attempt to indict should be made. "It is my considered opinion that this should not be done at the present time." One of the reasons Hummer then summarized was that "to charge technical perjury to minor questions is to invite a full acquittal and thus place Lattimore on a pedestal and make him a martyr, a role he would relish but does not deserve." Furthermore, it would give him a chance "to write a new book, no doubt entitled Ordeal by Trial ."^[9]

Hummer updated his analysis when the McCarran committee transcripts were available and furnished the results to the FBI. As of September 18 he thought only two counts were viable: perjury in Lattimore's claiming he did not know that either Chi or Asiaticus were Communists.^[10] This conclusion was communicated to Branigan, whose response is still denied by the FBI. It is not clear what Hummer thought of going to a

grand jury with these two counts, but his earlier analysis would suggest that he still did not find an overwhelming case. Nor did the FBI.

However, Hummer and the FBI failed to take into account the immense power and zealotry of Senator Patrick A. McCarran and his ability to locate a hatchetman who would do his bidding. Roy Marcus Cohn, late of New York City, brightest of all the legal stars in the anti-Communist firmament, now followed the lure of power to the seat of government as the best man to nail the slippery Lattimore.

Roy Cohn was the son of a respected judge in the appellate division of the New York Supreme Court.^[11] He was precocious as a youth, graduating from Columbia College and Columbia Law School by the time he was twenty. He had to wait until he was twenty-one to be admitted to the bar; the same day he was admitted, he went on the staff of the U.S. attorney in Manhattan. There he specialized in subversive activities. Nineteen forty-seven was a good year to take up that trade. Cohn assisted in the prosecution of Communist party leaders under the Smith Act, worked on the Remington and Rosenberg trials, and led a federal grand jury looking into "Fifth Amendment Communists" at the United Nations.

The latter was a runaway grand jury; Cohn led it to believe that since thirty-nine Americans working for the UN had refused to answer questions from the jury about their politics, the jury should issue a presentment declaring these employees to be subversive. The Department of Justice opposed this presentment; Cohn went ahead anyway. His first effort to get the presentment out was regarded by all officers of the Department of Justice as premature. At a conference in Washington Cohn told Department officials that SISS was about to open hearings on the loyalty of American UN employees, and he wanted to act quickly so "we can beat them to the headlines."^[12] Cohn did not get the first headlines, but he made up for it later.

What he did get, when he went to Washington, was a chance to work on the hottest case around—Lattimore. Cohn had wanted to get the Lattimore case brought before his New York grand jury. He could connect Lattimore to the United Nations because of the mission in Afghanistan in 1950. As early as May 1, 1952, Jay Sourwine had picked up a rumor (this time correct) that Cohn planned to present "phases of the Lattimore case involving perjury" to his New York grand jury; Sourwine passed this rumor on to Lou Nichols, who didn't believe it.^[13] But just to make sure, Nichols asked Agent W. M. Whelan in New York to talk to Cohn.

Mr. Whelan advised at 5:30 P.M. today [May 2] that he had talked to Assistant U.S. Attorney Cohn who told Whelan frankly that he had a "theory" that David Weintraub, and Irving Kaplan, who are presently United Nations employees, had participated in discussions having to do with the selection of Owen Lattimore. . . . Mr. Cohn told Mr. Whelan that he also had the idea that the Special Grand Jury now in session in the Southern District of New York was interested in the Institute of Pacific Relations and he thought perhaps he could work something into this Grand Jury on Owen Lattimore. . . . Cohn stated that he heard confidentially that his proposed action was turned down. Cohn said it was his understanding that Mr. Lane [Cohn's supervisor] was told to discontinue any action along this line by "McGranery or McInerney."^[14]

May 5, just three days after the FBI learned Cohn wanted the Lattimore case, James P. McGranery appeared before McCarran's full Judiciary Committee for hearings on his confirmation as attorney general. Truman had fired Howard McGrath and nominated McGranery to clean up the Justice Department. McCarran knew all about the Cohn proposal; Robert Morris had lunched with Cohn the day before.^[15] So McCarran was suspicious of McGranery. The committee badgered him about the Lattimore rumors and about Amerasia , with which he had been connected, for the first hour of the hearing. Eventually it came down to this:

Sen. McCarran : If it should be related . . . that you were opposed to presenting the matter of Owen Lattimore to a grand jury, would there be any truth in it?

Mr. McGranery : There would not be, sir. I would emphatically say, as I stated here this morning, Mr. Chairman, that I never discussed it with Mr. McInerney or anyone else.

Sen. McCarran : And you have not discussed the presentation of any case with Mr. McInerney since you were nominated ?

Mr. McGranery : No, sir, I have not.

Sen. McCarran : And you are saying that under oath.

Mr. McGranery : Yes, sir.^[16]

So the attorney general-designate of the United States had in effect promised the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee that he would prosecute Owen Lattimore.

McGranery was not yet home free. Senators Ferguson and Watkins were against him and filed a minority report opposing his confirmation. But McCarran led the floor fight over the nomination, and McGranery was confirmed.

McGranery was now in a bind. He knew the Lattimore case was a hot issue, but he had the July 5 letter from Truman bitterly attacking the McCarran committee's harassment of Lattimore and opposing an indictment. The Republican national convention in July intensified McGranery's discomfort: Joe McCarthy's friends paraded around the convention hall holding up large red herrings bearing the names Alger Hiss, Owen Lattimore, and Dean Acheson.^[17] But McGranery knew what he had to do. Truman may have selected him, but Truman was a lame duck. McCarran's power would last indefinitely.

McGranery knew the Justice Department was honeycombed with people, like Hummer, who did not think there was a case against Lattimore; he had to get someone in Justice who felt differently, who was acceptable to McCarran. The impresario who cleared the way was the right-wing columnist George Sokolsky, a friend of both McCarran and McGranery. Sokolsky had watched Cohn propel himself into the front ranks of Communist hunters. Harvey Matusow says Sokolsky bragged that he had advised McGranery "to appoint Roy Cohn as a special assistant to the Attorney General to bring the Lattimore case before a grand jury. In this way, Sokolsky said he had told McGranery, McCarran could be assured that the Lattimore case would not be quashed. Sokolsky jokingly said he was lenient in not forcing the indictment to be brought forth prior to the 1952 election." Matusow appears to be accurate in this report. Nicholas von Hoffman, in his biography of Cohn, also credits Sokolsky with mediating the Cohn appointment.^[18]

Thus, on September 3, 1952, McGranery "directed the transfer of Roy M. Cohn, Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, to the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice in connection with internal security matters."^[19]

Cohn was taking a vacation in August, recuperating from his strenuous labors with the New York grand jury. In December 1979 Cohn told me that he did not discuss the Lattimore case with McGranery before breaking off his vacation and going to Washington. This seems unlikely. McGranery needed him precisely for that case, and Cohn had certainly tried to get it for himself in New York. And he wasted no time after he got to Washington. The day after his formal transfer, he called Alan Belmont at the FBI, asking for current addresses of prospective Lattimore

grand jury witnesses: Karl Wittfogel, E. Newton Steely, Louis Budenz, Freda Utley, Nicholas Poppe, George Taylor, Alexander Barmine, and David Nelson Rowe. Cohn wanted to interview them.^[20]

Thus began a frenzy of activity such as Justice had not seen for a long time. It was bad enough that Cohn swept in with all his youthful vigor; it was worse that he owed no allegiance to any of his immediate bosses and reported to McCarran every time he had a fight with his colleagues.^[21] Cohn was candid about his unpopularity with the Lattimore case team: "Here was I a twenty-five-year-old kid coming waltzing down from New York, being liked, openly liked by Attorney General McGranery, which liking I returned. . . . And here I come in, a twenty-five-year-old guy and people who were fifty, sixty or something like that were sitting around the Department reading newspapers for twenty years and here I come full of action, and you know my light was on hours after they had gone home in the afternoon and I was there hours before they got there in the morning. And I was just, as my friend Senator Jenner once put it, I was the kid who went to the party and peed in the lemonade."^[22]

The FBI got tremors from Justice immediately. On September 4 Branigan was visited by an attorney working on the Lattimore case who described the tidal wave that had hit the department. (The attorney's name is denied, but the context indicates that it could only be Hummer.) Hummer was disturbed. He thought Cohn was going off half-cocked; he and his colleagues did not want "to take a case to court unless the facts are such that a conviction will be forthcoming and that a conviction will stick." Cohn was talking about using all the SISS charges against Lattimore, most of which Hummer thought weak.^[23]

By September 19 Cohn had a ten-page memorandum prepared recommending a perjury prosecution.^[24] This document has not survived, but it must have been close to the actual charges submitted to the grand jury. Cohn was in gear. Part of his unpopularity in the department was due not to his hyperactivity but to his arrogance. One flagrant instance recorded in FBI files was the interview of witness X in San Francisco.

Witness X had something to say about Lattimore's knowledge of Chi Ch'ao-ting. Cohn was determined to interview witness X himself. Assistant Attorney General Charles Murray called the bureau on October 1, explaining that Cohn "was insistent that the Bureau not conduct the interview" because X was the "type of individual who must be coddled and babied, brought along slowly to the point where he will be cooperative, ——— that Cohn insisted that only he, Cohn, could conduct a successful interview with ———." Murray overruled Cohn and wrote a letter to the

bureau instructing them to conduct the interview. Cohn then protested to McCarran; McCarran intervened with Justice; Justice backed down and at 3:40 P.M. the same day telephoned the bureau asking them to return Murray's letter. Murray then apparently went to McGranery and got a reversal, for at 3:50 P.M. Justice telephoned the bureau again: keep Murray's letter and interview X. Belmont, reporting this imbroglio with just a touch of sarcasm, recommended that the bureau do the interview.^[25]

Belmont got another earful from Murray on October 1. Fighting over the Lattimore case had been intense, and Cohn's memorandum recommending prosecution was not accepted by the department. SISS was pressing the issue; all seven members signed a letter to the Justice Department inquiring what was being done about Lattimore. According to Murray, the department intended to answer the SISS letter by sending the committee Hummer's recommendation against prosecution, or at least the "gist" of it. Belmont observed, "It must be anticipated that if the Department advises the McCarran Committee of the results of its analysis [the Hummer memo] the McCarran Committee, with widespread publicity, will claim that the Department has whitewashed the Lattimore case."^[26]

The next day, Belmont got another call from Justice. There was then "a better than 50-50 chance that the perjury angles of the Lattimore case will be presented to a grand jury."^[27] Cohn was winning, no doubt with an assist from McCarran.

There is then a gap in the FBI file as released, and we do not know either the course of the battle over the Lattimore indictment or McGranery's role in it. The next relevant document is dated October 24, 1952. Murray wrote the FBI asking that they conduct further investigation on three of the perjury counts: the Oumansky luncheon, Lattimore's testimony that he did not take care of Currie's mail when Currie was away, and Lattimore's claim that he made no prearrangements for his 1937 visit to Yenan.^[28] Justice was now clearly preparing to go before a grand jury.

About McCarran's role there can be no doubt. On October 3 he released the letter SISS had sent to McGranery urging prosecution. The New York Times headlined its story "M'Granery Pressed on Lattimore case": "The Internal Security Subcommittee of the Senate asked the Department of Justice today what it intended to do about the group's recommendation that Prof. Owen Lattimore be prosecuted for perjury. A letter to James P. McGranery, the Attorney General, which was signed by all the members of the subcommittee, was made public by the chairman, Senator Pat McCarran, Democrat of Nevada. A spokesman for the Justice Department said no comment would be forthcoming at this time."^[29]

McGranery kept his promise to prosecute Lattimore, but he got back at McCarran for the senator's bullying by cutting Cohn out of the action. Cohn told me in 1979 that he had presented the Lattimore case to the grand jury, but his memory was false. Ed Hummer handled the presentation. McGranery had finally had enough of the abrasive Cohn.

The decision to drop Cohn was made on November 28. W. V. Cleveland, duty officer that night at FBI headquarters, reported in a memo to Belmont:

At 6:10 P.M. on November 28, 1952, former SA Ed Hummer, who is now with the Criminal Division of the Department, advised that he had just left a conference held by the Attorney General in connection with captioned case [Lattimore]. The Attorney General instructed that this case is to be presented to a Grand Jury commencing Thursday, December 4, and specifically designated Hummer to take charge of the presentation. According to Hummer the Attorney General has instructed that there is to be no publicity in connection with this matter until Wednesday, December 3. In addition, the Attorney General instructed those present (including William Foley and Assistant Attorney General Murray) that Special Assistant to the Attorney General Roy Cohn was not to be advised of this contemplated action prior to December 3, the day on which the press release is to be made.^[30]

So Cohn was sidelined from the blockbuster case he most wanted to handle. It was a humiliation that by 1979 he had fully repressed.

Between mid-October 1952, when McGranery provisionally decided to go to the grand jury, and December 4, when the presentation began, there was much pulling and hauling. The first list of eight proposed perjury counts was given to the FBI November 3.^[31] They were all specific items: the date of the Oumansky luncheon, whether Lattimore knew Fred Field to be a Communist, his handling of Currie's mail, and so on. Baltimore was instructed to prepare another report, including everything in FBI files tending to establish perjury on these eight counts.

On December 1 the bureau had its analysis of the eight counts. Ladd wrote a six-page memorandum to Hoover: "Five of these instances are considered weak because of lack of evidence and because Lattimore admitted before the afore-mentioned committee that he was wrong in his original statements which are now considered perjurious. In another instance Lattimore prefaced his statement with the phrase, 'To the best of my recollection.' It was later proved through the introduction of a document that Lattimore was wrong. No other proof is available and it is felt that this instance is also weak. In the remaining two instances, there appears to be sufficient evidence to obtain indictments."^[32]

Ladd then reviewed each of the counts and summarized the evidence. He concluded, "The Lattimore case is an extremely controversial one and it is believed the Bureau should take the position that any decision as to the merits of the evidence to support a possible perjury case is one solely for the Criminal Division to make." Hoover, reflecting the general skepticism of the FBI at this stage, wrote at the bottom of Ladd's memo, "The A.G. has decided to have Lattimore case presented to the G.J. No views of Bureau were sought."^[33]

While Ladd was telling Hoover what a weak case the department had, an attorney who had been on the Lattimore case earlier, taken off it, then brought back, submitted to Justice a long argument for a general "promoter of Communist causes" count as the first count in the indictment. The writer was C. George Anastos. Such a general count, according to Anastos, was the "gist" of the case against Lattimore and would add materiality to the specific counts, which by themselves were trivial.

Furthermore, said Anastos, this general count would enable the prosecutors to enter into evidence much testimony that would otherwise be irrelevant: testimony that Lattimore was pro-Communist. He recognized that the new count would involve difficult interpretation of documents and would raise "ideological questions of free speech," but these difficulties could be overcome. After all, he said, the proposed general count "is analogous to and no more difficult than a count demanding the banning of a book for obscenity. In both cases the tribunal is capable of making a finding of fact based on its interpretation of a publication."^[34]

Anastos carried the day. Hummer and Murray agreed, and a general count was made the first count of the proposed indictment: Lattimore had lied when he denied that he had been a promoter of communism and Communist interests. Anastos was barely in time. On December 2, a day earlier than planned, McGranery issued the news release. Lattimore's case was to go to the federal grand jury sitting in Washington, D.C., on December 4. (The news release was a violation of the law on grand jury secrecy.) The press release finessed the question of who would actually present the case; it noted only that the presentation "will be under the supervision of Assistant Attorney General Charles B. Murray."^[35]

So the Times , and probably every other daily in the country, carried the story on December 3 that Lattimore would be a subject of grand jury action. Cohn was not mentioned. The Times story was front page, but not the lead. The lead story that day, with a three-column headline, "Clearing of Spies for U.N. Laid to State Department by Defiant U.S. Jury Here," concerned Cohn's runaway grand jury. Cohn had upstaged

the Justice Department and had gotten even with Murray and Malone, who had tried to suppress his presentment about spies in the UN; moreover, he had timed the release beautifully. Cohn's talent for getting headlines soon came to the attention of another publicity genius, Joe McCarthy. And were there any doubt about Cohn's ability at self-promotion, his remarks to the court when the presentment was handed up, quoted in the Times , dispelled it: this investigation, Cohn said in all seriousness, was "probably the most important investigation ever conducted in the entire history of the United States."^[36]

Cohn's publicity coup unnerved McGranery and staff. Perhaps that was the reason for McGranery's draconian instructions to Hummer on December 4. Hummer was informed that "the presentation of the facts of instant case before the Grand Jury must be completed and an indictment returned by Christmas of this year."^[37] One can understand McGranery's concern. With all the fuss over the runaway UN grand jury, heaped on top of "twenty years of (Democratic) treason," the Yalta sellout, the Amerasia case, the loss of China—what better talisman could a departing attorney general have than an indictment of the man who masterminded the loss of China?

When school began in fall 1952, Lattimore concentrated as well as he could on the scholarly programs of the Page School. His prestige at Johns Hopkins continued high. George Carter, who had run to McCarthy with his story about Lattimore declassifying secret documents in 1950, was silent. Johns Hopkins faculty who knew Lattimore could not believe that the scurrilous SISS report could be taken seriously by the Department of Justice or that the endless hearsay of McCarran's former Communist witnesses could lead to prosecution.

Lattimore was still, at least in the international scholarly community, a major figure. He corresponded at some length with Krishna Menon, Indian foreign minister, about the situation of the Mongol exiles from communism then living at Kalimpong. Lattimore recommended to Menon that India take advantage of the intelligence these Mongols had to offer about conditions in the People's Republic of China and particularly in Tibet. Menon replied, "These Mongol exiles certainly deserve our sympathy and respect; and we shall keep an eye on them. I do hope you will come to Delhi again before long."^[38]

Max Beloff, a prominent Oxford scholar, wrote Lattimore in February 1952 soliciting Lattimore's opinions on several matters relating to Inner Mongolia and Sinkiang discussed in a book Beloff was writing. Lattimore's appearance before SISS kept him from answering Beloff until May,

when he reviewed for Beloff the latest intelligence from Central Asia and noted that both Chinese and Russians wanted to prevent a "pan-Mongolian" movement from flourishing.^[39]

At the Page School, Mongol studies continued as well as possible given Lattimore's absences and preoccupations. The Dilowa dictated his autobiography and wrote political reminiscences, which Lattimore translated. Working with David Eberle and Harold Vreeland, the Dilowa also "provided the material for an institutional and social description and analysis of the position of the Lama Buddhist Church in pre-revolutionary Mongol Society." John Hangin and Urgunge Onon, the young Mongols at Hopkins, worked with their wives to produce a linguistic description and grammar of Chahar and Daghor Mongol; they also provided material for sociological and cultural analysis of the processes of change in Mongol society. Father Louis Schram, the Maryknoll scholar associated with Lattimore, continued writing his description of the sociology of the Mongols of western Kansu.^[40]

Even during the tumult of 1952 many of these efforts came to fruition. The Dilowa's description of his former domain, the Narobanchin monastery, was published in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society . Lattimore's American outlets were no longer available (with one exception, noted below), but he had an article on the Genghis Khan relics in the Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society in April; an article, "Mongolia's New Relations with Her Neighbors," in the Manchester Guardian of November 24; and "Red Chinese and Red Barbarians" in Eastern World (London) in December.

Before the McCarthy onslaught, Lattimore and other IPR writers were prominent as book reviewers for the New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune . This work ceased after 1949. Of American journals, only the Nation still welcomed Lattimore's contributions. The December 6, 1952, issue, which appeared the same week McGranery announced grand jury action, carried Lattimore's "Inner Asia: Sino-Soviet Bridge." This article represents Lattimore's best effort m explain once again, and in light of current political realities, the plight of a gallant Mongol race fighting for autonomy. The article is a lucid explanation of what was then happening in the Sino-Soviet border areas, events to which Lattimore thought the United States should pay more attention. He concludes:

In his National Press Club speech of January, 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson declared that Russia is engaged in "detaching" from China and "attaching" to Russia the northern areas of China. "This process," said Mr. Acheson, "is completed in Outer Mongolia. It is nearly com-

pleted in Manchuria." He went on to include Inner Mongolia and Sinkiang, and to say that "this fact that the Soviet Union is taking the four northern provinces of China is the single most significant, most important fact in the relations of any foreign power with Asia."

Mr. Acheson could hardly have been more wrong, and if American policy should rest complacently on the belief that he was right, there will eventually be another uproar when it is discovered that things have happened in Asia that we have not been told to expect.^[41]

But Acheson's was the conventional wisdom. Everybody knew the Soviet Union had attached the northern provinces of China.

On December 5, 1952, while Hummer was preparing the grand jury presentation, Cohn was in Miami with Senator Homer Ferguson. Ferguson was expected to be the next chair of Judiciary when the Republicans organized the Senate in January 1953. Cohn called Hummer from Miami. His main message: even if Hummer succeeded in getting an indictment of Lattimore, Cohn would "not be able to assist the Government in the trial of the subject since he [would] then be Counsel for the Senate Committee on the Judiciary."^[42] Was this bragging? McCarran was (or had been) fond of Cohn, but would McCarran not have enough clout to keep the faithful Jay Sourwine on as counsel? Would Ferguson insist on his own man? That may have been Ferguson's intention in December, but William Langer of North Dakota, rather than Ferguson, took over Judiciary. Cohn did not go with Judiciary; he attached himself, portentously, to McCarthy.

December 15 brought bad news for the foreign service: John Carter Vincent, after yet another security investigation, was suspended.

The next day an announcement came from the Justice Department. The grand jury had indicted Lattimore on seven counts of perjury. No one was more surprised than the Lattimore case officers in the FBI. Precisely what Hummer did to overcome all the difficulties he and bureau evaluators had identified we do not know. Hummer was a professional, and despite his doubts he dearly gave the presentation his best effort.^[43]

The announcement gave credit to Hummer for presenting the case; Cohn, Anastos, and John H. Davitt were also mentioned. The seven counts were unanimously agreed to by the grand jury except for count seven, on which the vote was 22-1. The grand jury said that Lattimore lied under oath when he denied

1. that he had been a promoter of communism or Communist interests;

2. that he was told that Chi Ch'ao-ting was a Communist;

3. that he knew Asiaticus was a Communist;

4. that he had published any articles by Communists in Pacific Affairs ;

5. that a meeting with Soviet Ambassador Oumansky occurred during the period of the Hitler-Stalin pact;

6. that he handled Lauchlin Currie's White House mail when Currie was away;

7. that his trip to Yenan in 1937 was prearranged with Communist authorities.

Front-page news again, all over the country. Lattimore promptly denied all the charges.

The day after the indictment, Hummer stopped by his old haunts at the bureau. He told Inspector Carl Hennrich, and probably others, that Lattimore would be arraigned December 19; that bail would be set at $2,000; that the judge would grant a continuance for filing appeals until February 15, 1953; that Thurman Arnold claimed he could not defend the case because of other demands on his time but would bring in "the outstanding criminal lawyer in the country"; and that the defense would attack the first count on the basis of vagueness and the remaining counts as not material or significant.^[44] It all happened just as Hummer predicted. Judge James R. Kirkland of U.S. District Court in Washington deviated one day from Hummer's prediction about filing motions: the deadline was to be February 16.

The bureau now began to worry that the case might be thrown out on the basis of their illegal 1949 technical surveillance of Lattimore. Hoover wrote the Baltimore office December 19 requesting that it furnish a memorandum describing "all information obtained as a result of the tesurs [technical surveillances] utilized in instant case" and the location of the logs and recordings.^[45] This information was never needed.

December was a terrible month for China specialists. Many predicted the Lattimore trial would equal that of Hiss for bitterness and sensation. And if the Lattimore trial failed to equal expectations, perhaps that of John Paton Davies would. Davies was suspended from duty the same day Lattimore was indicted. He had not yet been indicted, but SISS was pushing for it, and McCarran got what McCarran wanted.

The right-wing press had a field day with Lattimore's indictment. McGranery's alleged softness on communism was forgotten, and the attorney general received the kind of heartwarming letters from ordinary

citizens that the temper of the times encouraged. Typical was a letter from a Brooklyn housewife:

As the mother of a young man on the line in Korea, may I thank you for at last bringing to justice the case of Owen Lattimore through whose efforts the support of the United States was withdrawn from the legitimate Chinese Government ?

This man has the blood of twenty thousand young Americans on his hands. His only excuse is stupidity and forgetfulness, strange claims for an expert.
God is not mocked. Those fine young men died through the plotting of Communists here. Your job is to get them all.^[46]

Lattimore got letters too, most of them encouraging. Many of his former IPR associates wrote in a morale-bolstering effort that meant much to him and his lawyers at Arnold, Fortas, and Porter. One of the most philosophical tributes was from Miriam S. Farley, a major writer for IPR, who compared Lattimore's tribulations with those of Job. "The parallel of Job, though obvious, is not exact. Job was the victim of an apparently pointless persecution by his own God. The persecution of which you are victims is not pointless, and it does not proceed from God but from the devil. . . . Your public vindication is not a matter of concrete proof; hence it depends on the trend of opinion, and it can never be complete. . . . You will keep the faith, and by so doing you will help others to keep it.^[47]

Arnold Toynbee was less lyrical, more optimistic:

Veronica and I were much concerned to see that the thing has been reopened again. After you had been cleared by the first senate committee, we had so much hoped that it was all over, and that you would be free once more to give your mind to scholarship.

The only consolation is a point made by the correspondent of the London Times: Now that the case is to come before a court of law, the result will surely be final, this time at least; and, as you will once again be able to prove that the charges are unfounded, I take some comfort in this. All the same, I do wish you had been spared this additional affliction, and I am very sorry about it.^[48]

The indictment, like the original 1950 McCarthy charges that brought Robert LeMoyne Barrett back into the realm of Lattimore supporters, was not without its benefits. In December 1952 Lattimore became a hero of the intellectual establishment worldwide. The testimony of Arthur and Mary Wright, prestigious Stanford scholars of Asia who maintained an extensive program of "exchanges of books, ideas and personnel" with

foreign countries, is perhaps most compelling. The Wrights knew Lattimore well, and Mary Wright was close to Senator Lister Hill of Alabama. She wrote the senator February 9, 1953, aghast at the "lunatics who are trying to wreck this country," hoping that Hill would be able to help restore the good name of an innocent scholar. Wright included in her letter a description of the impact of the Lattimore prosecution on her contacts abroad:

I don't think many Americans realize that Lattimore has become a symbol of the last stand of the "old" America, the "good" America—in England, Indonesia, Japan, India—everywhere. On the Lattimore case, the rankest Tory and the most ardent Laborite, the staidest Japanese conservative and the most volatile Indian liberal are in agreement. We do not get this impression just from letters. It is my business to keep up with a wide range of newspapers and periodicals; those who distrust us are hammering away at the Lattimore case with great effect. Those who want to trust us are almost pathetically begging their readers to wait; pointing to the fact that there is another America, that in the end the American people will not tolerate this kind of thing. We have just got to prove that this second group is right about us.^[49]

Whether "this second group" was right or not is a moot point. More important for Lattimore's ultimate salvation, intellectuals in Europe and Asia came to regard him as a hero. The payoff of this response was delayed, but significant.

Several indictments during the witch-hunt were obtained illegitimately; Lattimore's was just one of them. One other fraudulent indictment that we know about, of economist Val Lorwin in December 1953, was corrected. Lorwin was on McCarthy's hit list of eighty-one Communists. Assistant Attorney General Warren Olney III went before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on May 25, 1954, and got the Lorwin indictment dismissed. The government prosecutor, William Gallagher, had lied to the grand jury on two substantial matters. Gallagher admitted to Olney that he had pushed the indictment through rather "than attempt to explain the case to a Senate investigating committee."^[50]

Somehow a similar mea culpa never emerged from the Lattimore prosecutors.

Chapter Twenty-five
Youngdahl

On the face of it, Pat McCarran could celebrate the coming of 1953 with glee. The new Eisenhower-Nixon administration would be a vast improvement over Truman in its zeal to punish Communists. The candidate McCarran supported for the other Senate seat from Nevada, George "Molly" Malone, won a close election. (McCarran opposed the Democrat Thomas Mechling.) McCarran's power in Nevada politics held steady. John Carter Vincent had been suspended by the State Department, and it was just a matter of time before John Paton Davies would get his due. McCarran's immigration law took effect, and 269 French sailors on board the Liberté in New York harbor were denied shore leave over Christmas 1952 because they refused to answer questions about their politics. Best of all, Lattimore had finally been indicted.^[1]

McCarran's satisfaction over the Lattimore indictment, however, ran aground on an entirely unanticipated shoal: the vindictiveness of Roy Cohn. Cohn had been McCarran's eyes and ears on the Lattimore prosecution team, and he reported loyally and regularly to his patron. On the testimony of Cohn, we must assume that McCarran supported him as the new counsel to the Judiciary Committee, which Cohn told Hummer he was accepting.^[2]

But Cohn's vanity induced him to seek revenge on Hummer. As Cohn saw it, Hummer did not deserve credit for the Lattimore indictment, nor should he have been in charge of the grand jury presentation. Either in late December 1952 or early January 1953 Cohn went to Robert Morris with a proposal: they should together show McCarran the early Hummer analysis arguing that there was no case against Lattimore, claim that this was one of the briefs that Hummer had presented to the grand jury, and

get McCarran to demand that Hummer not be put in charge of the Lattimore prosecution. They consequently visited McCarran and showed him the Hummer brief; predictably, McCarran believed them and was livid at Hummer.^[3]

McCarran's chance to humiliate Hummer came on January 19, when Herbert Brownell appeared before Senate Judiciary for hearings on confirmation as attorney general. Senator William Langer of North Dakota was now chair, but McCarran was ranking Democrat with only slightly reduced clout. Ten minutes into the hearing McCarran got his turn to question the nominee.

Sen. McCarran : There is now pending in the Department of Justice, or, rather, pending before the courts of the District of Columbia, the indictment of one Owen Lattimore. That indictment was effected by this committee having sent the record of the Lattimore hearings to the Department of Justice. There is now in charge of that case a lawyer by the name of Hummer. I happen to know from personal observation in one instance—that is, of his brief—that he filed with the grand jury two briefs against finding the indictment. He is now in charge of the prosecution. Query: Do you believe that a man who has evinced his attitude as against the indictment should have charge of the prosecution before a trial jury?

Mr. Brownell : Senator, I have stated before, and I want to state to you and the other members of the committee, that I shall use the greatest care in the selection of personnel there and the assignment to particular jobs to see to it that we get men who are interested in rigid enforcement of the laws of this country. I shall select a person in this particular case that you refer to, other than Mr. Hummer, who will study the record with great care; and, if there is wrongdoing in that case, he will be equipped in every manner to give an effective prosecution on behalf of the people.^[4]

A firestorm broke immediately. The press was all over McCarran's office, the Justice Department, and the FBI with questions. Within hours McGranery issued a denial; Hummer, he said, had initially opposed prosecution but after reviewing the SISS hearings had recommended prosecution. Hummer had done such a good job before the grand jury that the vote was 23-0 on six counts, 22-1 on the seventh.^[5]

Hummer's friends began a campaign to vindicate him. Father Cronin led the charge. On January 21 Cronin conveyed his dismay to McCarran: "I have known Mr. Hummer intimately for seven years. There are few officials in Washington, elected or appointed, who surpass him both in first-hand knowledge of Communism and in all-out opposition to this menace. . . . Undoubtedly you were deceived by someone who was ill-informed, malicious, or both. In simple justice, you owe it to Mr. Hummer and to yourself to get the facts. Once you have them, I feel sure that you will publicly correct the injustice you have done."^[6] Cronin sent copies to Attorney General Brownell and Deputy Attorney General William P. Rogers.

William N. Payne, Jr., foreman of the grand jury that indicted Lattimore, speaking for all the jurors, also sent McCarran a blistering letter, by registered mail, telling the senator that he was protesting to the attorney general and stating that "several members of the Grand Jury have expressed to me the possibility of an investigation and reopening of the Grand Jury phase of this case to discover the source of these unfounded charges."^[7]

Hummer, of course, also protested to any and all who would listen. His friends in the bureau insisted that he go talk to someone in McCarran's office. On January 29 Hummer visited Chief Counsel Jay Sourwine. Sourwine was sympathetic. As Hummer told Branigan the next day, "Sourwine advised that he knows that Senator McCarran was wrong in his statements and, according to Hummer, Sourwine 'doesn't know what to do about him,' meaning Senator McCarran. . . . Hummer stated he intends to write a Departmental memorandum recommending that this matter be brought before a Grand Jury, since it is a violation of Federal statutes to furnish any unauthorized person classified information."^[8]

There followed a bitter series of exchanges between SISS staff, Hummer, and the FBI. The best worm's-eye view of the brouhaha was that of Eva Adams, McCarran's personal secretary. She had observed the whole thing, from the visit of Cohn and Morris with the senator to Father Cronin's storming over with protests from the National Catholic Welfare Conference on February 5. Lou Nichols got her evaluation of how it all stood then: "Miss Adams stated Cohn and Morris are now trying to deny that they made certain statements to Senator McCarran. Miss Adams, incidentally, is not too happy with either Morris or Cohn and told me she was going to have some problems, as was everybody else with these two."^[9]

McCarran had the biggest problem. He had offended a constituency very important to him, and everybody in Washington knew he had un-

justly maligned Hummer. During early February 1953 McCarran was out of Washington. When he returned, Sourwine and Adams persuaded him to apologize to Hummer. It was a hard thing for the crusty old baron to do, but on February 16 he wrote Hummer a letter.

Upon returning to Washington, I find that an interpretation which was never intended has been placed upon my remarks with respect to your memoranda concerning the Lattimore case.

All I intended to convey was that you had written memoranda with respect to this case and the question of whether it should go to a grand jury, and that you had in one memorandum arrived at and expressed the conclusion that there was no case against Lattimore justifying taking the matter to the grand jury, on the basis of the Tydings hearings and all evidence made available by the Federal Bureau of Investigation up to that time. I am sure you will agree with me that this was in fact the case.

I am sorry if you have been hurt by the interpretation placed upon my remarks. I had no purpose of injuring you, and there was nothing of personal vindictiveness in what I said.^[10]

This was all a lie. No false interpretation had been placed on McCarran's remarks. He had been given false information by Cohn and Morris and had repeated it in the Brownell hearing, with plenty of vindictiveness. But Hummer was a gentleman. He replied, "I wish to thank you for your courtesy, and the fair-mindedness of your views. I look forward to meeting you someday. Since I was born and raised in your neighboring state, Utah, I am sure we have some mutual acquaintances."^[11]

McCarran knew the real villain in the fracas. Cohn was not made counsel to Senate Judiciary but went instead to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigation, where his devotion to G. David Schine, and his flamboyant style, eventually brought McCarthy into public disrepute.

Hummer was left with the tainted shreds of the Lattimore case. Over and above Cohn's nastiness. Hummer was appalled at the fanaticism that had led McCarran to intervene so outrageously in the judicial process and to force through a shaky indictment. Hummer knew that his original recommendation against prosecution was right, that the SISS hearings had not changed the situation, and that his success with the grand jury would not be easily repeated in court, where government witnesses would be cross-examined by a skillful attorney representing Lattimore. But Hummer also understood McGranery's position and the need to ride with the prevailing hysteria. That consideration, plus Hummer's dislike of Lat-

timore, led him to get on board the bandwagon. Anyway, twenty-three solid citizens on the grand jury had voted to indict.

But Hummer knew he could not head the prosecution.^[12] It would take a rock-ribbed, copper-sheathed eminence to do that. In addition to Brownell's promise to McCarran, the Eisenhower ethos would demand a prominent, no-holds-barred prosecutor.

This problem was put in the lap of Earl Warren's former assistant in the California attorney general's office, Warren Olney Ill. Olney was a blue blood, a renowned prosecutor, just right for assistant attorney general in charge of the criminal division. One of Olney's first jobs was to look into the Lattimore case, which he discussed in an oral history:

We inherited that case in the form of an indictment already returned. . . . It was within my authority to dismiss that indictment. I read the testimony and I read the reports· If I had been able to read the grand jury testimony and read the reports prior to any action being taken, I would have recommended against an indictment because it didn't seem to me that it was a provable case. There was enough there perhaps to call for as complete an investigation as you could make, on the chance that something more definitive in the way of evidence would show up. But on the basis of what was at hand at that time, it seemed very weak to me.

But I didn't discuss this. I didn't pass the decision on to somebody else. I concluded that I ought to take the load on myself and I decided that we ought to go ahead and try it. The reasons were: if we dismissed the case, there would be a tremendous commotion, claiming that influential people had stepped in and caused us to dismiss the motion against Lattimore, just because he was a well-known and well-connected person. And there would be a great many people who would continue to believe he was guilty and, in fact, would think that dismissal was just evidence that he was.

On the other hand, if we went ahead and presented the case in public for what it was—one never knows what's going to develop in a trial. . . . So we decided to go ahead with it. . . .

So I thought we should find an outside prosecutor who was experienced and who would approach the thing with an open mind to investigate, prepare, and further evaluate the case. We would inform him, when he took it on, that if he concluded that the case was not triable and that the proof was not there, we would dismiss. On the other hand, if he concluded that it was a triable case, and he so recommended, then we would expect him to try the case, and not somebody else.

We got Leo Rover for the purpose.^[13]

Leo Rover had been appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia by Coolidge and held that post under Hoover and Roosevelt until 1934. He successfully prosecuted the Gaston Means case in connection with the Lindbergh kidnapping, taught law at Catholic University of America and at Georgetown, and in 1952 was selected "lawyer of the year" by the District of Columbia Bar Association. Rover's views on Lattimore were compatible with those of the new administration. Olney to the contrary, it is hard to imagine that Rover could have decided not to prosecute.

At first Rover was confident of his case. By March, however, he was having second thoughts. Count four of the indictment was particularly troublesome, and on March 6 Rover conferred with Inspector Hennrich of the FBI about this problem. Count two, in which Lattimore was charged with lying about his knowledge of Chi Ch'ao-ting, and count three, about Asiaticus, could be handled. But count four charged that Lattimore lied when he said he had not published articles by other persons known to him to be Communists. Who were these other persons? Apparently nothing specific had been presented to the grand jury. Four hundred eleven different individuals had written for Pacific Affairs while Lattimore was editor. Could the bureau find a Communist among them? As Hennrich reported this conference to Belmont, "During our discussion, Mr. Rover acknowledged that in connection with this particular count, it is, in effect, a situation of having the cart before the horse, in that an indictment has already been returned and now it is necessary to bolster the indictment by having additional investigation conducted in order to try to substantiate it in the event the Chi Chao-ting and Asiaticus counts fail."^[14]

After some carping, the bureau agreed to check out the 411 potential Communists who had written for Lattimore. But things did not improve for Rover. On March 17 Robert Morris telephoned Lou Nichols with another of his tips about an incriminating letter Lattimore had allegedly written that might be tracked down (it wasn't). Morris had other news: "Morris also told me in confidence he was somewhat disturbed about a statement which he had heard, allegedly made by Rover _______ that Rover had said, in commenting on the Lattimore case, he would much rather have a case in which he had some confidence. Morris further stated this is the line which Hummer has been taking and he had been informed Hummer had told Warren Olney this was a bad case."^[15]

It was a bad case, and Abe Fortas knew it. As he recalled in 1981, "I told Lattimore with all the force I could bring to bear that he had to tell me the truth, that I didn't want him to tell me anything that was not the

absolute truth about what he did and what he believed in. I had a feeling that what he was telling me was the absolute truth. I never, despite what seems to me to be the lifetime that I spent on this case, I never had a moment of doubt."^[16]

But Fortas knew well the political pressures to make Lattimore a scapegoat. As noted earlier, Fortas had warned Lattimore of the "possibility of a straight frameup, with perjured witnesses and perhaps even forged documents."^[17] By 1953 Fortas's pessimism was fully justified. Whatever gossip went the rounds about the case against Lattimore being weak, the massive resources of the Justice Department, the FBI, and the McCarran Senate bloc would guarantee powerful prosecution.

Since the prestigious Leo Rover was heading the prosecution, Thurman Arnold, the best-known figure in the firm of Arnold, Fortas, and Porter (AFP), assumed an increasing role in the Lattimore case. Arnold was fully supportive of Lattimore. Having substituted for Fortas during several days of the SISS hearings, Arnold knew the lengths to which McCarran would go. Arnold wrote a friend in March 1952, "Never in my life have I seen anything more vicious and contemptible than the way the Committee is trying to break Lattimore."^[18] He drafted most of the briefs, taking ideas from several Yale law professors and members of AFP.

Paul Porter, the other senior member of AFP, was less prominent in the Lattimore defense but equally committed. Gene Gressley relates one of Porter's prime anecdotes. Porter met an acquaintance at a suburban Washington country club who yelled at him, "Paul, are you still representing Communists and homosexuals?" Porter fired back, "What's the matter, John, are you in trouble?"^[19] To help with the political aspects of the case, AFP hired Joseph C. O'Mahoney, a senator from Wyoming until his defeat in the 1952 election.

AFP had lots of help in preparing the Lattimore defense. John P. Frank, later a prominent lawyer in Phoenix, was in the early 1950s a Yale Law School professor. Frank clerked for Justice Hugo Black in 1942, then worked as a "sort of personal assistant to both Abe Fortas and Harold Ickes." He wrote a section on vagueness in the first or "backdrop" count and spent several summers in Washington working with AFP. He recalled in May 1986:

It was the most important case I ever worked on. What was particularly remarkable was the moral intensity of the defense. It was the forces of good combatting the forces of evil. The fact that I was commuting from Yale for no pay indicates its intensity. The intensity of the witch hunt for the victims was enormous. Only the very tough could survive. The

rest would cop a plea or run away. What got Lattimore through was he had a backbone of steel, and his wife was absolutely courageous. The most remarkable single feature of these clients was they never expressed weakness, never asked "My God why can't this go away." Whatever McCarran could dish out, Lattimore could take and return.^[20]

Frank also called together a group of his Yale colleagues to help with the Lattimore defense. Among them were Thomas I. Emerson, an expert on First Amendment rights; Vern Countryman, a procedure specialist; and Richard Donnelly, a criminal lawyer.^[21] Emerson says of his work on this project:

I was assigned to write on the First Amendment problem involved in the broad first count [of the indictment]. I was particularly glad to do this because it gave an opportunity to bring before the court a case that would reinstate the First Amendment as a limitation upon congressional committees at least in one area. . . . I developed in the brief the point that Lattimore was really being asked about his opinions, had been asked and was being tried for the opinions which he held not related to any overt acts. It was a question as to what his sympathies were and that whatever else may be within the scope of congressional investigating authority certainly an inquiry into mere opinion apart from conduct was protected by the First Amendment.^[22]

The major burden of the Lattimore case fell on a junior member of AFP, William D. Rogers (not to be confused with William P. Rogers of the Justice Department, later a Nixon cabinet officer). Rogers took the briefs of the Yale group and Arnold, added evidence dug up by Lattimore's associates at Johns Hopkins (including Elsbeth Levy Bothe, later a circuit court judge in Baltimore), and edited the final product. This was the beginning of a long relationship; Rogers handled Lattimore's affairs after Fortas left the firm.

Most of AFP's clients were corporations involved with the government.^[23] AFP took considerable risks in defending people caught up in the inquisition in those days. Lattimore was the preeminent civil liberties case handled pro bono by AFP, and it absorbed vast amounts of time from the very beginning. Fortas recalled:

At the time of the Tydings hearings, we were representing Unilever. The general counsel and director of Unilever came over to see me about a very critical matter involving Unilever. I had never met the man. His name was de Baat. When he arrived, I told him I just couldn't give him any time on this crucial matter which I was handling pretty much alone

for the firm. I told him the reason for it. I told him that with considerable concern because Unilever was a very large client. And I said, "The only thing I can do, Mr. de Baat, is to invite you to come over to the hearings." So he came over to the hearings and sat there and was appalled and amazed. I told Thurman Arnold and Paul Porter that this probably means the end of our Unilever retainer, but that's the way it was. They agreed without a moment's hesitation. It turned out to be a rather amusing situation, because it really solidified our connection with Unilever. Unilever has vast interests in the Far East, and had known about Lattimore. So instead of losing a client, we really gained their admiration. Some years later, Paul Porter and I were in the Netherlands and we went out to the de Baat's estate, and were having tea in the garden. Three geese came along, and de Baat and his charming wife pointed out the three geese to us and said they'd named the geese Arnold, Fortas, and Porter. And de Baat hastened to say to me that the goose didn't have the same connotation in the Netherlands that it had in the United States, that geese recalled to the people of the Netherlands the warning of the invasion of Rome. Geese were much admired in the Netherlands. So they had named these three geese for us for our actions in the Lattimore case. . . . [The Lattimore case] didn't damage our firm; one result was it attracted the best young lawyers.^[24]

Rogers was one of the young lawyers and has a somewhat different perspective on the Lattimore case. AFP at that time was a small firm, only seven members including juniors, and struggling financially. When Rogers finished a clerkship with the U.S. Court of Appeals in 1952, AFP wanted to hire him but could not afford to do so. To make ends meet that year the senior members borrowed on their signatures. Rogers therefore clerked with Justice Stanley Reed of the Supreme Court for a year, and in 1953 AFP had enough money for a new member, so they hired him. And the Lattimore case did hurt the firm:

The partners paid for their courage with money from their own pockets. The $250,000 of time they invested in Lattimore meant a lot to them at the time. Time spent on Lattimore meant time lost on paying clients. And they lost clients as well. Joseph N. Pew and the Sun Oil Company walked out on the firm in retaliation for our taking on the Lattimore case. Lattimore did strengthen the reputation of the firm as an outfit of courage and decency, but it cannot be true that the senior partners did not lose a lot of money as a result. Nonetheless, neither Abe nor any of the others ever complained. The cost was never discussed. They did not go around wringing their hands at the long hours or the fees that were foregone. And, ironically, Sun is now again an honored client of the firm.^[25]

Even before Rover's appointment, Hummer, Davitt, and Anastos were getting ready for the defense motions. Hummer wanted to "put pressure" on a witness (name denied) to corroborate Budenz's testimony; the FBI held aloof from this suggestion, and Branigan recommended that the bureau do nothing without "prior Departmental authority." Hummer was also on the track of John Huber, the "vanishing witness" of the Tydings hearings. Huber apparently wanted to wipe out the disgrace of his 1950 fiasco and get into the top ranks of anti-Communist informers. He hired Edward Bennett Williams and gave Williams a sworn deposition to pass on to Hummer. In the deposition Huber changed his story again. He now swore that he attended a Communist party meeting at which Mr. and Mrs. Lattimore were "honored guests." Hummer was excited about this new evidence and wanted the bureau to interview Huber again to check him out. Branigan agreed to the interview, but it took the bureau a month to locate Huber. Despite the effort, his new story did not impress the bureau, and they passed it on without comment to Warren Olney. Huber then disappeared from the Lattimore file for another year.^[26]

On February 3, 1953, the Baltimore office wrote headquarters complaining that it was difficult to prepare a report on the seven counts of the indictment because the Justice Department had provided no definition of "Communist." This lack particularly affected the report on count four, charging Lattimore with lying when he denied publishing articles by persons he knew were Communists. How was this to be interpreted?^[27] It was a good question; it went straight to Justice, which took three weeks to answer.

On February 6, 1953, Chief Judge Bolitha J. Laws of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia heard preliminary arguments in United States versus Lattimore , Criminal Number 1879-52. The first defense request was for postponement. O'Mahoney and Arnold told Judge Laws that the defense had to examine all the IPR records, which would take two or three months. Rover, for the government, said he was "anxious to dispose of the case during the spring term." Judge Laws set a trial date of May 11. Arnold also said that the defense would file a motion to dismiss. The key count, he said, was "a very vague allegation." All defense motions were to be Flied by February 16.^[28]

Lattimore's answer to the indictment was filed with the court February 16 as required. There were numerous motions: for change of venue, for discovery of government evidence, for a bill of particulars, for postponement of trial, and for inspection of the grand jury minutes. But the major motion, supported by a 100-page brief, was to dismiss the charges in their

entirety. The headline-catching argument for dismissal was that SISS had set out to entrap Lattimore, not to carry out any legitimate legislative purpose.^[29] Further, the prosecution was entirely political, and McCarran had interfered outrageously in the judicial process by trying to "coerce" the judgment of Brownell in his confirmation hearings.

The brief argued that the major backdrop count—that Lattimore had lied when he said he had never been a sympathizer or promoter of Communist interests—was vague and ill defined. "What are these Communist interests? Did President Roosevelt promote communism when he approved Yalta? Did President Roosevelt promote Communist interests when he furnished lend-lease to Russia? Did General Marshall promote Communist interests when he criticized Chiang Kai-shek's Government? . . . Tito is a Communist, and whatever his interests, they are of necessity also Communist interests. Was the Government of the United States a promoter of communism and a sympathizer with Communist interests when by both legislative and executive action it came to the aid of Tito?"^[30]

The brief claimed that the members of SISS could not even agree among themselves, much less with Lattimore, as to the meaning of communism . The issues here were matters of opinion and belief, not overt acts, and as such were protected by the First Amendment. If this case went to trial, it would be "the first time in American history since the heresy trials of early New England" that a person would "be tried before a jury in a criminal case for statements of pure opinion and belief." Since there was no evidence of disloyalty, the prosecution "has fallen back on a charge about Lattimore's beliefs and sympathies, a charge so vague that it could be made a basis for trying anyone in public life who advocated any policy or expressed any opinion with which any future committee or prosecutor might disagree."

The brief also dismissed the six minor counts as nothing but "flimsy wisps. . .. From the longest interrogation of a single witness in congressional history, the prosecution fishermen, unable to produce a whale, have come up with minnows." Each of these "minnows" was then dissected, showing that Lattimore was asked to remember trivial items with no access to documents or memoranda, that he usually qualified his answer, and that he acknowledged error when SISS produced documents contradicting his memory. Further, the matters of fact on which he allegedly lied were not material to the stated function of the McCarran committee. They were totally irrelevant to an investigation of the Internal Security Act of 1950 or any other laws or subversive activities. On count five, for instance, what did it matter when Lattimore had lunch with Oumansky?

Both Whittaker Chambers and Elizabeth Bentley, two of the committee's most revered witnesses, had said it didn't matter at all.^[31]

So the issues were drawn. Rover and his crew now had to answer them. One of the first matters Rover dealt with was the troublesome "cart-before-the-horse" fourth count. Baltimore's demand for a definition of Communist as used in this count was relayed to Rover by FBI headquarters several times. On February 20 he gave an answer. "It is the opinion of this Division that it is not essential to the proof of this count that evidence of Communist Party membership be adduced. . . . any information which indicates that the referenced writers followed the Communist Party 'line' in their writings, wrote for Communist Party publications, or openly advocated the principles of Marxism-Leninism, would be pertinent to the count." While this definition may have satisfied Baltimore's conceptual problem, it did not ease the bureau's work load. They still had to review the files for information on the 411 writers whose work Lattimore had published. On April 13 Branigan reported to Belmont that they had processed 33 of the names; the remaining 378, he estimated, would take 70 days.^[32]

To the bureau, the most dangerous Lattimore defense motion was discovery. The Lattimore motion requested "all FBI reports, memoranda and communications relating to the investigation and prosecution of Owen Lattimore" that had been available to Tydings, SISS, and the grand jury. The justification for this motion was that these documents "may disclose extremely important exculpatory matter." The bureau knew the Lattimore lawyers were right in one sense; there was indeed powerful exculpatory matter in raw FBI files, but this matter had been omitted in the reports sent to McCarran and the Justice Department. Bureau fears of the discovery motion were based on two things: (1) if the amount of bureau information furnished McCarran ever became known, Hoover's carefully constructed pose of never releasing reports to unauthorized persons would be destroyed; and (2) if clever defense attorneys had access to bureau reports, they might sniff out some of the hundreds of "embarrassing or objectionable" incidents occurring during the investigation: illegal wiretaps, bag jobs, leaks to anti-Lattimore reporters, and the like. There were several conferences between FBI and Justice people during February and March to discuss the discovery problem. Rover shared the bureau's concern and promised to oppose the discovery motion vigorously. On three of the memos reporting these conferences Hoover wrote comments, such as the one on March 13: "This now raises greater concerns about our furnishing Congressional Committees with information from our files."^[33]

The attention of the McCarthy-McCarran group was partially diverted from Lattimore during March by the furious fight over the nomination of Charles "Chip" Bohlen as ambassador to the Soviet Union. McCarran was not on the Foreign Relations Committee, which had jurisdiction over diplomatic appointments, but as the New York Times noted, "He is a hard-hitting foe." McCarran joined the chorus against Bohlen: "Mr. McCarran said that Mr. Bohlen's connection with the Yalta Conference was 'enough for me.'"^[34]

On March 17 the government filed its answer to the Lattimore defense motions. Rover had two main thrusts. One was to counter the claim that Lattimore was being prosecuted for his beliefs: "It should be emphasized at the outset that the defendant is not being prosecuted for adhering to a belief or opinion, political or otherwise, but rather for giving false testimony. He was not specifically asked to answer as to his political beliefs, but volunteered to state his political position. His adherence to a belief, therefore, was and is inviolate. The offense with which he is charged is that he lied in not believing what he said."^[35]

The other government contention dealt with entrapment. Lattimore could argue this point at trial, Rover held, but it was not proper in a motion to dismiss. As to discovery, the government opposed it; Lattimore would find out what evidence they had at the trial. Nothing surprising here, and the defense lawyers felt reasonably confident that Rover had not seriously damaged their position.

Three significant events occurred while these motions and countermotions made their way through the district court process to a trial judge.

First, Budenz was caught faking again. One of the IPR trustees Budenz fingered as a Communist was Benjamin Kizer of Spokane, Washington. Kizer had written book reviews for Pacific Affairs . Budenz had told SISS his standard story that Kizer had been identified as a Communist by Earl Browder and Jack Stachel. The bureau told its Seattle office to investigate Kizer. When the report came from Seattle March 20, it made mincemeat of Budenz's charge. Kizer was clearly anti-Communist, having worked in the Crusade for Freedom launched by General Lucius Clay to combat Soviet propaganda in Europe. The Seattle SAC considered the matter closed.^[36]

Second, in late March, Roy Cohn got back into the attack on Lattimore. He and David Schine, reporting to a public hearing of McCarthy's Senate Permanent Investigations Subcommittee about their "research" into U.S. libraries in Europe, noted that these libraries had books by Lattimore. One of them was actually Ordeal by Slander , which had as its main target a senator of the United States.^[37]

And third, the end of March saw Chip Bohlen win his fight and enter service as ambassador to Moscow; and Chief Judge Laws assigned the Lattimore case to Judge Luther W. Youngdahl.

In April 1951, when President Truman fired General Douglas MacArthur for insubordination and torrents of obloquy descended on the White House, only one of the forty-eight state governors publicly supported the President. On July 5, 1951, Truman called that governor in and offered him an appointment to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The governor was Luther W. Youngdahl, Republican of Minnesota, fervent Lutheran and strong defender of the Constitution.

Luther Youngdahl was born in Minneapolis in 1896. He graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College, served in the Army during World War I, and earned a degree at Minneapolis College of Law in 1921. From 1931 to 1936 he was a municipal judge in Minneapolis, then a Hennepin County court judge until 1942. From 1942 to 1946 he was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Minnesota. The appellate bench was not to his liking, so in 1946 he sought and obtained the Republican nomination for governor. He won handily and was elected to that office three times. The Washington Post described him as "the state's most popular political figure." He was a tough "law and order" governor, enforcing the Minnesota liquor laws and driving out organized crime. His Lutheran faith played a strong role in his political life; Robert Esbjornson subtitles his biography of Youngdahl A Christian in Politics . Youngdahl told a Washington Post reporter, "Not once—not once during the three terms that I was governor of Minnesota—did anyone ever approach me to ask a favor, not about a contract or anything else. Of course, they knew they would have been thrown down to the bottom of the steps of the Capitol if they had tried."^[38]

Successful as Youngdahl was at politics, he grew tired of political battles and decided that he wanted to finish his career trying cases in a courtroom. Truman's offer of a district court appointment came just at the right time.

Youngdahl listened to O'Mahoney, Arnold, and Rover argue the defense motions on March 31 and April 1. O'Mahoney led for the defense and got most of the press. As recorded by the Baltimore Sun ,

O'Mahoney declared that the Bohlen incident showed to what extent "fear and hysteria have driven some senators. . . . Bohlen might have been in this defendant's shoes. We cannot give way to hysteria. We cannot give way to political indictments."

Should the charges against Lattimore be upheld, O'Mahoney contended, "many a citizen of the United States in the future will be made a victim of an intolerant committee of Congress.". . .

The former senator said he was not challenging Congress' right to investigate where it pleases, but he added it was a different matter when the court was asked to punish a man on a deliberately "vague" charge. . . .

O'Mahoney pointed to Lattimore's testimony denying that he had ever been a Communist. The former senator maintained it was no accident that the Government skipped this Lattimore denial in its search for grounds for an indictment and that it ultimately decided on a charge the Baltimore professor had promoted communism. The Government, according to O'Mahoney, was deliberately seeking a vague indictment.^[39]

For the Lattimores, the court was a welcome improvement over previous hearings, contrasting startlingly with the twelve poisonous days before McCarran. For the first time Lattimore's counsel were able to function as counsel normally do: presenting the defense case coherently without imperious and belittling interruptions, in an atmosphere where the presiding officer was required to assume the innocence of the accused until proven guilty. This time, too, Lattimore was a spectator, not a combatant.

Nonetheless, the hearing was stressful. Eleanor Lattimore told the Barretts, "This has been another one of those Alice in Wonderland performances which seemed so unreal that it was difficult to believe it concerned us in any way."^[40] And while Arnold and O'Mahoney (Fortas could not attend) were unshackled, the presence of a battery of seven government lawyers dedicated to putting Lattimore in jail was unnerving. Rover himself, as Lattimore saw it, displayed a full measure of acrimony, snarling the name "Lattimore" in a tone more appropriate for Judas Iscariot, spitting out the words "professor" and "intellectual" as if he were before a jury of illiterates, insinuating that in defending himself Lattimore had been demanding special privileges.

This latter insinuation rankled especially with Lattimore: "One of the most outrageous things was his completely cynical accusation that I myself was responsible for the publicity about my case because of having published Ordeal by Slander . He seemed to think people would assume that loose and sensational slanders against me made with Congressional immunity that projected me into the headlines not only in my own country but all over the world were not 'publicity' but that anything I said to

dear my own good name was self-seeking publicity for no other purpose than to get myself talked about, as if I enjoyed it."^[41]

There were other prejudicial tactics from Rover, including a statement that Lattimore's conscience was "between him and his God, that is if Lattimore believes in God." Rover also claimed that Lattimore had held a press conference just before the McCarran hearings, which was false, and that Lattimore had given his statement to the press before he gave it to the committee, which was also false.^[42]

O'Mahoney led off for the defense, startling the Lattimores with old-fashioned eloquence that reminded Eleanor of the evangelist Billy Sunday. As a Catholic and former senator, O'Mahoney could attack the McCarran committee as no one else could. Arnold, in contrast, was scholarly and deadly logical. He cited two recent precedents, the Bowers and Rumely cases, which were appellate decisions supporting the defense contention that McCarran had been illegitimately probing Lattimore's beliefs, not asking questions germane to the charter of the committee. Youngdahl questioned Arnold on these precedents, and the judge dearly understood Arnold's argument.^[43]

On the first day of the hearing Youngdahl requested that Rover re-phrase the first count of the indictment as if he were charging a jury. This rephrasing, Youngdahl said, was necessary because he believed that indictments that could not be rephrased in simple, nontechnical language were often flawed. Rover responded evasively to this request, saying that it could be done only after all the evidence had been presented. Youngdahl sat poker-faced through Rover's response. Arnold and O'Mahoney felt that Youngdahl would throw out this first count.

The defense team and Lattimore were less optimistic about the minor counts. It seemed to them inevitable that any judge would be influenced by the universal assumption of the time that "where there is so much smoke there must be at least some fire and not just the nefarious activities of incendiaries and throwers of smoke bombs." They expected that Youngdahl would strike the first count on vagueness and First Amendment grounds but yield to public opinion by ruling "let the jury decide" on the rest. And the government had been working on public opinion. From friends at Johns Hopkins, the Indian embassy, and various newspapers, they knew that Justice Department lawyers had put out the story that Lattimore was going to be convicted with the aid of "surprise witnesses from Asia" and that his defenders had better stay away from him for their own good.^[44] This rumor was fraudulent: there were no surprise witnesses from Asia—or from anywhere else.

At the close of the hearing Youngdahl denied the defense motion for change of venue, took the motions for dismissal and a bill of particulars under advisement, and granted the motion for postponement. Trial was set for mid-October 1953.

Rover claimed during the hearing that the government was seeking not to persecute Lattimore but only to prosecute him for perjury; and he promised that "every scrap of admissible evidence that can be secured" would be offered at trial.^[45]

The FBI was fully mobilized to provide Rover with his "scraps of evidence." Baltimore alone had twenty-five agents working exclusively on preparation of a full report on the seven counts of the indictment; this team did not include agents working in the field. There were probably another seventy-five agents assigned to the Lattimore case in headquarters, the Washington field office, New York, and other major cities. Crackpots were still coming out of the woodwork, taking agent time to check them out. Many of them were still approaching McCarthy and Surine. One of Surine's sources touted the potential testimony of a soldier of fortune named Dimitri Bourlin. Bourlin had allegedly dealt with Lattimore in Inner Mongolia. The FBI referred the Bourlin charge to Army. Army replied that they "assumed that the Bureau knew that Bourlin had been thoroughly discredited as an agent"; that there was no record of Bourlin ever having been in Mongolia; and that Bourlin was too young to have been in Mongolia when Lattimore was there. Finally, in May 1953 Army Intelligence located Bourlin in Pundu Jail, Kuala Lumpur: narcotics running. It was like that for hundreds of hot tips.^[46]

But presumably respectable people were after Lattimore, too. In April, John T. Flynn's Lattimore Story came out from Devin-Adair, a right-wing publisher. A blurb inside the front cover shows how Flynn publicized the SISS findings:

Asked to tell why he wrote this book, John T. Flynn replied: "As the weird story of Owen Lattimore unfolded itself in official documents and sworn testimony, I noted that it had one flaw. It was unbelievable . In a Dumas novel of intrigue at the court of Louis XV, it might be accepted. But in America—the America of the 1950s—it seemed fantastically out of place and utterly incredible. Much has been written about it, but now all the evidence is available. Few have the time or means of sifting the immense folios of testimony and incriminating documents, which were dramatically unearthed in an old barn, as might be done in a screen thriller.

"I have therefore tried to fit together in this small volume all the characters, episodes, intrigues and confessions buried in 14 large volumes of testimony and documents, out of which emerges the curious story of a conspiracy involving over four dozen writers, journalists, educators, and high-ranking government officials—almost all Americans—to force the American State Department to betray China and Korea into the hands of the Communists. Unbelievable as this strange enterprise may seem, the proofs are now all here—not assumptions and suspicions and tortured deductions, but proofs. That is why I have written this book."

And Flynn was not alone. On April 5, 1953, twenty-eight writers and public figures sent a statement to seven hundred newspapers around the country protesting that McCarthy had not been treated fairly by the media. "Hardly any" literary critics had reviewed the senator's book, McCarthyism—The Fight for America , whereas Lattimore's Ordeal by Slander received "the widest coverage" and "the most extravagant and uncritical support" when it was published. Among the signers of this protest: William F. Bucldey, Jr., Adolphe Menjou, Kenneth Colegrove, George Creel, Ralph de Toledano, Eugene Lyons, Felix Morley.^[47]

Budenz got another black eye in April. In checking bureau files of the 411 Pacific Affairs writers, Budenz's 1950 SISS executive session charge that Catherine Porter was a concealed Communist came to light. Headquarters asked New York what they had in their flies about Porter. What came back was disconcerting. When bureau agents had interviewed Budenz about the Porter charge in late 1950, he "was unable to supply any identifying data concerning the person he named and was unable to recall how he came to the conclusion that she was a Communist." Another scrap of evidence down the drain. The New York report concluded, "In view of above, no further action being taken by NYO with respect to Porter."^[48]

There was plenty of action in the national political arena. In the month after Youngdahl held the first hearing in the Lattimore case, McCarthy, Dulles, Stassen, and Eisenhower staged their running battle over whether the senator could negotiate with foreign ship owners to keep them from trading with China. Stassen waffled, Ike waffled, Dulles waffled—only McCarthy stood firm. Journalists and politicos began to snipe at Eisenhower's lack of leadership in his party's battles with McCarthy. The Rosenberg lawyers flied another unsuccessful appeal of the death penalty. The Supreme Court barred Abraham Isserman, attorney for the eleven convicted Communist party leaders, from practice before it. Cohn and

Schine went on their whirlwind tour of U.S. libraries in Europe, finding subversive literature everywhere. HUAC concluded hearing forty-five witnesses in Hollywood. National Commander Lewis K. Gough of the American Legion urged the United States to meet Soviet threats with Soviet tactics. Charlie Chaplin gave up trying to reenter the United States. John Paton Davies was moved from the exposed salient of Germany to a post in Peru. Patrick Hurley, making his second run for a New Mexico Senate seat against Dennis Chavez, got the backing of the Senate Committee on Elections for an investigation of the vote. The Subversive Activities Control Board ordered the Communist party to register as a group seeking the overthrow of the government. Brownell announced the first twelve organizations ordered to register under the Internal Security Act of 1950. Eisenhower issued Executive Order 10450, tightening regulations for assuring the security of federal employees. John Carter Vincent, forced into retirement by Dulles in March, returned to the United States with a blast at the China lobby. Senator Herbert Lehman of New York attacked "McCarthyism and Jenneritis." From reading the newspapers of the time, one could conclude that the most important business before the country was a hunt for domestic subversives.

And on May 2, 1953, Judge Luther Youngdahl stoked the fires of the flaming witch-hunt with an order making headlines from coast to coast. Four counts of the Lattimore indictment, including the all-important first count, were thrown out, and the remaining counts were held to be of doubtful materiality, a matter that could be challenged at trial. It was a startling, sweeping, powerful decision.

Having in mind the necessity of weighing the balance between the broad power of Congress to investigate and the protections afforded individuals by the Bill of Rights, as pointed out in Douds, and applying the rule to the indictment here, the Court is convinced that the first count is fatally defective. Under this count the defendant is charged with lying in denying that he had ever been a sympathizer or promoter of Communism or Communist interests. It is a statement made by defendant to the Committee.

First, this count is violative of the Sixth Amendment which protects the accused in the right to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against him. The test has been laid down in Sutton . . . where the Court held that the meaning of the Sixth Amendment was that the defendant: ". . . be so fully and clearly informed of the charge against him as not only to enable him to prepare his defense and not be taken by surprise at the trial, but also that the information as to the alleged offense shall be so definite and certain that he may be protected

by a plea of former jeopardy against another prosecution for the same offense."^[49]

Further, this count did not meet the requirement of rule 7(c) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure; it was not a plain, concise, and definite statement of the offense charged. The "sympathizer and promoter of Communist interests" language was so nebulous that a jury would have to "indulge in speculation" as to what it meant. And this count was fatally defective because it restricted Lattimore's freedom of belief and expression, both protected by the First Amendment. Youngdahl acknowledged the climate of the times in concluding his rejection of the first count: "Communism's fallacy and viciousness can be demonstrated without striking down the First Amendment protection of discourse, discussion, and debate. When public excitement runs high as to alien ideologies, is the time when we must be particularly alert not to impair the ancient landmarks set up by the Bill of Rights."

Counts three and four were also stricken as violating the First and Sixth amendments, and count seven was defective "in its plain inconsistency and indefiniteness." And on the remaining three counts, "The allegations in counts two, five and six are so indefinite that the Court feels the defendant is entitled to a bill of particulars giving him certain information as to enable him to defend." Lattimore refused comment in Baltimore, "but his voice reflected obvious jubilation." Rogers says there was indeed a "big celebration. But we knew it would be appealed. One was allowed 24 hours of celebration, then it was back to the case."^[50]

Senator Arthur Watkins said on the basis of "reports he had of the decision Judge Youngdahl's reasoning appeared to be faulty." Senator McCarran had no comment. Overnight Youngdahl became the lightning rod for the wrath of the pro-McCarthy press and the recipient of the hate mail that always comes to heretics and defenders of heretics.^[51]

Again the burden of response was on Rover.

Chapter Twenty-six
Rover, Asiaticus, and BDPT

When Lattimore was indicted, Johns Hopkins put him on leave with pay. He continued to have use of his office and secretary but taught no classes. He appreciated the fact that he had not been fired; many teachers at other institutions were. Several of Hopkins's conservative trustees, however, wanted to be rid of him. At least two trustees resigned, allegedly because Lattimore was kept on. Detlev Bronk, then president of Johns Hopkins, was said to be "driven to despair by trustee pressure to fire Lattimore."^[1]

One of the ways in which President Bronk eased trustee unhappiness about their notorious heretic was by abolishing the Walter Hines Page School, and hence the position of director that Lattimore held. Bronk announced this action April 16, 1953, attributing it to "a broad reorganization plan."^[2]

Memories of Hopkins personnel as to attitudes toward Lattimore vary widely. Bowman, who brought Lattimore to Hopkins in the first place and promoted his work for the Council of Foreign Relations, lived to see Lattimore attacked by McCarthy. FBI interviews of Bowman, if they are among the documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, are so heavily censored as to be unidentifiable. But an evaluation of what Bowman told the FBI appears in Hummer's memorandum of June 17, 1952:

One of the most honest and fair appraisals of Lattimore was given by his friend, the late president of John Hopkins, Isaiah Bowman, who told the Bureau that he believed Lattimore was not a Communist. Bowman has had since 1938, he stated, many conversations with Lattimore. He described Lattimore as one who "likes to play in the shadows" and has no sense about the company he keeps; that Lattimore has spoken to

some groups of a "questionable nature of a Communist tinge"; that Lattimore has no objection to people seeing him under compromising circumstances; that he is the type who would have no hesitancy in openly contacting a known Communist. Bowman was well acquainted that Lattimore has been branded a Communist on occasion and he can well understand why.^[3]

To Hummer's credit, he adds Lattimore's rebuttal to such charges of keeping "questionable" company at times: "For many years I have made every effort to keep in touch with as many people as possible who are informed about the Far East, and I have obtained as much information as I could, whether they were Communists, anti-Communists, liberals, conservatives, businessmen, politicians, Army officers or scholars."

According to some sources, Bowman supported Lattimore until his death in 1950; others claim that Bowman became disillusioned and no longer trusted Lattimore. Neil Smith, who has studied the Bowman papers extensively, and David Harvey, who taught at Hopkins for nineteen years, think Bowman had turned against Lattimore by 1948, when Bronk took over the presidency. Former Dean Wilson Shaffer told me that he had seen a several-inch-thick file on Lattimore in the possession of then-Provost Stewart Macaulay. This file cannot now be found. Since Macaulay was a prime FBI contact on the Hopkins campus, his file might clear up the question.^[4]

Most of the Hopkins faculty strongly supported Lattimore. The most striking effort on Lattimore's behalf was that of philosopher George Boas. Boas was particularly concerned with the sniping of SISS and various columnists at Lattimore's lack of a Ph.D., even of a college degree of any kind, and the fact that unlike most professors, Lattimore wrote for public consumption. Boas therefore compiled a list of the leading Asian scholars in this country, and some in Europe, and wrote them asking for their opinions of Lattimore's scholarship. Boas omitted, of course, the six professors who testified against Lattimore to SISS.

Thirty-seven of these prominent academicians responded, and Boas and Harvey Wheeler, also a Hopkins professor, published the letters in February 1953 in a pamphlet titled Lattimore the Scholar . Some of those who responded stated that they disagreed with Lattimore's political positions and foreign policy advice, but all of them found his scholarship worthy, and many regarded him as the world's preeminent student of Central Asia. To the ideologically committed, Boas's booklet was a provocation. To the Justice Department, it was a clue to probable defense witnesses. Olney wrote Hoover February 23 asking the bureau to furnish a copy of

the pamphlet.^[5] Every single one of the scholars represented was investigated by the bureau, including the Englishmen Arnold Toynbee and I. A. Richards, the Belgian priests A. Mostaert and Louis M. J. Schram, the Dutch scholar J. J. L. Duyvendak, and several Germans.

Boas had another project: a defense fund. In January 1953, with the encouragement of "several members of the faculty," he sent out one thousand letters to Hopkins professors asking them to contribute to Lattimore's defense. According to the Baltimore Evening Sun , Boas's goal was $40,000. The local solicitation did not reach this goal, so Boas expanded his mailings to Asian specialists, geographers, and others on campuses elsewhere. Eventually, eighteen hundred people contributed $38,000.^[6]

Provost Macaulay told the Evening Sun reporter that the university took no position on the Lattimore defense fund, but they may not have been completely candid. Gwinn Owens of the Sun Papers stated that during this period he worked for the Hopkins Fund, which sought private contributions to the university and its hospital. Owens supported Lattimore and contributed to his defense. J. Douglas Coleman, director of the Hopkins Fund, told Owens, "It's alright for you to give money to the Lattimore defense, but I won't get involved. That guy's ruined too many breakfasts for me."^[7]

Creation of the Lattimore defense fund opened new avenues of investigation for the FBI. Their check on his net worth had long since been dropped; his assets were consistent with his legitimate earnings and normal expenditures. But this new fund! The Justice Department prosecutors were sure that the Communist party would show its hand here. So the bureau began a new search, this time for the subversive connections of Boas, the three advisors to the fund, the treasurer, and all the contributors they could locate. Before it was over, the accumulation of paperwork was so massive the bureau was forced to set up a new title for the investigation, "Owen Lattimore Defense Fund—IS-C," and a new file number, 100-400471.^[8]

It is not likely that the bureau managed to investigate all eighteen hundred contributors, but all of those who wrote letters for Lattimore the Scholar were on a priority list and thoroughly checked. This activity was under very tight secrecy because of the "risk of this type of inquiry becoming known to the defense and being used by them at trial, or in the press, or both, to the embarrassment of both the Department and the Bureau."^[9]

On August 20, 1953, the Baltimore office summarized what it had learned about the Lattimore defense fund. The cover letter noted, "This report . . . contains no instances of Communist Party or Communist Party front

group support, other than oral expression of approval. The report identifies _______ supporters to be, for the most part, educators, students, and other persons of left-wing liberal or individualistic attitudes." In December a bureau informant at the Johns Hopkins branch of the First National Bank of Baltimore noted that deposits in the fund account "have dwindled down to an occasional check now and then." One of the occasional checks was from Eleanor Roosevelt: $100. No incriminating contributions were ever found, and the late George Boas never knew how much trouble and expense he caused the United States government.^[10]

While Boas and other senior Hopkins faculty survived their support of Lattimore without appreciable damage, some nontenured supporters were not so fortunate. John DeFrancis, later a respected sinologue at the University of Hawaii, was an assistant professor in the Page School. When it was abolished, he was out of a job and for ten years was unable to teach his specialty. He found employment teaching low-level mathematics in a private school until the stigma of association with Lattimore subsided.

DeFrancis worked on the Lattimore defense, checking out among other things the background of Lattimore's attackers. He discovered that Freda Utley was, unlike Lattimore, one of the people who had written that the Chinese Communists were mere agrarian reformers. Lattimore was able to use this information with considerable effect. De Francis also took over some of Lattimore's lectures during the SISS hearings before Lattimore went on leave: "I remember giving one lecture in which I enumerated the reasons for the collapse of the Kuomintang in China and the victory of the Communists; this was pretty much an historical essay. In each case I would remark sarcastically 'And this factor was more important than the role of Owen Lattimore.' A student came up to me afterward and said to me with a kind of fear and trembling, 'Do you realize that the FBI may have been there?' I said 'Goddamit, I was talking to the FBI.'"^[11]

While most Hopkins faculty strongly supported Lattimore, George Carter continued to oppose him privately. The biblical archaeologist William Albright (and his wife) and Carl B. Swisher attacked Lattimore publicly. Swisher was a political scientist of strongly anti-Soviet opinions. He warned his graduate students that if they had signed a list on the department bulletin board to help with the Lattimore defense, they should take a razor blade and cut out their signatures. Crossing it off was not enough.^[12]

George McT. Kahin, a prominent authority on Southeast Asia, was a graduate student in political science at Johns Hopkins when the Lattimore case broke, but he refused to be intimidated by Swisher and worked extensively for the Lattimore defense. In 1951 Kahin applied for a job at

Cornell. When the Cornell political science department asked for letters of recommendation from Kahin's professors, Swisher refused to write. Cornell telephoned him, and he talked vaguely about Kahin being "irresponsible." The Cornell caller pressed Swisher to be specific. What exactly had Kahin done? Swisher would not talk about Lattimore; he finally said, "Well, he worked with the American Friends Service Committee in helping the Nisei who were interned at the beginning of the war." This revelation, says Kahin, "turned the whole thing around." Kahin got the job and found Cornell very supportive.^[13]

However one judges Johns Hopkins's treatment of Lattimore, the American academic world avoided him like the plague. As already noted, his speaking invitations all but disappeared with one notable exception: John King Fairbank invited him to Harvard every year. This was not because of any exceptional commitment to academic freedom on Harvard's part; it was due solely to Fairbank's personal commitment. As Ellen Schrecker notes in No Ivory Tower , there was vigorous opposition to Lattimore at Harvard. The dean of students tried very hard to ban Lattimore on the grounds that his appearance would "bring added unfavorable publicity to the college."^[14] Fairbank stood his ground; Lattimore appeared at Harvard each year.

Paul Lazarsfeld and Wagner Thielens, in a 1955 study of 2,451 college social science teachers, used attitudes toward a hypothetical Lattimore lecture on their campuses as a touchstone revealing the degree to which McCarthyism prevailed in academia. Eighty percent of their respondents would approve of Lattimore lecturing, but only 40 percent said they would protest vigorously if the president banned such a lecture. Schrecker is no doubt right: "The 1950's was the period when the nation's colleges and universities were becoming increasingly dependent upon and responsive toward the federal government. The academic community's collaboration with McCarthyism was part of that process. It was, in many respects, just another step in the integration of American higher education with the Cold War political system."^[15]

If there was bitterness and consternation in the Justice Department over Judge s ruling, some FBI offices felt differently. At headquarters, Branigan asked Belmont to find out if the bureau could now forget about the "many leads outstanding on each of the counts dismissed. . . . These leads are widespread involving a number of offices as well as Bureau representatives in England, Germany, France, and Mexico." SAC Board-man in New York cabled headquarters almost gleefully, listing the "pend-

ing leads in NYO [that] will not be covered unless further request is received from Bureau or Baltimore."^[16]

Relief for the bureau was short-lived. On May 6 three bureau representatives went to Rover's office for a conference. Rover announced that "he intended to appeal Youngdahl's derision and . . . desired that the Bureau continue its investigation on the four counts which were dismissed and 'keep moving as if nothing had happened.'" Headquarters passed the word to all field offices.^[17]

Rover filed his notice of intent to appeal on May 14, 1953. As the New York Times noted,

Mr. Rover said this action had been authorized by Herbert Brownell, Jr., the Attorney General. Today's steps opened up the possibility the Supreme Court might rule on the validity of the indictment before Mr. Lattimore ever was brought to trial on the charges contained in the true bill. A further possibility was that Mr. Lattimore might escape trial entirely if higher court rulings favored him.

Mr. Rover said that if the Appeals Court sustained the rulings of Judge Youngdahl he would recommend to the Attorney General that the case be taken to the Supreme Court. It was considered likely a similar procedure would be followed by attorneys for Mr. Lattimore if Judge Youngdahl was overruled.^[18]

The legal maneuvering, and the delays it occasioned, began to wear on Lattimore. After Rover filed his notice of appeal, Lattimore wrote a memo headed "Some questions for AF&P." Whether he gave this memo to Fortas is not dear; Bill Rogers does not remember it. The copy in Lattimore's papers expresses the agony of his situation.

Are there any advantages to the case in further delays? What are they? Winning the case must of course be the first consideration. However if there are no advantages, or uncertain ones, there are disadvantages to us which are great enough so that we would like to raise the question as to whether any moves could be made to lessen delays. For instance—Appeal notice not yet filed—why? Shouldn't we ask why & when instead of meekly waiting?

Since we must start now to prepare for the trial, could we not press for the bill of particulars on the remaining counts at an early date on the grounds that it is still necessary to our preparation?

It seems to me there are two disadvantages in further delays, one of which directly affects the case. The other affects my career, reputation and productivity.

1. Since McCarthyism seems to be making more gains than losses, it will become more and more difficult for judges and juries to make

unprejudiced or courageous derisions. Should we not try to press the advantage of the Youngdahl decision as early as possible? The more time the government has the more forces they can marshal. Time is on their side because their resources are far greater than ours. Or are we still waiting for a miracle?

2. Until a decision is reached my life as a teacher, a writer, a lecturer, and in many instances as a friend, is at a standstill, and my seriously damaged reputation can not only not be repaired but will continue to deteriorate as the Flynns, Lawrences, Lewises etc. continue to blacken my name and the picture of me as a subversive character hardens in the public mind, and there is nothing I can do to change it. I have already lost three of what should be the best and most productive years of my life—Until I am acquitted I cannot begin to rebuild what has been destroyed. Examples: University treating as if guilty. Washington lawyers studying Flynn—Reports from all over of people reading Flynn. No answers available or possible until after court decision.^[19]

The reference was to John T. Flynn's condensation of the SISS hearings, The Lattimore Story , discussed in chapter 25. Lattimore was right; the only counter to Flynn would be a verdict of not guilty by a jury of his peers.^[20]

Ironically, as Lattimore despaired at the interminable delays in taking his case to a jury, legal circles in Washington were predicting that it was Rover who was in real trouble. The New York Times of May 17 said that government attorneys were unhappy that the indictment had been drawn so loosely and that unless a higher court reversed Youngdahl, Rover might be reluctant to go to trial "on what was left of an indictment apparently not too highly esteemed from a legal standpoint when it was whole."^[21]

Rover and the prosecution team now intensified their efforts. They had "help" from the usual sources: Don Surine and the McCarran staff. Surine was plugging the Chinese Nationalists again, but Wacks and the bureau rejected this avenue as of "no pertinence." Then Surine volunteered the unhelpful report that Dorothy Borg of New York City appeared to be a friend of Lattimore's. She had come to Washington and sat in on every one of his hearings. Surine even knew the hotel where she stayed.^[22]

Ben Mandel offered Hummer a new lead, which Hummer passed on to the bureau: Ruth Shipley of the Passport Office had information about Lattimore but had never been asked for it. Belmont commented that the FBI had checked out this information at the time of the Jarvinen affair, but perhaps they had not actually interviewed Shipley. They now did so;

she had nothing new.^[23] Her batting average was not so high anyway; she had offered some of the wildest rumors during the Jarvinen fiasco.

On June 19, 1953, after unsuccessful last-minute appeals, the Rosen-bergs were executed. None rejoiced over this more than McCarthy and Surine, who were out to get all the traitors, including Lattimore. Surine was working on a bill for McCarthy to introduce that would cover Lattimore's major crime, "policy treason." As Lou Nichols reported this new offense, "By this Surine means an instance where through manipulation of top-level policy which could deliver a whole country or group of nations as contrasted against an individual act of espionage or sabotage."^[24]

Hundreds of leads were followed through during this period. Each new one seemed to the bureau more useless than the last. In desperation Rover resurrected Budenz. Budenz had never "furnished his opinion as to the probable role Lattimore played as a Communist propagandist, nor has he stated the Communist aims, policies and strategies pursued in the Far East during the period 1933 through 1949." Would the bureau please go back to Budenz and ask him to address this matter? So on June 24 FBI agents once again descended on Budenz in Crestwood, New York. The transcript is peculiarly stilted and formal. "Mr. Budenz: Inquiry is requested on my opinion of Owen Lattimore as a Soviet propagandist, concerning specifically his relations with top Soviet or Communist authorities in relation to such propaganda. . . . my opinion is that at all times from at least the year 1937, Owen Lattimore was under directives from Communist authorities as to what the line of the Communist International apparatus was, in regard to the Far East, and was commissioned to follow out those directives as a concealed Communist, with due regard to his position."^[25]

There follows, outlined as if in a lecture, a twenty-two-page digest of what Budenz had told SISS two years earlier, supported this time with references to Communist publications showing that Stalin was very clever to have kept out of war with Japan for so long, that the Soviet line on Chiang changed several times, that the Communists were against retention of the emperor in Japan, that Mao was totally subservient to Stalin, and so forth. Budenz did have a new and different timetable for the change in Party line on Chiang, and he asserted now that Lattimore had spent four months in Yenan in 1937. Otherwise it was vintage Budenz, warmed over.

Rover needed help. Hummer, Davitt, Anastos, and George J. Donegan were experienced attorneys assigned full-time to the Lattimore case, but apparently the Youngdahl setback induced Justice to seek another presti-

gious appointment. Rover suggested John W. Jackson, a former U.S. attorney. Rover got Robert Morris, Senator Harry F. Byrd, and Fulton Lewis, Jr., to support Jackson. Rover knew where the power lay; Morris's task was to get McCarran's approval.^[26] He did, and Jackson was made assistant U.S. attorney and appeared on government briefs from July 1953 on.

The pressures on Rover and his team are revealed by the lengths they went to in attempting to secure testimony against Lattimore. On July 30 Rover sent Hummer to Belmont requesting that the bureau contact a potential witness who was not being "fully cooperative." The man had been born abroad and was a naturalized citizen. Rover wanted the FBI to threaten to report him to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, recommending cancellation of his citizenship unless he cooperated on Lattimore. Belmont told Hummer the bureau would not agree to any pressure of this kind; it would backfire. Hoover agreed.^[27]

The government did not file its brief appealing the Youngdahl decision until August 24, 1953. The story was the second lead in the New York Times the next day. Rover asked that Youngdahl be reversed on all four of the counts dismissed and attacked Youngdahl's reasoning on each of them.^[28]

The vital first count, Rover held, could not be thrown out on First Amendment grounds. SISS had not inquired into Lattimore's beliefs; rather, Lattimore had volunteered his beliefs, and the First Amendment "does not protect the speech which willfully, falsely, and fraudulently expresses such a belief." Further, the indictment could not be dismissed before trial for vagueness: "in a perjury prosecution, prior to trial, vagueness or in-definiteness as to the meaning of words cannot be an issue. Determination of their meaning to the defendant awaits the trial. . . . The state of a man's mind is as much a fact as the state of his digestion." Questions of materiality, likewise, "must await determination at the trial and are not now before the Court." Youngdahl's discussion of the background of Lattimore's testimony to SISS could "have no bearing upon the legal sufficiency of the indictment."

The only significant press comment on Rover's brief was restatement of the consensus in legal circles that the case would go to the Supreme Court.

Government prosecutors were pleased with the brief. Hummer told FBI Supervisor J. F. Wacks that it "had been furnished a number of prominent attorneys in the District and elsewhere for review and that each of these attorneys had indicated that it contained very good arguments and

was a well organized and documented treatise. Hummer stated that the general opinion of these attorneys was that it was 'a cinch' that the lower court would be reversed."^[29]

Four days after this optimistic report Wacks got another request from the prosecution, this time from Donegan. The Justice Department "understood" that General Willoughby had a great deal of information in his Tokyo files. Had the bureau checked them? Wacks had his programmed response down pat. "I advised Donegan that we have neither the time or the money to conduct a search of our files to ascertain the answer to his query and I suggested to him that he cause a search to be made of the reports we have furnished the Department in instant case in order to determine whether General Willoughby's files were reviewed by us." Hoover's inevitable comment: "Right. We are not going to do their plowing." Throughout the remaining twenty-four months Lattimore was under indictment, prosecution requests to the FBI for documents and other services met rejection and ever-more-acerbic comments from Hoover. "Let him get it himself. We are not messenger boys, certainly not for him" was typical.^[30]

Prosecution response to FBI recalcitrance was to channel requests through higher-ranking Justice Department officials, hoping that Hoover would be more receptive to them. This ploy did not work. William Foley, one of Olney's subordinates in the Criminal Division, handled one such request. A "third party" (probably an SISS staffer or Surine) had told the department that a Captain Ernest J. Lissner of the army had served in the Far East Command Counter-Intelligence Corps and had written a report that "was most derogatory concerning Lattimore." When Rover tried to get the Lissner report from Army, they denied having it. Rover thought Army had originally "buried" the report, as Lattimore was then "in the good graces of the White House." Army would not now release it since they had buried it when originally written. Foley wondered if perhaps the FBI could pry it loose.^[31]

Foley brought his request to Inspector Carl Hennrich, who was not sympathetic, lecturing Foley about jurisdictional matters and correct procedures. If the Rover team wanted FBI investigation in this matter, they should put it in writing. Foley, sufficiently chastised, agreed. Hennrich reported this encounter to Belmont, with this recommendation: "When a request is made by the Department in connection with the Lissner report, we will carefully consider the request in the light of available information and, in the absence of indication of some shenanigans, I think we should make the investigation." When this memo came to Hoover's attention,

he responded, "Watch it carefully. I am not as trusting as you fellows are." The request did come through in writing. The bureau followed the Lissner trail, and it led to yet another fiasco. Lissner had been fired by MacArthur for blackmailing various persons and for other irregularities. He had been reassigned as an assistant PX officer at Fort Meade, then shifted around several times. The bureau finally traced Lissner to an artillery unit in Germany. He told them he had never investigated Lattimore and had no information about him.^[32]

On October 1, 1953, AFP filed its brief with the court of appeals, answering Rover's brief of August 24. This response was also headline news.^[33] The defense brief was explosive, describing the Lattimore prosecution as "unique in the history of perjury. It brings into this court a meaningless and trivial residue of a once-sensational espionage charge culled from the transcript of the longest Congressional interrogation of one man ever conducted." Ironically, the best summary of the defense brief is the one prepared in the bureau by Wacks. There is room here only for Wacks's discussion of the Sixth Amendment aspects of count one.

The lower court was correct in holding that Count I violates the Sixth Amendment, which insures an accused the right to be informed of the nature and the cause of the accusation against him.

The brief sets out that Lattimore testified, "I am not and never have been a Communist, a Soviet agent, a sympathizer or any other kind of promoter of Communism or Communist interests . . ." The Government did not pick from this statement those parts which would be capable of proof and from which Lattimore could anticipate what the Government would attempt to prove. Rather, the indictment charges Lattimore with perjury based on the words "sympathizer" and "Communist interests," which have different meanings at different times and defy analysis in addition to being vague and all embracing. This count offers the Government a target m shoot at, covering any writing, act, opinion or association of Lattimore during the past twenty years and any letter, conversation or episode of whatever period may be introduced in evidence for the jury's evaluation in the light of today's understandings. To prepare any sort of defense, Lattimore must examine all the policies which he has advocated, must interview all his associates and must present his entire life in review. Such a case would be interminable and he would not know where to begin or end. This charge does not deal with facts at all, but with personal evaluations, surmises, conjectures, opinions and speculations, the nature of which Lattimore could not know before he goes to trial.^[34]

Wacks presented similarly incisive summaries of the First Amendment issue, the question of materiality, and the minor counts. He did not comment on the cogency of defense arguments.

Rover and the prosecution took no comfort from the defense brief. Presumably they still expected the court of appeals to overturn Youngdahl, as they continued to pursue evidence that would be needed at trial for the first count. They were taking seriously the charges coming from Tai Li via Commander Miles (see chapter 16), but realized that Miles's history of mental problems would make him a shaky witness, as would the fact that he had only hearsay to offer. And with the government's massive investment in the Lattimore case, now amounting to more than twenty thousand pages of FBI reports alone and twenty-two hundred interviews, they could not afford to fail.^[35] The force of their anxiety compelled them to canvas the world for a magisterial witness. They came up with: Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek!

On October 29, 1953, Jackson and Donegan called on Hennrich, who reported to Belmont:

These gentlemen said they considered it desirable to make overtures to determine whether Chiang Kai-shek would be available for use as a witness in the Lattimore case, either through personal testimony or through a deposition. Jackson and Donegan stated that they wanted to discuss these matters with me prior to sending an official request to the Bureau to conduct investigation in this matter, since they thought the Bureau might have specific suggestions in the matter. They also suggested that they had been considering the question as to whether a Bureau agent could go to China and conduct further inquiries, inasmuch as they had confidence the Bureau would be able to develop more information than CIA or G-2 or State Department investigators would be able to develop.^[36]

Hoover disposed of the last suggestion summarily: "NO."

Hennrich's memo reported in detail the lecture he then gave Jackson and Donegan. The prosecution team had to straighten itself out and put requests for investigations in writing before Justice started its own investigation, rather than running to the bureau for help after they had mud-died the waters. "I pointed out that if they had been conducting investigations, we will find out during our investigation, and they will then be in the position of not acting in good faith if they fail to tell us now." As to Chiang Kai-shek, they should take it up with the State Department.^[37] There is no record that Rover followed through. The idea of soliciting

testimony from a head of state nine thousand miles away was so harebrained that Olney or Brownell undoubtedly killed it.

President Dwight Eisenhower, largely unaware of the turbulence in his Justice Department and completely ignorant of the Lattimore prosecution, nonetheless sensed that the internal security field was contaminated by overreliance on professional former Communists to ferret out subversives. On November 4, 1953, Ike wrote Attorney General Brownell about his concerns: "We must search out some positive way to put ourselves on the side of individual right and liberty as well as on the side of fighting Communism to the death. We might decide that this is a matter on which I or someone else should make a speech. We might decide that we needed to bring in two or three outstanding individuals of the caliber of Learned Hand to help us devise a policy or 'formula.' "^[38]

One paragraph of Eisenhower's memo inadvertently scored a direct hit on the Lattimore prosecution and on the prime former Communist witness, Budenz: "The Communists are a class set apart by themselves. Indeed, I think they are such liars and cheats that even when they apparently recant and later testify against someone else for his Communist convictions, my first reaction is to believe that the accused person must be a patriot or he wouldn't have incurred the enmity of such people. So even when these 'reformed' Communists have proved useful in helping us track down some of their old associates, I certainly look for corroborating evidence before I feel too easy in my mind about it."^[39]

Brownell got the message. He may not have agreed with Eisenhower's rationale, but he discovered that the government was maintaining a list of security informants and paying them regularly. In February 1954 he quietly put a stop to this operation. Herbert Philbrick, Mary Markward, Elizabeth Bentley, Louis Budenz, and seven others were dropped from the list of security informants.^[40] Brownell, in his 1971 Columbia University oral history, says it happened this way:

Brownell: I found developing out of the war years there had been built up a list of, say, half a dozen or so informants in the area of subversive activity who are actually on the payroll of the Justice Department, and were paid almost on a salary basis under a system which gave them a regular income, and they testified in one case after another. As soon as I discovered this, I stopped that system, and we either dispensed with their services entirely, or saw to it that in any future cases they would only be paid

what a regular witness would be paid for their attendance at court, in this way avoiding any danger of having a stable of witnesses who were more or less beholden to the government and might have their testimony tainted by the fact that their income came from this source. . . .

Interviewer: Did you actually find documentation that their evidence was tainted, or was there fear that it might be?

Brownell: We dropped several prosecutions for fear that it might have been.^[41]

The spectacular Matusow recantation may have influenced Brownell. Even the FBI had been taken in by Matusow, and Olney, in his oral history, tells how Justice discovered the FBI sanitizing its files: "Tommy Tompkins . . . went up to the files to get the original FBI reports in which Matusow's story was given. There it appeared that Matusow was described as an informant of 'known reliability.' He also found an FBI agent there taking the file out, in the process of removing the first page and substituting another page, in which Harvey Matusow was described as an informant of 'unknown reliability.' "^[42]

The list of possible witnesses against Lattimore was further depleted. On March 5, 1954, the bureau learned that Elizabeth Boody Schumpeter, the Japanophile who had been one of Lattimore's most persistent accusers, had died the previous year.^[43]

Unaware of the rumblings in the White House and the demotion of so many ex-Communist witnesses, but beginning to worry about what would happen in the court of appeals, Rover filed another brief with the court on November 12, 1953, answering the defense brief of October 1. The defense contentions were "nonsense." The sole issue was "Did the accused willfully falsify his oath by testifying to the truth of a matter which he did not believe to be true?" Hummer reported that the date set for oral argument on the appeal, November 17, had been indefinitely postponed and that instead of the usual bank of three judges the entire court would sit on the Lattimore case.^[44]

By now suspicion of Lattimore had metastasized throughout the body politic. On November 13, 1953, Robert C. Jewel, school board member in Shaftsbury, Vermont, announced that Our Neighbors in the Pacific had been removed from the school library shelves because it had been written by "the Owen Lattimore gang." He did not identify the authors.^[45]

Nineteen fifty-three ended with a veritable blizzard of investigation requests to the bureau from Warren Olney. The prosecution was running

scared. FBI responses to most of these requests do not survive, but on December 4 Hennrich commented on one potential witness in Europe who wanted to be paid. Jackson asked if the bureau knew anything about this person. Hennrich noted that the man "does not profess to have information but merely to be able to get information. I pointed out to Jackson that Europe is full of individuals who are looking for ,American dollars in exchange for so-called intelligence services. I told Jackson that if he cared to submit a memorandum relative to this matter, the Bureau would look it over."^[46]

On December 31 the court of appeals set oral argument in the Lattimore case for January 25, 1954.

The massive government resources thrown into prosecuting Lattimore were not all devoted to establishing the legal sufficiency of the vital count one or to gathering evidence to prove that count in a trial. There were still five minor counts that Rover needed to prove. The Justice Department and the FBI had active investigations under way in all of them. The effort and time devoted to these trivial matters is mind-boggling.

Take the search for Asiaticus. Count three charged that Lattimore falsely denied that he knew Asiaticus was a Communist. This claim was based on Lattimore's testimony to SISS in executive session July 13, 1951, and in public session February 29, 1952.

Morris: And yet, Mr. Lattimore, you were able to recommend him [Asiaticus] as a qualified performer for the Institute of Pacific Relations.

Lattimore: I didn't recommend him. He wrote in some material for me which I thought was a good article on the subject and I published it. One of the articles was on railway loans in China at the turn of the century, the late 1890's and the early 1900's. It concerned some of the British Railway loans of that period. I sent the article, as I always did in such cases, to the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, and they disagreed with some of his interpretations but not with his statements of facts.

Morris: You knew at the time he was at least a Marxist, didn't you ?

Lattimore: I didn't know whether he was a Marxist or not. I thought he was a left-winger. . . .

Morris: And it is your testimony that you did not know he was a Communist?

Lattimore: I didn't know he was a Communist. I would have said, speaking as of the late 1930's, that I would have thought he was possibly a Socialist, but not a Communist.^[47]

After this executive session testimony had been reviewed in the public hearing, Morris had some more questions. Did Lattmore want to stick with his statement that he did not know Asiaticus was a Communist? He did.^[48]

Some twenty-five hundred pages of the FBI file record the four-year search for Asiaticus. The investigation went literally to the ends of the earth. It soon took on a life of its own. By the time it was over, the investigators were no longer even expecting to find evidence that Lattimore knew Asiaticus to be a Communist; they were just doggedly following a trail to which they had been assigned. At the end of this trail they could at best talk to someone who, fifteen or more years earlier, had actually met Asiaticus. In the end the bureau accumulated enough information to write a biography of Asiaticus up to 1944, when he disappeared. After that rumor took over, and he was variously reported to be dead or to be living in disguise in the United States, or in Montevideo, or in Europe.

One false lead threw the bureau off the scent for a while. A muddled informant in San Francisco claimed that Asiaticus was really Lattimore, who used that pen name "to write his most aggressive articles." When this suggestion was disproved, the bureau discovered that the real Asiaticus was born Moses Wolf Grzyb (pronounced "ship") on June 13, 1897, in Krakow, Poland. He led a fascinating life. He used at least two aliases in addition to Asiaticus: M. G. Shippe (the name under which Lattimore corresponded with him) and Hans Mueller or Moeller. His early years as a student in Krakow left no traces, but his employment with various German periodicals in the 1920s did. Every known survivor of those periodicals was tracked down. Asiaticus had several tours in China as Comintern representative, journalist, bar owner, and Du Pont foreman; survivors of those enterprises were located. Du Pont records were found in Wilmington, Delaware; others had to be located on three other continents. Grzyb's sister and brother, after many false starts and wild goose chases from Israel to Germany, were interviewed; they had last heard from him in 1939. His second wife, Trudy Rosenberg, was traced from Shanghai to New York to Israel to Italy to Germany, but when U.S. army agents found her in March 1953, she would tell them nothing about her husband. His first wife's brother was located in South Africa. Informants in

Taipei, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Sydney, Seattle, Baltimore, St. Louis, Boston, San Francisco, New York, Tokyo, Manila, Geneva, Paris, Heidelberg, Bonn, Tel Aviv, Berlin, Johannesburg, Montevideo, and no doubt a dozen other places claimed to know something about him, and all of it is reported in the bureau's voluminous files. The report of the U.S. consul in Montevideo is still classified for "national security" reasons.^[49]

One informant told the Baltimore FBI office that Rudolph Slansky, vice premier of Czechoslovakia until he was "terminated with extreme prejudice" by that Stalinist government in November 1952, was actually Asiaticus. Pictures of Slansky were therefore shown to Wittfogel and two other persons who had seen Asiaticus. Wrong suspect. Woodrow W. Kelly, resident regional security officer in the U.S. embassy at Tel Aviv, spent December 1953 through April 1954 chasing around Europe and the Middle East to locate Asiaticus's relatives. At the end of it Kelly was an accomplished (if unwilling) genealogist and a fine storyteller.^[50]

An amazing amount of information was thus gathered, but the FBI could reach no conclusions about Asiaticus's current whereabouts, dead or alive. Three informants claimed he was arrested in Shanghai in 1944 and never seen again.

Asiaticus was in fact dead, and an accurate report was in FBI files. It came from John S. Service, reporting under date of October 4, 1944, from Yenan, and it was among the papers found in the Amerasia offices in 1945. Service recorded a statement by Chu Teh to journalist Maurice Votaw that Asiaticus had been killed by the Japanese while he was traveling with the Communist New Fourth Army in 1941. His demise was confirmed by Janice and Stephen MacKinnon in 1980 when they interviewed Trudy Rosenberg, by then back in China.^[51]

None of the far-flung Asiaticus informants (except Wittfogel) claimed to believe that Lattimore knew Asiaticus at all, much less as a Communist. Indeed, the informants abroad had never heard of Lattimore. The search for Asiaticus was a boondoggle to defy the imagination.

The search for evidence from Chinese Nationalist police files was equally quixotic. This was the source Surine had cultivated through informant T-7, the source touted and then canceled by Navy Commander Miles, the source the FBI tapped via Far East Command's Lieutenant Malim. FBI knew the Taipei files were bankrupt; Rover's prosecution team persisted in its hallucinations.

Several times during 1953 Rover suggested that a bureau agent go to Taiwan. Each time the bureau said no, emphasizing that all government agencies operating in Taiwan had already made what scrappy information

they could get available to the bureau. The prosecution was persistent. On September 18, 1953, Hummer telephoned Wacks to report that Chiang Kai-shek's son (presumably Chiang Ching-kuo) was coming to the United States; there would be cocktail parties at which the attorney general could ask Chiang's son "to induce his father to furnish the 'real' information concerning Lattimore in his files." To prepare for this, would Wacks please review FBI records to see if Chiang had ever been interviewed? Wacks agreed to review the files. Hoover's response to this report: "This should not have been done. They have copies of our reports & can plow through them themselves. We are doing entirely too much 'wet-nursing' of Hummer et al."^[52]

By January 1954 the prosecution had given up its proposal to get Chiang as a witness, but it was still pushing to send a bureau agent to Taipei. On January 7 Branigan was on the receiving end. The precise request is classified, but Branigan reported that he had assured Rover the bureau would let the prosecution know if anyone found something new about Lattimore in Taipei. Branigan also let out his frustration and his skepticism about what they were getting from Taipei: "In the past, it has been noted that the Chinese Nationalist Government officials have not been wholly cooperative with respect to instant case and the only pertinent information from this source has consisted of undocumented, hearsay data contained in memoranda which, from their contents, are undoubtedly of recent vintage. These documents, all of which are similar in certain respects, contain biographical data on Lattimore and unsubstantiated allegations which have been brought against Lattimore, including those of Senator McCarthy and Louis Budenz and others. These documents fail to reflect independent investigation by the Chinese."^[53]

But Branigan's doubts were not passed on to Rover. On February 11 Jackson and Donegan called on Hennrich: same agenda. As of 1981 the FBI was still withholding what transpired in this conference; only Hoover's comment at the end of Hennrich's report was released: "I agree with positions taken in this memo. We are not going to send anyone out of the country; we are not going to do any research work & we are not going to directly contact any foreign diplomatic representatives."^[54]

Whatever Hennrich told Jackson and Donegan, the Justice Department did not accept it. Two days later Olney wrote Hoover, again pushing for the bureau to interview a Nationalist diplomat. Hoover again turned it down: "It seems to me since the Dept. has initiated this angle it should carry it out—not the FBI."^[55] Mild, but the tension was building.

Branigan got much of this pressure. He complained in a three-page

letter to Belmont on March 23, 1954. Rover wanted the bureau to "furnish summaries of information" that might stimulate the Chinese Nationalists to provide more. This request, Branigan thought, was ridiculous. "The Criminal Division's attorneys are now preparing for trial. They know better than We what the weaknesses in the case from a prosecution standpoint are."^[56]

Rover did know the weaknesses of his case, but he continued to believe that the Chinese could rescue him if pressed sufficiently. This belief led him to a curious maneuver. FBI documents about this operation are heavily censored, but sometime in March Rover communicated to John W. Ford, State Department regional security supervisor, Far East, requesting that Ford obtain from the Chinese Nationalist government a formal statement that all information it had about Lattimore had been given to the United States government. On the face of it this request was ridiculous, but Ford was a diplomat. The uncensored part of his reply says only that "past experience has shown the Nationalist Government to be reluctant to give information, especially where such data concerned American citizens. It was felt that an actual formal statement from the Nationalist Government to the effect that the United States Government had been furnished all information in its files would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to obtain."^[57] Presumably no such request was made.

But the pressure continued, and Taipei released one more document. "Informations on the Activities of Owen Lattimore and His Associates in Rendering Assistance to the Chinese Communist Party in Its Attempt to Overthrow the Nationalist Government" was turned over to the U.S. embassy May 17, 1954. Its primary subjects were Lattimore, Service, Vincent, and Davies. This forty-page document purported to contain three surveillance reports on the activities of these individuals. It was obviously written after the Tydings and McCarran hearings, but it contained more factual inaccuracies than previous documents from Taipei. Hoover received "Informations" June 21,1954, a month after the embassy in Taipei got it. He passed a copy to Olney July 6, noting that it was similar to earlier documents from Taipei.^[58]

This was not the end of prosecution attempts to squeeze more out of the Nationalists. In August 1954, when an unnamed high Nationalist official visited Washington on financial business, Davitt and Donegan quietly interviewed him. The bureau did not even know such an interview took place until December 2, when Assistant Attorney General William F. Tompkins (who replaced Olney) wrote the FBI to report on this interview. Tompkins wanted the bureau to follow up suggestions from the

Nationalist official, including an interview with Hollington Tong, by then Nationalist ambassador in Tokyo.^[59]

Belmont inherited this problem. Most of his response is still denied, but his first recommendation got by the FBI censors: "It is recommended that we accede to the request of AAG Tompkins despite the fact that it took four months to advise us ——— interview and to request investigation. . . . if we now tell the Department to cover these leads itself and the case is lost, the Department would undoubtedly try to place the blame. on us."^[60]

When this story got to Hoover, he exploded. Two paragraphs of his letter of December 25 to the attorney general are denied, but one can get the general idea from what is released.

I am calling this request to your attention because there are fundamental principles involved. Certainly if the Federal Bureau of Investigation is to be responsible for investigations, we must insist that our representatives conduct interviews where there appear to be available facts which would reflect upon investigations within our jurisdiction. Just as certainly it is unfair for the Department to hold facts for four months requiring investigative attention and then request investigation shortly before trial is scheduled to begin.

I must protest vigorously the inconsiderate manner in which this matter has at this late date been referred to us for handling.^[61]

There is no record of what the bureau learned from Hollington Tong or from any of the other fourteen interviews requested.

The bureau was forced into other "fishing expeditions" by a jittery prosecution team. One of them required hundreds of hours of agent time to search the chaotic Army Intelligence records at Fort Holabird in Baltimore for any mention of Lattimore in files covering thirty-four persons who had been in Asia and might have known him. Nothing came of this search.^[62]

On January 25, 1954, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sat for three hours to hear oral arguments in the Lattimore case. All nine judges were present. Rover said that he was "ask[ing] for a full court hearing because of what he called the crippling effect of Judge Youngdahl's ruling, if allowed to stand, on the right of Congress to conduct investigations."^[63]

Most of the argument centered on the first count. Nothing new was presented. The arguments were all in the printed briefs. The judges seemed

to assume that count one was nebulous, and they asked lawyers for both sides to discuss whether a bill of particulars would cure this defect. Rover said it wasn't nebulous at all; O'Mahoney said it was "basically vague and indefinite" and could not be cured.^[64] AFP and the Lattimore lawyers were cautiously optimistic; nobody expected an early decision.

From Eleanor Lattimore's letter to the Barretts three days after the hearing, we know that the Lattimores did not share AFP's optimism. It was still unreal to her, "having to sit and listen to Owen being discussed and described by a serious representative of his government as if he were a criminal and a traitor." And when the case was "announced as United States of America versus Owen Lattimore it sounds like such an uneven contest to start with, especially when they describe Owen as 'Criminal No. 1879-52.' " As she saw it, the stress of the hearing gave her a bad cold, and "Owen woke up with a bad sacro-iliac, one of the worst he's ever had." Their doctor was convinced these illnesses were both largely psychosomatic. But this hearing was over, and she wrote, "We can now settle down to forgetting that the USA is against Owen Lattimore and doing some nice things like painting the house and digging the garden and chopping firewood."^[65]

A week after the court of appeals hearing, one of the landmark events of the McCarthy era took place at the Department of Defense. John G. Adams, army counsellor, assigned by Secretary of the Army Robert Stevens as liaison m Senator McCarthy, had to decide whether to honor McCarthy's demand that the famous left-wing dentist, Irving Peress, be kept in the service. Peress had been hounded by McCarthy and wanted to be discharged—right away. Secretary Stevens was out of the country. Adams decided that the only reason to hold Peress was to appease McCarthy, since Peress was eligible for immediate discharge. Sick of appeasing McCarthy, Adams let the Peress discharge go through. McCarthy and Cohn declared war on the army, and Eisenhower was finally forced in his limp-handed way to back up the army. The televised Army-McCarthy hearings showed McCarthy to the electorate in all his nastiness, and by the end of 1954 the "Wisconsin Whimperer" (Lattimore's phrase) had been censured and shunned by the Senate.^[66] Lattimore had the last laugh.

In spring 1954 the Lattimores were able to get away from Baltimore and its fanatics. They took several weeks to go north, first to visit the Stefanssons. Eleanor Lattimore described this visit in glowing terms. Then came Lattimore's annual Harvard lecture. There was fear of trouble by the Harvard authorities, largely because of threats by the local American Legion, so the area was swarming with police. But there was no trouble,

and about a thousand people (Eleanor's estimate) packed the hall. Fair-bank as usual entertained the Lattimores, and they dined with Zechariah Chafee, Ralph Barton Perry, Bernard De Voto, and other Cambridge friends. The next stop was New York, staying with Joe and Betty Barnes, dining with Santha Rama Rau, Dorothy Borg, and A. J. Liebling. U.S. versus Lattimore receded, for a while, into the background.^[67]

Months dragged by, and no word came from the court of appeals. There were occasional words from McCarran. Speaking to the New Hampshire Catholic War Veterans in Manchester May 1, 1954, McCarran said the Communist party was more dangerous than ever. It had decentralized and gone underground. "This decentralization has already tripled the number of Communist Party clubs," he said. And the Party had "selected the secret leaders for its underground apparatus. It has established and is operating a far reaching and vigorous 'loyalty' program of its own."^[68] The New York Times account does not say whether he mentioned Lattimore as one of the leaders of the new Communist apparatus.

On May 11 Hummer finally had word on how the court of appeals would rule. It was a rumor, he admitted to Wacks, but the vote would be 7-2 in favor of the prosecution. This time Hummer was wrong. On July 8, 1954, the appeals court issued its opinion. By a vote of 8-1 the court upheld Youngdahl in striking the vital first count and the trivial seventh count. The court overruled Youngdahl on counts three and four, but on a 5-4 vote. A vigorous minority opinion on counts three and four made Youngdahl look good.^[69] It had taken six months, but the forty-four-page decision was worth it to the Lattimore camp.

The court based rejection of count one primarily on the vagueness argument: "The word 'sympathizer' is not of sufficiently certain meaning to sustain a charge of perjury. . . . There is no definition of the term 'sympathizer' or any concrete specification of its content either in the indictment or in the statute." Judge E. Barrett Prettyman, who wrote the opinion on count one, cited the dictionary; there were at least five distinguishable meanings. And the vagueness of the count "cannot be cured by a bill of particulars."^[70]

Count seven, about the Yenan trip, was dismissed on a technicality. Robert Morris, in questioning Lattimore during the SISS hearings, had been inept. Morris asked in one place about prearrangements with "Communist authorities" and in another about "the Communist Party." The court held that these were two different things, and Lattimore had acknowledged writing the Communist authorities in Yenan.^[71]

The majority opinion on the first count did not accept the First Amend-

ment arguments of Lattimore's lawyers; that count was invalidated on the basis of vagueness. On the two counts reversing Youngdahl, Judges Henry W. Edgerton, Bennett Champ Clark, David L. Bazelon, and Wilbur K. Miller filed a powerful dissent. "Few terms are vaguer than 'Communist.' It may mean a member of the Communist Party, or a sympathizer and promoter of Communism and Communist interests, or a believer in dialectical materialism, or a radical, or an opponent of inherited wealth, or many other things." They felt that this vagueness alone should invalidate counts three and four.^[72]

But the dissenters' most interesting analysis dealt with materiality.^[73] Both counts (that Lattimore lied when he said he did not know that Chi Cha'o-ting and Asiaticus were Communists) were irrelevant to the mission of the committee before which Lattimore testified.

Counts III and IV relate to the period between 1934 and 1941. But the Committee was authorized, at the end of 1950, to investigate current matters. . . . The Resolution expresses no interest in persons who were, or may have been , Communist-dominated years ago, when Hitler, not Russia, was threatening the world and many people were Communist sympathizers who are now anti-Communists. The Committee is to study what goes on in the 1950's, not what went on in the 1930's. It is to be a watchman, not a historian. If the Resolution left this point in doubt, legislative history would remove the doubt. . . . If these counts go to trial, and if the government offers to prove that Lattimore did publish "subversive" articles and also that their authors were Communists, it will remain immaterial whether or not Lattimore knew they were Communists. (Italics in original)^[74]

There follows a lengthy indictment of SISS for overstepping its bounds. The dissenters did accept the First Amendment argument. They could not "avoid the conclusion that a congressional inquiry into what an editor knew, between 1934 and 1941, about the views of the authors whose work he published, would abridge the freedom of the press guaranteed by the First Amendment. . . . The court overlooks the fact that what is not pertinent cannot be material and the Rumely rule that pertinence cannot be decided without regard to constitutional limits on congressional power."^[75] Here was a notable rebuke to McCarran, SISS, the Department of Justice, and the whole McCarthy saturnalia. This time it was a minority opinion, but in the end Edgerton and his fellow dissenters triumphed.

The press appreciated what had happened: the Times headline the next day read "Lattimore Upheld on Battle to Kill Key Count in Case." Rover knew he had been slapped down; he "acknowledged that he considered

the first count the core of the case. Mr. Rover said he 'could go to trial' with what was left of the indictment, but made it clear that he would have been much happier if the first count had been reinstated."^[76]

Lattimore said the decision was "dearly a major victory," and O'Mahoney claimed that the 8-1 vote of the court on the major count "has destroyed any substantial case" against Lattimore. A New York Times editorial on July 11 agreed.^[77]

Rover was now at a crossroads. After a long and successful career, he had taken on a landmark prosecution that he expected to solidify his reputation. Seventeen months into that prosecution, things were beginning to fall apart. The whole anti-Communist crusade was losing its luster. McCarthy had been made a fool of by Joseph Welch and on July 20, as a result of the Army-McCarthy hearings, had to fire Roy Cohn and Don Surine. And the court of appeals—how could they have found for the heretic Lattimore?

Hummer relayed the deliberations of the prosecution team to the bureau. Rover's first plan was to take the case to the Supreme Court. Chief Judge Harold Stephens of the court of appeals, the lone dissenter in the 8-1 decision to dismiss count one, advised Rover to appeal to the Supreme Court.^[78] But FBI coolness to the prosecution, and doubts as to whether Solicitor General Simon Sobeloff would agree to appeal the case, caused Rover to change his mind.

FBI reluctance to push the prosecution was apparent when Rover sent Jackson to the bureau to talk informally to an unidentified supervisor. Jackson raised several topics, then got to the bottom line: "Jackson then asked if a Bureau agent would be permitted to serve in court to identify the public source material used in preparation of the Bureau memorandum sent to the Department" and also if someone "would read, review, and analyze the Department's final written brief in the Lattimore case." The supervisor Jackson talked to said he could not handle that matter; it would have to go upstairs. Upstairs, in the person of Director Hoover, was as usual blunt. His terminal comment: "Absolutely no."^[79]

Rover wrote Sobeloff July 16, 1954. Rover then believed that an appeal to the Supreme Court would take so long that the prosecution would lose momentum, and the best course would be to seek a new indictment "framed to meet the objections of the Court to the language in count one." This new indictment would then be consolidated with the still-standing minor counts of the first indictment. There would be two general counts in the

new indictment, with the terms clearly defined, eliminating the vagueness problem.^[80] Sobeloff approved this recommendation.

Victims of the inquisition often felt they were facing an all-powerful, highly coordinated behemoth that could bludgeon its way to triumph over truth and justice. This was not always the situation. In the Hiss and Rosenberg cases the FBI, the Justice Department, the courts, and sometimes the White House worked together effectively. In the Lattimore case the FBI and Justice had serious fights, which, along with doubts in the bureau about Lattimore's alleged guilt, contributed to the failure of the prosecution.

After deciding to seek a second indictment, Rover made another tactical error: he wanted to reinterview twenty-one key witnesses. He sent Jackson to see Branigan at 6:45 P.M. on July 22, requesting that the bureau (1) furnish the current addresses of the witnesses and (2) "contact these witnesses tonight and request that replies be received by tomorrow, July 23." Branigan hit the roof. The bureau would not be hustled in this fashion. Justice could get the addresses itself. Jackson then retreated and told Branigan that "he did not mean to impress a deadline for action but desired only that the Bureau give the matter its usual prompt attention."^[81] Hoover's comment: "We should not be stampeded in this."

Incredibly, after this display of arrogance the prosecution came back July 23 to ask that a bureau agent accompany the departmental attorney on each interview and that the various bureau offices outside Washington provide transportation for traveling department attorneys. Now Branigan dropped his formal language. These requests were "completely out of line."^[82] Hoover agreed: "We are not going to start acting as chauffeurs, valets, witnesses, nor aides-de-camp for Dept attorneys." But this wasn't the end. Department attorneys Donegan and Davitt, on a western interview tour, tried to get the Los Angeles FBI office to drive them to San Diego. Hoover was apoplectic.^[83]

Donegan and Davitt made their trip to San Diego on their own. The potential witness they went to see was Clay Osborne, who had begun his vendetta against Lattimore when he worked for OWI in 1943. Osborne was by this time in a state mental institution; he had periods of rationality followed by total incoherence. Donegan reported that he had "no doubt whatsoever that Clay Osborne would not make a satisfactory witness."^[84]

By August 11, 1954, the prosecution team had prepared a fifty-two-page memorandum for Rover, giving the pros and cons of seeking a new indictment. Rover studied this memorandum and on August 19 made his

announcement: he would seek from the grand jury then sitting in the District of Columbia an indictment based on matters not covered in the original indictment, using new evidence and new witnesses. The only clue he gave the press was that the new material dealt with Lattimore's "promotion of Communist interests." Lattimore did not comment publicly, but AFP, joined by O'Mahoney, issued a statement. "The United States Attorney has announced that he will not appeal the 'key' count of the Lattimore indictment which has been condemned by two courts on grounds which are fundamental to our liberties. Instead he will seek a new indictment containing the same charge in slightly different words. If Mr. Rover believes that the issue should be litigated, it seems to us a pity and an unjust hardship to the defendant that he has decided to adopt this strategy rather than to submit the fundamental question to the Supreme Court of the United States."^[85]

The defense team was puzzled and downhearted. What new evidence, what new witnesses, could Rover possibly have that would lead him to seek another indictment on the vague grounds of "promoting Communist interests?" They were on a treadmill. After a successful two-year struggle to get one vague count thrown out, they were now confronted with the same thing all over again.

But it was not really the same thing over again; it was worse. The Lattimores and their lawyers had been constantly under stress for fifty-four months. The funds raised by George Boas had been exhausted. The government with its infinite resources had added new prosecutors, activated the immense power of the Hearst, Scripps Howard, and McCormick press, floated rumors about surprise witnesses, and carefully concealed the bankruptcy of its hunt for credible evidence. Lattimore wrote Fortas August 21, 1954, two days after Rover's announcement; the letter does not survive, but Fortas's answer tells us how things stood.

Fortas's response is dated August 25. So sensitive was the matter that he said he wanted "to write a few things to you which would be too difficult to say personally." Fortas acknowledged that the lawyers had concealed from Lattimore, who had been in their office at the time of Rover's announcement, their great distress. This was part of a lawyer's habitual "spare the client" reaction to bad news. But Lattimore's letter now made Fortas's anguish no longer concealable: "Your letter indicates that you have now reached what may be the point of unbearable stress." So Fortas had to level with Lattimore.

One thing he revealed was that he and Thurman Arnold were in disagreement: "Thurman, being of an optimistic turn of mind and being full

of good red blood, strongly asserts that the case against you cannot prevail. I think that the outcome is entirely unpredictable and that it depends to a substantial extent upon the state of the world and of the nation at the time the case goes to the jury." Then to the crux of Lattimore's letter: "As to the immediate problem with which you are wrestling—whether to go before the grand jury or to hold a press conference after the indictment—I believe you are aware of the problems involved. Ultimately, the decision will have to be yours after you have had another exposure to the legal view. Please regard this as a personal communication from me to you. Thurman is out of town and has not seen this letter."^[86]

Thus descended on Lattimore and his wife one more dark night of the soul, a rending decision whether to go by the traditional legal procedures or to venture into the volatile realm of public counterattack. Should they attempt to convince the keepers of public opinion that no matter how many hundreds of charges had been thrown at Lattimore, they were all frauds? By the time I came to question him, Lattimore no longer recalled the soul-searching that accompanied this decision, and no documents preserve it. In any case, the legal route won out. They would go by the book.

By September 19 Lattimore had recovered his composure sufficiently to write his sister-in-law with remarkable sanguinity. They had had a wonderful New England holiday, his gardening was therapeutic, his grandson Michael was so beautiful it was dangerous to take him out on the street, and there was a new granddaughter, Maria, who would probably be a trapeze artist as well as an intellectual. The grand jury had subpoenaed fifty new letters from the IPR files, and their line of attack was evident: "The IPR will be pictured afresh as a nest of pro-Russian intrigue, and I as chief cuckoo in the nest. Even things like favoring US recognition in 1933 will be interpreted as 'pro-Russian,' to get me indicted as having been a 'promoter' of Communist causes, but leaving out, this time, the word 'sympathizer.' Thurman Arnold gets so mad when trying to discuss it that he can't talk, only huff and puff. . . . Ever'n ever so much love; and, paraphrasing McCarran: Don't think! Write!"^[87]

What Lattimore and his lawyers did not know was that Rover was misstating his intentions just enough to throw the defense off the track. What he intended to seek was a two-count indictment, the first count being that Lattimore lied when he said he had never been a follower of the Communist line; when this falsehood was established by citing Lattimore's voluminous writings, Rover would use the same evidence to get a second count showing that Lattimore had thereby promoted Communist inter-

ests. There would be two major counts now, instead of one, and "follower of the Communist line" was sufficiently precise to avoid dismissal on Sixth Amendment grounds.^[88]

Rover had a secret weapon. It was an impressive 515-page "analysis" of Lattimore's writings done by "outside experts" which showed that "in approximately 97% of the cases, Lattimore agreed with the Communist line."^[89] To a grand jury, this analysis must have had the weight of Moses' tablets when he came down from Mount Sinai. Of course, the jurors couldn't read it all. Even if they had read it, in the absence of knowing the pathology of the compilers, the selectivity of the passages cited, the omissions of vast chunks of contradictory material, and the paranoid fantasies on which it was based, they would not have known how misleading it was.

Analyses of Lattimore's writings to show that he followed the Communist line had begun with Kohlberg's attack on the IPR. Freda Utley presented a similar analysis to the Tydings committee and in her 1951 book The China Story . Richard L. Walker filled a special section of the New Leader (March 31, 1952) with an anti-Lattimore article that included analysis of Lattimore's Pacific Affairs editing. The FBI had its Central Research Desk make a comparison of Lattimore's writings with the Party line. The Department of State did the same thing in 1951. McCarran's staff was constantly working up such comparisons; a June 1952 document headed "Parallel with Communist Line" was produced by Mandel, Morris, and "Burnham" (probably James Burnham). In addition to these known analysts, six unidentified individuals volunteered their studies of Lattimore's writings to McCarthy, McCarran, or the FBI.^[90]

Hummer had no impressive comparison of Lattimore's writings with the Communist line in December 1952, but soon thereafter the prosecution set about getting one. On January 30, 1953, Rover wrote Hoover, noting that an article by Harold Lasswell showing how the new technique of "content analysis" could "prove a person's writings may follow a given propaganda line" had appeared in a back issue of Public Opinion Quarterly . Would the bureau get him a copy?^[91] The bureau complied.

Then Rover visited Belmont February 24. Would the bureau agent who had analyzed Lattimore's writings in 1950 be available to testify at trial? Belmont did not think so. Whoever testified should have been a Communist so he could have personal knowledge of the Party line. No bureau agent could do this; no agent would be allowed to testify in any case. Hoover agreed.^[92] Rover set about getting his own experts.

But he needed a library of Lattimore's writings for the experts to work with. On April 10 he dumped in the bureau's lap a request for two copies

of everything Lattimore had ever written or spoken: books, magazine articles, public statements, book reviews, newspaper articles, OWI directives. At first the bureau attempted to comply with this request, but as hitherto unknown Lattimore articles began to surface, the bureau grew tired of tracking them down. Justice Department attorneys were told to go to the Library of Congress. By June the bureau had provided 322 articles and 5 books; Rover got the rest of the books from the Library of Congress. Rover's major problem now was finding the right persons to analyze them. All candidates for this task were screened by the bureau.^[93]

By July 2 the apparatus was all in place. Rover had found an institutional base for the project: American University's Bureau of Social Science Research, Robert T. Bower, Director. Staff members working on the Lattimore project were Harold Mendelson, Ivor Wayne, and Stanley K. Bigman. Listed as consultants were William J. Morgan of the president's Psychological Strategy Board, Charles A. H. Thomson of the Brookings Institution, and W. Phillips Davison and Alexander George of Rand Corporation. Or so attorney Donegan told Belmont.^[94]

In 1985 none of the American University people could be located. Fortunately, Alexander George, Phillips Davison, and Charles Thomson, the "consultants" on the project, responded to my inquiries. Alexander George's response was typical: "I am happy to have an opportunity to clarify the record as regards the [FBI] statement that I was a consultant to the Department of Justice in the Lattimore case. I and several other specialists in content analysis were asked to attend a meeting to discuss whether this technique could be used to prepare evidence against Lattimore. Ralph K. White, also present at the meeting, and I both emphatically stated that in our judgment the technique of content analysis was not capable of providing valid evidence for this kind of purpose. I was not asked to participate in such a project."^[95]

Rover was not put off by the adverse judgment of the consultants. Bower said they could do it, so a contract was drawn up with American University for a "sample analysis" at a cost of eight thousand dollars. Hummer and Donegan related to Belmont how this analysis was working. Belmont thought:

The method of analysis appears w be quite complicated; however, briefly, it is to be entirely objective and based on the treatment afforded subject matter by Lattimore as to whether it follows the Communist Party line or is more favorable to Russian interests than the interests of the United States. This is to be accomplished by utilizing the yardstick of some 400 key words and phrases; for example, Stalin, China, reactionary, impe-

rialist, opportunist, etc. For example, take the word "Stalin"; a list would be made up of the number of times this word appeared in Lattimore's writings and would be broken down as to whether Stalin was mentioned favorably or unfavorably. By this factual analysis, on a percentage basis, it is expected that these researchers can testify that Lattimore's writings were pro-Communist and that he favored or promoted Communist or Russian interests.^[96]

The American University team set about its task. Apparently the university library was not adequate for their research; they were constantly plying Rover with requests for needed materials, which Olney passed on to the FBI: background data on the Overseas News Agency, a copy of the theses of the Sixth World Congress of the Communist party, China's New Democracy by Mao Tse-tung, the China White Paper , George Sokolsky's Tinder Box of Asia , and so on.^[97]

Sometime in October 1953 the American University team finished a sixty-page report, which "concluded that the content analysis techniques used by them at this time cannot prove the proposition that Lattimore was a promoter and sympathizer of Communist interests." But they thought it was entirely possible that Lattimore's views could be compared with the Communist party line by some other means. Rover was back to square one. In November he started all over. This time he had a new list of expert prospects, all to be screened by the bureau: Herbert Feis, W. Yandell Elliott, Stefan Possony, Cyrus H. Peake, and Nelson T. Johnson. H. G. Creel and Wilmoor Kendall were later added to the list, but none of these people was selected. Perhaps they weren't expensive enough; Olney told Hummer "that no economy should be used on this search or any other aspect of instant case."^[98]

Sometime in January 1954 Rover got his new team together. It was announced to the bureau February 4: Joseph Ballantine, David Dallin, Nicholas Poppe, and Timothy Taracouzio (henceforth designated by the initials of their last names, BDPT).^[99] This group replicated the ideology of McCarran and his SISS. Three of them were known enemies of Lattimore. Rover chose well for the purpose of getting an analysis to overwhelm a grand jury; but were this team to be subject to skillful cross-examination in a public trial, their biases would hurt Rover's cause.

Joseph Ballantine had been chief of the Far Eastern division of the State Department in 1945—one of the Japanophiles Lattimore told Truman should be replaced. Ballantine thought Lattimore had been "very anxious to get us into a war with Japan" in 1941. After the war he objected to Lattimore's position on the emperor. At the October 1949 roundtable confer-

ence on China, Ballantine sided with Stassen and the group opposed to dealing with Peking. In his oral history for Columbia University, Ballantine said that "Solution in Asia goes 100 percent along the line of the Communist solution in Asia."^[100]

David Dallin was a Russian national who had fled the Soviet Union in 1922. He came to New York in 1940 and made a name as a student of Soviet foreign policy. Naturally he read Lattimore, who was insufficiently anti-Communist for his tastes. In Dallin's 1948 book, Soviet Russia and the Far East , he claimed that Lattimore was following the Soviet line in advocating a coalition government in China; chastised Lattimore for claiming that the Chinese Communists had democratic features; and in general said that Solution in Asia swallowed the Communist line. In a 1950 New Leader article he strengthened these views. Lattimore, in saying that the Soviet Union did not control China, "could not be serving the Kremlin more effectively were he on Stalin's payroll." A year later, also in the New Leader , Dallin took up Budenz's crusade. Wallace, Lattimore, and Vincent had worked to carry out a Kremlin objective when they recommended Wedemeyer (which, of course, Lattimore had nothing to do with). Wallace said Dallin's article "indicates a mind so diseased" that he would not answer it; Alsop said that "it seemed to me such trumped up and psychotic nonsense" that he canceled his New Leader subscription.^[101]

Nicholas Poppe (see chapter 22) had lost none of his hostility to Lattimore when Rover asked him to take part in the BDPT analysis in 1954. Poppe remained convinced that Lattimore followed the Party line on Mongolia. Poppe does not mention his work on BDPT in his autobiography.^[102]

Timothy Taracouzio was the only BDPT participant with no public record of hostility to Lattimore. He was also a Russian refugee, having come to the United States in 1923. He studied at the University of Southern California, took a Ph.D. at Harvard (1928), and was in charge of the Slavic department of Harvard's Law Library from 1928 to 1942. During World War II he served in the army; after the war he taught at the National War College for a year, then the Naval Intelligence School for a few months. There is a big gap in his Who's Who biography between 1947 and 1956.^[103]

Taracouzio wrote three books, two of which do not help us understand why he was enlisted to impale Lattimore. His third book, War and Peace in Soviet Diplomacy , published by Macmillan in 1940, is enlightening. As Rupert Emerson notes in the American Political Science Review , Taracouzio "sets out with a basic hostility both to Marxist ideology and to

Russian practice ," hence leaving no room for defense of Soviet policy anywhere. Taracouzio ignores the exclusion of Russia from the Munich conferences; Lattimore's view of Munich, that the Western powers treated the Soviets contemptibly, was anathema to Taracouzio. Taracouzio would also have despised Lattimore's 1950 geopolitics. Lattimore held that by tough negotiations the United States could reach a settlement with the Soviet Union in Asia; Taracouzio thought that the Kremlin would not deviate from its fundamental desire to conquer the world and that negotiations were useless.^[104]

Quite a crew, BDPT. Asking them to evaluate Lattimore's work was like asking Luther, Calvin, Knox, and Wesley to evaluate papal encyclicals.

BDPT had research needs too. Requests to the bureau for research materials tripled. Jackson made some monumental demands, usually channeled through the new Assistant Attorney General for Internal Security, William F. Tompkins. On September 3 Tompkins wanted specific information about 237 Lattimore publications: "With respect to each book, periodical, or document, the name and address of the witness or witnesses who can testify to (1) the amount of circulation of the first edition and all subsequent editions, if any; (2) its printing and circulation in foreign languages; and (3) the names of all countries in which the writings were circulated and the amount of circulation therein."^[105] Unfortunately, our lexicon of J. Edgar Hoover's expletives is the poorer due to absence of his reaction to this request.

On Monday, September 3, 1954, Rover, Jackson, Donegan, and Hummer went before the grand jury. They had the 515-page BDPT comparison of Lattimore's writings with the Party line; more than five hundred other exhibits including, so Hummer claimed, all of Lattimore's publications; and various witnesses.^[106] We do not know about the witnesses, but the stacks of documents had to be overwhelming.

The BDPT analysis of Lattimore's writings was not released by the FBI or the Department of Justice. There is, however, a copy in Ballantine's papers at the Hoover Institution at Stanford.^[107] This document is mimeographed; presumably it was the version displayed before the grand jury. Marginalia indicate that BDPT clearly had some internal disagreements. Poppe wrote the lengthy section on Mongolia; Dallin scribbled caustic comments all over this section. Ballantine wrote on Japan, Dallin on China; Taracouzio's contribution is not clear.

The BDPT analysis is organized by topics: Chiang Kai-shek, China,

Indonesia, Indochina, Japan, Korea, Lattimore and communism in general, Mongolia, Sinkiang, Soviet foreign policy, Soviet Union. There are 555 separate citations to Lattimore's writings, with some passages cited twice or three times. These passages come from

Inner Asian Frontiers of China , Lattimore's most important and best-known work, is cited only five times. Out of perhaps four million words in Lattimore's collected works, BDPT analyzed some seventy-five thousand. How were they chosen? The selection was not on the basis of random numbers, or by taking every tenth paragraph, or any other rigorous principle. Careful reading of BDPT makes the conclusion inescapable that they selected passages that contradicted the right-wing wisdom of 1954: that Lattimore, as mastermind of the China hands, lost China; that Moscow brought Mao to power; that the People's Republic of China was subservient to the Kremlin; that the Korean invasion was Stalin's first step toward world conquest; that the United States should never recognize the PRC; and so on. It was easy to build up a pro-Communist score this way. For each citation to Lattimore's writings in BDPT, there is a classification: either agreement with or contradiction to the Communist position. About half of the pages have a column for the evaluator to indicate whether the passage cited agrees or disagrees with the official U.S. position. Usually the author finds a contradiction to the U.S. position, but even where he doesn't, if the U.S. position agrees with the Soviet position, he chalks up a score against Lattimore. On about half of the items related to Chiang Kai-shek, whom the Russians supported until 1946 and Lattimore until 1947, Lattimore could be classified as in agreement with both the Soviet position and the U.S. position. This gives him no credit. It was a no-win situation. If Lattimore said the world was round, BDPT would check Soviet doctrine. If the Soviets also said the world was round, BDPT would score one against Lattimore.

Most of the evaluations show Lattimore taking a heretical position—for instance, his belief that Soviet minority policies in the Sino-Soviet

border areas were enlightened, so that the Soviets had a certain "power of attraction" for minorities on the Chinese side. Lattimore's position on this point is cited in ten or more places—hence ten scores against him. BDPT justify this approach by arguing that there had been minority unrest in the Ukraine; hence, Lattimore could not be correct about the Sino-Soviet border areas; hence, Lattimore was following the Communist line.

BDPT analysis of the five citations from Inner Asian Frontiers is especially interesting. In any scientific sample of his writings this book would have been cited far more than a mere five times. The first of the five citations does not appear on the page of Frontiers BDPT claim, nor does it appear anywhere else in Lattimore's book. In citation two, Lattimore says that most of the Inner Mongolian lamas were parasites, living off the profits of trade and agriculture that they controlled. This was true, but the Soviets believed it also. Score another agreement between Lattimore and the Communists. The third citation is lengthy and complicated; any analysis would necessitate a major historical inquiry. Since Lattimore says Soviet policy in Outer Mongolia (MPR) was nonexploitive and aided the Mongols against the Japanese encroachment, BDPT score it against Lattimore.

In citation four, Lattimore says the Khalka Mongols have "the most popular and representative government they have ever had, and a rising standard of living" under the MPR. There is much reason to believe this evaluation was correct, but Poppe didn't believe it. Score another point against Lattimore. In citation five, Lattimore describes a Soviet-Chinese negotiation of 1929. BDPT says his description is overly kind to the Soviet Union. Perhaps they were right. But these five instances (or four, if item one is a false citation), taken out of a treatise of 585 pages, do not prove anything except that the compilers were out to get Lattimore .

I cannot claim to have checked out every one of BDPT's 555 citations. Since Solution in Asia was the paradigm instance of Lattimorean fellow-traveling, according to Ballantine and Dallin as well as Eastman and Powell in their Reader's Digest article, I checked the seventy-one references to it carefully. In only three cases do BDPT find Lattimore in opposition to the Communist line. The other sixty-eight citations are in agreement with the Communists. In about ten cases the analyst throws in the additional comment "Propaganda."

However, there are certain anomalies in the BDPT analysis of Solution . Nineteen items repeat earlier citations under a new category; hence, only fifty-two different citations are actually used. The box score does not show this duplication. One item is classified as "Agreement with Communist

position—propaganda" on page 180 of BDPT but on page 292 is classed as "Contradiction to Communist position." One of these has to be wrong.

Most of the analysis simply demonstrates that BDPT lived in a different historical environment from Lattimore. Did, as Lattimore claims, Chiang use the threat of the Chinese Communists to get aid from the United States? Of course. This is not Party-lining. Lattimore claimed Chiang was still in control of China in 1944 and that the Communists were not strong enough to nominate a candidate of their own for president. This is Party-lining? Lattimore said Marxist thought was "competitive" with capitalist thought in Asia. Was this not true? Lattimore pointed out the interaction of domestic and foreign policy—linkage, in current parlance—and so did Lenin. Does this warrant charging Lattimore with following the Party line? Nationalism, Lattimore said in 1944, is the most potent force in Indonesia; colonialism is dead. Stalin said this, too. Who is following whom? This tortured analysis of Solution emanated from bias and ideology. O'Mahoney, Fortas, Arnold, or Rogers would have made mincemeat of it.

The most compelling evidence of bias in BDPT's analysis of Solution is its total disregard of Lattimore's prescriptions for the economic and political health of Asia. No single passage in which he argues for capitalistic free enterprise is cited by these analysts. What BDPT cite is slanted; what they ignore is vital. Lattimore notes the desirability "of encouraging the development of independent local capital and industry in colonial territories." He praises Chiang, saying the "power of decisive action lies with the Chinese, and within China with the Kuomintang." He notes that Americans were welcomed back to the Philippines, proving that U.S. policies there had been enlightened. He says, "We need political stability and economic prosperity in China so that we can invest our capital there safely." He argues that "we should do our utmost to revive production in China, emphasizing the value of the profit motive, and therefore of private enterprise." And in the overall Asian scene, we need "a general policy of expanding investments and markets."^[108]

But on August 18, 1954, Jackson could tell Branigan that "in approximately 97% of the cases, Lattimore agreed with the Communist line."^[109]

The BDPT analysis is a scandal, and its use by the Eisenhower Department of Justice to wring a two-count indictment out of an uncomprehending District of Columbia grand jury was contemptible.

Chapter Twenty-Seven
Second Indictment, Second Dismissal

While the judicial system was laboring to settle the case of the United States versus Lattimore , attacks from the political arena continued. One of the more unusual ones, which remained clandestine, came via the chaplain of the Senate. The Reverend Frederick Brown Harris was a friend and supporter of J. Edgar Hoover. On July 13, 1954, Harris wrote Hoover urging that an anti-Lattimore activist who had called on Harris be allowed to "put into your hands some things you ought to have regarding the Lattimore case." This individual, according to Harris, "lives and moves and has his being in this matter of the communistic threat. . . . He has just completed a volume based on the testimony Lattimore has given at various hearings. . . . I can assure you that, after three-quarters of an hour interview with him, he is on fire with this subject and with his zeal to uncover the diabolical plottings of this system which is a conspiracy against all that is decent."^[1] Hoover declined; Lou Nichols was commissioned to be baptized with zeal. There is no evidence that Nichols was converted.

Zeal flowed more openly July 28, 1954. In the grand ballroom of the Hotel Astor, Alfred Kohlberg's American Jewish League against Communism, Incorporated, gave a gala dinner for Roy Cohn, recently fired by the Senate Permanent Investigations Subcommittee.^[2] Twenty-five hundred people crowded the ballroom; the sponsors said six thousand more had been turned away. Every right-wing organization in the country was represented; Frank Gibney, a senior editor of Newsweek , said of it, "Unquestionably, this was a most comprehensive assembly of 'McCarthyites.' Besides Roy, the Senator and a few of the more prominent boys on the McCarthy sub-committee staff, there was an assortment of zealots comparable in their intensity only to the personnel of meetings organized in

past years by groups like the old Communist-sponsored League Against War and Fascism."^[3]

Kohlberg made one of the many tributes to Cohn. Not trusting the press to distribute his encomium adequately, Kohlberg mailed copies of his remarks to his list of some thousand opinion makers: "Roy, stay away from the U.S. Senate. I say this entirely without prejudice. In fact, some of my best friends are Senators. But beware of them, Roy, they are just too mixed up."^[4] The mixed-up senators were the anti-McCarthyites such as Ralph Flanders.

From the standpoint of Rover and the prosecution, the Senate was troublesome; Rover had real trouble getting an SISS member to appear in court. Rover wrote McCarran August 24, 1954, asking him to arrange for a member of SISS, preferably himself, to appear before the grand jury on September 13 to testify that SISS had a valid legislative purpose in questioning Lattimore.^[5] McCarran declined. Two weeks later Rover was still hunting a Senate witness. We have this intelligence from Ed Hummer, reporting to Branigan:

Hummer advised that for purposes of showing materiality, a senator who was on the McCarran Committee . . . will appear before the grand jury and again in the trial. He advised that former Senator O'Conor of Maryland has indicated his desire not to so appear since he is now a practicing attorney and the publicity might be adverse; that Senator McCarran does not want to appear because "he would lay himself open to attack by the Communists"; that United States Attorney Rover does not want Senator Eastland to appear because of his professed anti-Negro sentiment; that Senator Ferguson is willing but has advised Rover that he is in the midst of a political campaign from which he should not take time off; that former counsel for the McCarran Committee, Judge Robert Morris of New York City, is not wanted because Rover believes he would use such an appearance for self-aggrandizing; and that Senator Smith is not living. Hummer advised that the remaining two Senators, Jenner and Watkins, have been requested to appear and as yet no reply has been received.^[6]

Lacking grand jury minutes, we do not know which senator appeared. Nor do we know very much that happened in the grand jury room. The only published account is in Fred Field's autobiography.

In 1953, a year after serving a jail sentence for refusing m tell a New York court about the affairs of the Civil Rights Congress Bail Fund, Field moved to Mexico. The climate in the United States was such that he could no longer be effective in the Communist-affiliated causes dear to him.

Rover was adamant that Field should appear before the grand jury, so a summons was served on him in Mexico City. Presumably, Field was called to identify letters from the IPR files; he cooperated in this request. But when Rover began to question him about his political beliefs and his relations with various people, he balked:

Nine of the questions began in exactly the same way: "Have you ever been requested to act on behalf of the Soviet Union . . . ," and then the nine endings: "by Budenz?" "by Browder?" "by any member of the American Communist Party?" . . . "by any Soviet citizen?" "by any Chinese Communist?" "by Owen Lattimore?" To all those questions I invoked the Fifth Amendment. It is not too difficult to imagine what could have happened if I had answered them instead. For example, had I said no to the one about Budenz, they would have had Budenz on the stand in no time at all, and he would have said something like this: "Yes, I clearly remember the occasion when I passed on to Comrade Spencer [Field] the message from Moscow in which Comrade Stalin asked him to come over to have tea with him." As a result, I would have landed in jail for perjury. There was convincing testimony on the record to show that the Establishment would believe absolutely anything Budenz said. I would not have had a chance. (Field's italics)^[7]

The grand jury learned nothing significant from Field except that one of Lattimore's friends was a Fifth Amendment Communist. This did not matter. The guts of Rover's case was the BDPT document, probably supported by one or more of its compilers.

September 26, 1954, the day before the grand jury was to adjourn, Walter Winchell broadcast a claim that Philip Jaffe had made "a sensational statement to the FBI." Donegan called the bureau early the next morning. If Jaffe had said anything about Lattimore, Rover wanted to hold the grand jury and bring Jaffe before it. Wacks checked the records. Jaffe had never been "wholly cooperative." In August he had appeared to waver, but nothing had come of it. Branigan, who reported the incident to Belmont, recommended "that Mr. Donegan be advised that all pertinent information received from Jaffe re Lattimore has been furnished to the Department; that if the Department wants to continue the grand jury on the basis of Winchell's comment, that is entirely up to them." Hoover concurred: "We are not responsible for what W W says, & Donegan should be so advised."^[8]

Rover did not need a confession from Jaffe. The grand jury was convinced. On September 27, 1954, they unanimously voted a two-count indictment.^[9]

While prosecution attorneys were polishing and printing the indictment, the most powerful force behind the Lattimore prosecution died. Patrick McCarran, age seventy-eight, suffered a heart attack after addressing a political rally in Hawthorne, Nevada, September 28.^[10] He took his suspicions about the "one being" directing the Communist apparatus in the United States to the grave with him. The chances are that Lattimore was still a candidate. Jenner and Eastland, who succeeded McCarran as chairmen of SISS, did not give up his crusade.

The new indictment was issued October 7. It is one of the strangest documents ever to come from a grand jury. The two counts are simple: Lattimore lied about not being a follower of the Communist line and not promoting Communist interests. But the document runs to twelve pages. It presents a definition of "Communist line" so expansive as to include any statement ever made by a Soviet or left-wing writer. It lists twenty-five "topics" on which Lattimore is alleged to have followed the Communist line, and for each of these topics it gives a list of Lattimore's publications, with page numbers, presumably setting forth that line. Fourteen of these topics are declarative sentences, such as "Moscow Has Not Backed the Indo-Chinese Communists." The other topics have no predicate; they are simply phrases such as "The Marshall Plan." The Lattimore publications listed, as in the BDPT analysis, are overwhelmingly ONA dispatches, Solution in Asia , and Situation in Asia .^[11]

And as with BDPT, Lattimore's extensive statements in favor of capitalistic free enterprise are nowhere to be found in the indictment. Lattimore had also dearly asserted the legitimacy of free-world efforts to counter Soviet influence, but the indictment does not mention them. How Rover expected to deal at trial with a cross-examiner who would demonstrate that the articles listed were overwhelmingly anti-Communist is a mystery.

The AFP brief of appellee, flied November 18, 1954, quotes definitions of "follower of the Communist line" from HUAC, the U.S. Civil Service Commission, and the Internal Security Act of 1950 that differ radically from that of the Lattimore indictment. Most such definitions are narrowly drawn and focus on shifts in Soviet positions. According to the defense brief, "The indictment is not limited to those who shift with Russia as it shifts its policy. It touches any writer whose opinion ever coincided with Russian policy at any time. Covering a period of fifteen years, as it does, and including events long antedating the cold war, it would force every British and American statesman to admit that he was a follower of the Communist line in the sense used in the indictment."^[12]

In a statement Lattimore issued the same day the indictment was released, he said, "Under this indictment, the entire Democratic and Republican administrations could be accused of perjury if they said they had never knowingly followed the communist line—so could Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower, all of whom have been accused of following the communist line. Inevitably this country cannot always take a position in exact opposition to the position taken by Russia."^[13] The New York Times quoted Lattimore's statement approvingly.

Despite the unanimous grand jury vote on the new indictment, Rover was uneasy about it. Even before it was issued, he was planning ways to avoid having it overturned. Hummer is again the channel through which we can view prosecution plans; he talked to Branigan September 30.

Hummer advised that United States Attorney Rover has contacted Chief Judge Laws to request that Youngdahl not be assigned the Lattimore case again. Laws reportedly told Rover that any such request must be in writing and that Youngdahl had already indicated his desire to remain assigned to this case. Hummer stated that Rover has prepared a petition of prejudice and bias against Youngdahl, based mainly on his statement concerning materiality, referred to above, and if Youngdahl once again is assigned to this case, he will present this petition to Youngdahl as the basis for a motion for Youngdahl to step down. Hummer stated that he expects "fireworks" with respect to this situation since he is convinced that Youngdahl wants to use the Lattimore case as a steppingstone to higher positions.^[14]

Hummer may have been wrong about Youngdahl's ambitions, but he was right on the mark about Rover. On October 13 Rover flied his affidavit of bias, stating that Youngdahl had shown himself so biased in favor of Lattimore that he could not preside impartially over a trial. He should therefore remove himself, allowing the case to be assigned to another judge.^[15]

The defense was stunned. Youngdahl and Lattimore had never met. Youngdahl had never shown any bias in favor of Lattimore anywhere; he had simply ruled on the legal sufficiency of an indictment. AFP reacted immediately. Their motion to strike affidavit of bias and prejudice was filed October 14.

(1) The affidavit is a bald and undisguised attack on the decision of Judge Youngdahl dismissing the first count in the original indictment of Owen Lattimore. That decision was affirmed by an eight-to-one vote of the judges of the United States Court of Appeals.

(2) The affidavit is in plain defiance of all the decided cases which hold that a judge may not be disqualified because counsel objects to his opinions and rulings. . . .

The affidavit is clearly an attempt to manipulate the administration of justice. The Department of Justice wants to prevent Judge Youngdahl from deciding this case. The reason it wants him out of the case is because under his opinion in the previous indictment the prosecution fears that its present indictment cannot stand. The Government had an opportunity to appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, which it declined. It substitutes for that judicial review the oath of the United States Attorney that in his opinion the written decision of Judge Youngdahl on its face is so bad that it must have been the result not of judicial reasoning but of unjudicial prejudice.

No such affidavit has been filed by the Government in any case before this. It amounts to an assertion that Judge Youngdahl has been in this case an untrustworthy judge who has allowed his prejudices to run away with his reason. That assertion is made in a cause celebre . All over the United States newspaper headlines have reported that it is the opinion of the Department of Justice that the judge who dismissed the first count against Lattimore was not acting as an unbiased court.^[16]

Thus, it was all laid out: subtly, but firmly, the Eisenhower administration was challenging the courts to deal harshly with the heretic Lattimore. The rule of law was now to feel the heat of the frustrated inquisitors. At the time, no one could know how much the courts would bow to the anti-Communist hysteria. McCarthyism seemed to be on the wane, but the China lobby was as vigorous as ever and more determined. Youngdahl was vulnerable, and Attorney General Herbert Brownell swung his prestige firmly behind Rover.

Thurman Arnold requested an appointment with Brownell. According to the New York Times account, Arnold "asked Mr. Brownell at a conference this morning to disassociate the Justice Department from the challenge to Judge Youngdahl's fitness. The Attorney General refused and told Mr. Arnold that he had 'the fullest confidence in Leo Rover.' "^[17]

Rover maintained the initiative. At a news conference October 20 he challenged the right of the Lattimore defense to object to his affidavit of bias, claiming that it was a matter exclusively between him and Judge Youngdahl. As the Times described it, Rover "asserted that the Lattimore lawyers had 'no standing to interpose a motion' to dismiss his affidavit. He described their motion as a 'frantic emotional attack' on his action."^[18]

Two days later Youngdahl held court to hear arguments on the affidavit of bias.

It was a nasty scene in the district court the morning of October 22, 1954. There is an old saying in legal circles; when you have no case, abuse the opposition attorneys. Rover went that one better: he abused the judge. Of course, he had disdain aplenty for Lattimore's attorneys, but his harshest barbs were reserved for Youngdahl. The judge, Rover said, should never have commented on the possible immateriality of the counts in the first indictment. Materiality was a matter that could be decided only after hearing the government case at trial. "How can it be argued that Your Honor does not come into this case prejudging it, biased and prejudiced, whether you believe it or not, remembering, now, this is not any off-the-cuff statement. This is not something that the court might say in the heat of the trial. It is a cool, calm, deliberate opinion." Said the Times , "Torrents of emotional oratory swirled about Judge Youngdahl for two hours. Mr. Rover shouted that the jurist had been 'an advocate, not a judge' in earlier consideration of the Lattimore case. Judge Youngdahl had used language in an opinion, Mr. Rover asserted, that was 'a gratuitous insult to the Government of the United States.'"^[19]

It was left to the genius of Thurman Arnold to counter this outburst of invective. His impassioned defense of the original Youngdahl ruling, and of the court of appeals that upheld the vital part of it, is a model for students of judicial pleading. Arnold's speech had more than the requisite citations of precedent for affidavits of bias. He articulated precisely the fanaticism that sparked the Lattimore prosecution. Rover was "the sincerest man I have ever known, but he has that type of mind that feels any opinion against him must be biased and prejudiced, because he is so sure that God is with him and that he is in the right. . . . Four out of the nine judges on the Court of Appeals said . . . on the face of the record, these counts cannot pass materiality. What does the United States Attorney propose to do? To get rid of you? Then he swears off those four judges, who went even further than you with respect to materiality. . . . I think that what Mr. Rover wants to do is to muzzle this court—not yourself, but other judges."^[20]

Youngdahl listened to it all impassively and when it was over, took it under advisement.

Blind commitment to a cause comes to different people in different ways. McCarthy, for instance, began his anti-Communist career with no deep commitment whatever. Anticommunism was just another political tactic. Jack Anderson, who covered McCarthy for Drew Pearson, says,

"From day to day I could see the new cause tightening its grip on him, as though the compulsive upward thrusting that had so long driven him forward willy-nilly had at last found its true focus."^[21] So McCarthy became a believer, internalized his own rhetoric, lost any sense of proportion.

Something similar happened to Ed Hummer. Beginning his contact with the Lattimore case as a thorough skeptic, prodded by Cohn's vendetta and Rover's fanaticism, Hummer came by 1954 to share the commitment of the prosecution team. It clouded his vision. After hearing the Rover-Arnold confrontation over the affidavit of bias, Hummer reported to Branigan that "Rover 'lowered the boom' on Youngdahl to such an extent that it is inconceivable to Hummer that any judge in Youngdahl's position would consider remaining on the case." Hummer, too, had lost his sense of proportion. The next day Youngdahl ordered the affidavit stricken from the record as scandalous.^[22]

Rover had attempted to intimidate the courts. Hummer revealed this fact on October 27, when he told Branigan that the government would not appeal Youngdahl's action but would "first see how Youngdahl treats the defense motions." Hummer himself thought that "in view of the recent adverse publicity, Youngdahl now will 'bend over backwards.'" On October 28 AFP moved to dismiss the new indictment, claiming that it was worse than the original count one. The government's research into definitions of "follower of the Communist line" was "historically silly" and "could only have been conducted by consulting with witch doctors, for, whatever the process by which the Grand Jury was persuaded to bring this outrageous indictment, it could not have included any consideration of historical fact."^[23] Momentum was now with the defense, but AFP took no chances. Their brief on appeal was 215 pages.

The storm in Judge Youngdahl's courtroom spread far beyond Washington. In England, "clamor raised by members of Parliament and large parts of the British press over the questioning of Britons in connection with Mr. Lattimore's trial" led Home Secretary Gwilym Lloyd George to announce that any future American requests for investigation in this or similar cases would be considered at a "high level" before granting them. The New Statesman and Nation called the Lattimore case a "battle for the soul of America."^[24]

In Wyoming, Republicans opposing O'Mahoney's campaign to regain his seat in the Senate played up his part in the defense of Lattimore. One called the lawyer a "foreign agent" in full-page newspaper advertisements. O'Mahoney gave no ground. He not only refused to apologize for defending Lattimore but emphasized that his client was entitled to a pre-

sumption of innocence and to counsel of his own choosing. Ten days before the election O'Mahoney was thought to be ahead of his Republican opponent, but his advisers urged him to downplay the Lattimore case.^[25]

In the Senate, upholders of civil liberties began some of the actions that eventually overthrew the McCarthy-McCarran forces. Senator Thomas C. Hennings, Jr., Democrat of Missouri, presaging the full-scale hearings he chaired on civil liberties in 1955 and 1956, called for an investigation of Rover's affidavit of bias. Senator William Langer, chair of Judiciary, at first went along with Hennings and requested Brownell, Rover, and Youngdahl to appear at a hearing November 23. When the committee met, none of the three invited witnesses appeared. Deputy Attorney General William P. Rogers appeared "to advise the Committee that the Department would produce no one for questioning . . . since the Department feels that this action [Rover's affidavit] was proper."^[26] Langer adjourned the hearing on the pretext that one of the senators was absent. It never reconvened.

Midterm elections took place November 2, 1954. Democrats won back control of both House and Senate. The campaign degenerated toward the end into mudslinging and acrimony. Vice President Nixon, setting the tone for the Republicans, charged that the Democrats were unfit to govern because they were soft on communism. Democrats bridled at this charge, and House Speaker-Designate Sam Rayburn told United Press that "Congress would demand that the Republicans 'put up or shut up' on their claims of mass dismissals of Federal security risks" hired by previous Democratic administrations.^[27]

McCarthy was not a major force in the campaign. With a committee recommendation to censure the Wisconsin senator waiting to be voted on by the full Senate, Republican campaign managers invited him to sit out the campaign. He didn't, quite; significantly, the Republican liberal who sustained McCarthy's bitterest attacks, Clifford Case of New Jersey, won reelection. In Wyoming, O'Mahoney also won, showing at least that support of the beleaguered Lattimore was not fatal. William S. White of the Times felt that the elections were a rebuff to extremist candidates.^[28]

John Foster Dulles didn't get the word. Three days after the election Dulles accepted the recommendation of a special hearing panel charged with evaluating John Paton Davies under Eisenhower's Executive Order 10450. The board did not find that Davies was in any way disloyal. It found, contrary to every efficiency rating Davies had ever received, that he lacked judgment, discretion, and reliability. His continued employment was therefore inconsistent with the national interest. Dulles fired

him. Hurley and McCarran won that battle. The last of the Chiang opponents was now out of government service. As Davies himself puts it, Jonah was finally overboard.^[29]

Several days later Dulles, who might have had a conscience, told Davies he could use Dulles's name as a reference in seeking another job.

Rover now increased the number of senior attorneys working on the Lattimore case from four to ten. He pressed the department to take Youngdahl's rejection of the affidavit of bias to the court of appeals; Brownell refused. According to Hummer, Rover was bitter about this decision.^[30]

Youngdahl was seething. On November 18, in an unusual move, he filed a memorandum with the district court asking the government to disavow as "without substance" the affidavit of bias, which he described as a "hit-and-run" attack that could affect any judge who heard the Lattimore case. Youngdahl noted "with regret the public announcement by a Government spokesman that his ruling would not be appealed. The judgment of the appellate court could have helped to dissipate the affidavit's thrust against the integrity and independence of the judiciary." The Justice Department remained silent. AFP also asked Brownell publicly to withdraw the affidavit: same result.^[31]

Despite Brownell's refusal to disavow Rover, the Justice Department had some uneasiness about how the Lattimore case was going. On November 24, 1954, they sent a new representative to the FBI to talk over a proposed line of investigation. The new man, Tom Hall, admitted misgivings about the proposed investigation, which he considered a "fishing expedition." Hennrich, for the bureau, agreed. The specific proposal is still classified. Whatever it was, the bureau, as usual, said put it in writing and "we will carefully analyze it."^[32]

Hummer brought new intelligence November 24. It was all wrong. Hummer thought Youngdahl would step down if Rover removed himself from the case, but Rover refused to do so. Rover also thought Youngdahl's fellow judges would pressure him to step down.^[33] They did not do so.

On December 2, after extended and bitter debate, the Senate condemned McCarthy, 67-22. This was occasion for rejoicing at Arnold, Fortas, and Porter. Senator Jenner, unwilling to let the debate end without another attack on Lattimore, threatened Senator Flanders with a subpoena to get him to testify about his relations with Lattimore.^[34] This was gallows humor. McCarran was dead, McCarthy was impotent, and the Lattimore persecution was winding down.

Youngdahl presided over oral arguments on the defense motion to dismiss the second indictment December 13. The substance was familiar, but Arnold and O'Mahoney had some new rhetorical flourishes. Arnold commented, "If the first indictment was too vague, the second is 100 times too vague." O'Mahoney noted that President Eisenhower now advocated peaceful coexistence with the Soviet Union; if Lattimore "had been the one who first wrote 'peaceful coexistence' he would have been indicted for it." The atmosphere in the court was quite different from that of the hearing on the bias affidavit: "Today, Judge Youngdahl smiled and exchanged pleasantries with Mr. Rover. When he had finished two hours of argument, Mr. Rover thanked the judge for his 'graciousness and consideration.' "No date was set for announcing a decision.^[35]

Until December 1954 mainstream press coverage of the Lattimore case had been based almost exclusively on public hearings, speeches, and documents. On December 27 the New Republic published "New Light on the Lattimore Case," listing "Brian Gilbert" as the author. It was an amazingly accurate effort. "Brian Gilbert" was the pen name of Roger Kennedy, a Minnesota Republican then working for one of the major broadcasting networks. Because of his background and conservative appearance Kennedy had access to Rover, Hummer, and possibly other prosecution attorneys. He had also talked to Arnold, Lattimore, and Youngdahl (whom he knew). Kennedy had originally intended to use the Lattimore material for a network documentary, but the network decided the story was too controversial. Kennedy therefore wrote up his findings for New Republic .^[36] His article excoriated McCarran, Cohn, and the Justice Department, whose conduct he termed scandalous. Lattimore, he wrote, had been framed.

SISS was outraged. Jay Sourwine called Michael Straight, New Republic editor. Sourwine's employers were "particularly interested in the assertion made in the course of the article that the committee had encouraged perjury." Would Straight put them in touch with "Brian Gilbert"?^[37] Straight called Kennedy. The prospect of confronting SISS was worrisome, but Straight convinced Kennedy that a contempt of Congress indictment was more worrisome. Kennedy subsequently paid a private call on Sourwine and members of his committee.

As Straight tells the story, "They expected to see an unkempt radical; instead, they faced a well-groomed young Republican. Some intensive grilling followed, but the committee concluded that the net cast out by Sourwine had caught an unappealing fish."^[38] Nothing came of this meeting, but it was not the end of SISS interest in Lattimore. The committee followed his career as long as Sourwine was with them. As for the Gil-

bert/Kennedy article, it remains a perceptive account of the whole fantasy.

Even as the influence of the McCarthy-McCarran Senate bloc was winding down, a group of intellectuals calling itself the American Committee for Cultural Freedom (ACCF) took up the cudgels against Lattimore. The Gilbert/Kennedy article in New Republic triggered the ire of So/Stein and other reactionaries at ACCF; the executive committee of that organization drafted a reply to Kennedy. "Lattimore was indeed a willing instrument of the Soviet conspiracy against the free world," said ACCF; "This conspiracy triumphed in China, yet Lattimore, its 'articulate instrument,' is now defended in the pages of the New Republic ."^[39] ACCF's moderate members did not go along with this article; David Riesman, Richard Rovere, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., and Herbert Muller all protested. ACCF, supported by CIA funds, moved steadily rightward, keeping Lattimore on their roster of subversives; he is still there, in the rogues' gallery of the neoconservatives.

The date for Lattimore's trial had been set for January 10,1955; as that date approached and Youngdahl had not yet issued a decision on the motion to dismiss the second indictment, trial was postponed. On January 7 Rover finally filed a bill of particulars. It dealt only with the counts concerning Chi Ch'ao-ting, Oumansky, and the handling of Currie's mail. Nobody was enlightened. Unbelievably, on January 10 Rover again asked the FBI to prepare "charts and similar graphics" to display the BDPT findings. Hoover again did not "deem it desirable to have representatives of the Bureau prepare the visual data requested by Mr. Rover."^[40]

On January 18 Rover's expectation of having intimidated Judge Youngdahl was dashed. Youngdahl threw out the second indictment in toto and with zest:

Under Count I, perjury is charged to the statement by Lattimore that he was not a follower of the Communist line. The Government supplies a definition of this phrase in the indictment. The Government is prompt to concede that no such definition was presented to the defendant at the Committee hearing in 1952; that it was formulated after Lattimore testified; that it was prepared after independent research conducted by the United States Attorney's Office. The sources of such research, however, do not appear. The Government contends that it is a matter of common knowledge as to what is meant by "follower of the Communist line" and that people differ but little in their understanding of the term; (footnote: Common knowledge of whom? The man in the street? A newspaper man? A man of ordinary or superior intellect? A member

of the F.B.I.? The Department of Justice? The Internal Security Subcommittee? The State Department?) that it is not a minimal requirement of following the Communist line to zig and zag with it, since it does not always zigzag; (footnote: The Government's position confuses the Court. In its "Supplemental Memorandum in Opposition to Motion to Dismiss," p. 7, there is found the following: "It defies common sense to argue that the only test of recognizing a dog is a wagging tail and similarly that the only test of a follower of the Communist line is one who zigs or zags. True, a dog should have a tail and a follower should zig and zag, but as [we have] stated to the Court, it will be proven the defendant has zigged and zagged. As the bulk of a dog is not his tail, neither is the bulk of the line zigging and zagging; overwhelmingly its positions remain fixed from their inception." The Government appears to be zigging and zagging as to its position and meaning of the indictment terms. . . .)

This count, even with its apparent definition, is an open invitation to the jury to substitute, by conjecture, their understanding of the phrase for that of the defendant. . . . To ask twelve jurors to agree and then decide that the definition of the Communist line found in the indictment is the definition that defendant had in mind and denied believing in, is to ask the jury to aspire to levels of insight to which the ordinary person is incapable, and upon which speculation no criminal indictment should hinge. . . .

The charges here serve only to inform the defendant that his sworn statements are to be tested against all his writings for chance parallelism with, or indirect support of, Communism regardless of any deliberate intent on his part. They demonstrate that the Government seeks to establish that at some time, in some way, in some places, in all his vast writings, over a fifteen-year period, Lattimore agreed with something it calls and personally defines as following the Communist line and promoting Communist interests. . . .

With so sweeping an indictment with its many vague charges, and with the existing atmosphere of assumed and expected loathing for Communism, it would be neither surprising nor unreasonable were the jury subconsciously impelled to substitute its own understanding for that of the defendant.

To require defendant to go to trial for perjury under charges so formless and obscure as those before the Court would be unprecedented and would make a sham of the Sixth Amendment and the Federal Rule requiring specificity of charges.

The indictment will therefore be dismissed.^[41]

Lattimore and his lawyers were delighted. Surely now the zealots would fold their tents and fade away. But AFP did not brag about their victory.

When a Baltimore Evening Sun reporter contacted Arnold, Arnold would only say, "The opinion speaks for itself."^[42]

Rover was furious and immediately asked the Justice Department to appeal. Hummer thought that Assistant Attorney General Tompkins would support Rover, but Solicitor General Sobeloff might not.^[43] Trial was put off again.

Defense morale was further boosted on February 2 when United Press carried another story about Matusow: he had been confessing and retracting his confessions for more than a year. Now he again said that everything he testified to about Lattimore's books carrying the Communist line was false. Within three months of this final recantation the FBI conducted a new reconsideration of its former Communist informants. No less than seventeen of the New York informants in the Lattimore case were down-graded from "reliable" to "credibility is not known."^[44]

The government appealed Youngdahl's decision on February 4, 1955. Rover continued to act as if the case were still on course. BDPT were still analyzing, the FBI was still collecting documents, the State Department was still pursuing potential witnesses in Taiwan. There had been more than 3,000 interviews, and 214 of these had been pertinent enough for the bureau to forward the results to Rover.^[45]

The defense, however, thought the case would never come to trial. Since Lattimore had been all but immobilized for five years, the invitations he was getting from scholars in Europe began to look irresistible. Frozen out of American academia (except for Fairbank's annual invitation to Harvard) and unable to lecture at Johns Hopkins, Lattimore, with the support of his lawyers, figured it was time to go abroad. His life had been in the hands of lawyers and politicians long enough. Why should he not accept invitations to address the British Association of Orientalists at Oxford in May and the International Congress of the Historical Sciences at Rome in September? There were also four other tentative invitations. On March 12 he applied for an extension of his passport.^[46]

Ruth Shipley was still in charge of the Passport Office and was every bit as anti-Lattimore as before. But she had been overruled in 1951; perhaps it could happen again.

Passport dragged its feet. Arnold complained: "They won't say yes and they won't say no," he told reporters. No wonder: granting a passport to Owen Lattimore was a matter of sufficient moment to reach clear up to the Oval Office.

The brouhaha began when the State Department asked the FBI to send them relevant reports on their investigations of Lattimore to use in ques-

tioning him. Belmont, for one, did not want to accede to this request. These reports would reveal "the logical government witnesses" to be called for trial. Rover's office also opposed State's request; he would give them nothing on Lattimore. On April 15 Assistant Attorney General (AAG) Tompkins overruled Rover, and the bureau was instructed to furnish the reports to State. Shipley read them and on April 29 prepared a letter denying Lattimore a passport.^[47]

The Shipley letter went to Scott McLeod for approval; he disagreed, recommending that a passport be issued. From McLeod the letter went to the office of Loy Henderson, then to general counsel Herman Phleger, and finally to Herbert Hoover, Jr., the undersecretary, with no decision. Arnold asked that Lattimore be granted a formal hearing. Rover opposed such a heating; it would just give Arnold a chance for "blowing off steam" and would injure the government's legal case.^[48] Rover lost. Frances Knight, a protegé of Senator Styles Bridges and as anti-Lattimore as Shipley, became chief of the Passport Office on May 1; Lattimore got his hearing with Knight. As he recalled in 1979, "Frances Knight asked me if I could show reason why I should get a passport. I said, 'If you give me a passport, you will face a stink on Capitol Hill. If you don't, you'll face a stink in Europe. Take your choice.'"

State was in an uproar, and a meeting was held in Sherman Adams's White House office May 11, with Adams, Herbert Hoover, Jr., Loy Henderson, Phleger, and Jerry Morgan in attendance. No decision was reached. The controversy went on at the undersecretary's level for another week.

On May 17, 12:15 P.M. , Adams talked to Secretary of State Dulles. Adams was distraught. Brownell thought the passport should be issued, but according to Adams, "Certain U.S. Senators will make life miserable if we let him go over. . . . [You] are not in a position to issue a passport to a man who has a pending indictment." But Dulles was to make the decision.^[49]

Brownell called Dulles early on the eighteenth. The attorney general thought the passport should be issued; after all, when Lattimore was first indicted, the judge had ruled that he could travel anywhere in the world so long as he was back for trial. Dulles told Brownell that Adams was against it, but he didn't know how strongly. Brownell told Dulles to call Adams again.^[50]

Dulles relayed Brownell's advice to Adams and said he thought they would issue the passport. Adams expressed regret but did not try to change Dulles's mind. Adams asked if he should speak to Eisenhower about it. Dulles responded, "Has he been following it?" Adams said no. They agreed that Ike should be informed.^[51] Dulles then put in a call to the president:

The Pres. returned the call, and the Sec. said we are having a problem re giving a passport to Lattimore. Adams thought I should speak to you about it. I have the feeling that it is better if you are not consulted about it as it is hot. I am in close touch with Brownell and what we do would be what we agree on. The Pres. asked if there is any law that affects it? The Sec. said he is under indictment. The Pres. said oh, he is? The Sec. said the Judge gave permission for him to go abroad. . . . If you are interested, I would be glad to discuss it with you. The Pres. said to take whatever action is necessary and let him know before he is questioned at a press conference.^[52]

Whatever conclusions one may draw about a hands-off presidency, Eisenhower's total ignorance of the most celebrated prosecution then under way in his Department of Justice is astounding. Dulles decided, and Lattimore's passport was renewed May 20.^[53] Presumably the president was notified.

While the highest officials of the United States were sweating over whether the man who lost China should get a passport, the Justice Department was reviewing its security index, officially titled "Program for Apprehension and Detention of Persons Considered Potentially Dangerous to the National Defense and Public Safety of the United States." AAG Tompkins sent a routine letter to the FBI March 28, 1955, recommending that Lattimore be kept on (the bureau held the index cards). Hoover asked the Lattimore case officers in headquarters and the Baltimore office what they thought. He then wrote a two-page letter to Tompkins reviewing the SISS findings and the bureau's many investigations. From this information Hoover concluded, "It does not appear that facts . . . depict Lattimore as a dangerous individual." The bureau wanted to take him off, and Tompkins yielded. Lattimore became officially "not dangerous" on June 17, 1955.^[54]

Rover filed his appeal from the latest Youngdahl decision April 11. The second indictment, he said, was scrupulously drawn to make clear to Lattimore "the nature and causes of the accusation." On May 11 John Jackson resigned from the prosecution team; Hummer and Davitt were reassigned. Edward Troxell replaced Jackson.^[55]

On May 20 the Lattimores left for Europe, in plenty of rime for his opening lecture in Oxford. After the stress and nastiness of the previous five years England was a tremendous relief. The scholarly community there greeted him with open arms. He lectured to packed houses, and many European intellectuals sought his company. Lattimore's core beliefs, that the Chinese Communists won on their own and were not slaves of the Kremlin, were accepted truths in Europe, not venal heresies as they

were in the United States. His four months in Europe were a time of great rejuvenation.

Oral arguments before the court of appeals took place June 1 in Lattimore's absence. The full court sat again, but there were only eight judges; Harold Stephens had died shortly before the hearing. One new judge had not participated in the 1954 decision. The Washington Post said it was a "bitter debate in the tense, crowded courtroom." William D. Rogers of AFP said the "argument was somewhat inconclusive." Certainly there was little new; both sides had developed their contentions fully in the briefs. AFP was confident, according to Rogers: "No one has any doubt about the eventual outcome. The only question in my mind is what the Government will do when the Court of Appeals decision comes down." No date for a decision was set.^[56]

The death throes of the Lattimore prosecution were much like the beginnings. Poor, befuddled Clay Osborne wrote one of his last pathetic letters to the FBI on June 8. It was addressed to a Los Angeles agent who had been sympathetic to him. "I have either underestimated the total bulk of useful documentation, or else overestimated my own ability swiftly to correlate it. It appears, now, that about another week will be required to get everything organized for even minimum usefulness to our common purpose. I've dedicated so much time to this already that a little more seems justified to meet standards of duty."^[57]

There followed descriptions of OWI documents Osborne had pilfered in 1943 and just dug out of his files. Presumably he was now out of the mental hospital and able to visit his storeroom. There were OWI staff orders, memoranda, analyses of "The significance of the Emperor of Japan," the article by Sun Fo, notes on a conference with Sir George Sansom, and so on. All of these documents, Osborne felt, should be photographed for use in the cause. He was very careful with his treasures: "All drawers are secured by long screws at any time I am absent—and during absences of a few hours or longer, I take with me in the rear of my car, all those documents being prepared for you [the FBI]. In my wallet I have placed a notation to notify you in any event of grave accident or death—that my locked briefcase is your property, and that you will pick it up. Same notation is on brief case." The government did, in the end, take some of Osborne's documents. The State Department determined that they were subject to security classification, and Osborne was ordered to return the originals.^[58] The documents are still classified.

Of cranks and opportunists there was no end. A "mystery flight" informant was still being checked out in June. This conspiratorial talebearer

told the bureau that Lattimore had commanded an Army Transport Command plane that carried military supplies to the Chinese Communists in 1944. This informant had talked to the pilot of the plane, who now lived in Milwaukee. The bureau tracked the pilot down. He had never met Lattimore, had not flown to China at the time alleged, had never delivered supplies to a Chinese Communist army.^[59] Poor Rover. Nothing checked out.

BDPT were still at work, still asking for documents (in June 1955 they wanted copies of fifteen pages of the Daily Worker and Pravda ). George Donegan passed the requests on to the bureau. Expedite, said Donegan.^[60]

It was too late. On June 14 the court of appeals upheld Youngdahl on a vote of 4-4. It would have taken a majority vote to overrule. No opinion was issued, and the order of the court did not disclose how the judges voted. Rover told the Washington Post that as far as he knew, the government would go to trial with the remaining counts of the first indictment, but he would ask the Justice Department to take the appeals court decision to the Supreme Court.^[61]

Celebration at AFP was muted. According to Bill Rogers, they were much surprised at the closeness of the vote.^[62]

Well they might have been. The grounds for Youngdahl's decision, that such an indictment was vague and imprecise, became settled law. In 1956 an indictment of author Harvey O'Connor for contempt of Congress in refusing to tell Joe McCarthy whether he, O'Connor, had been "a member of the Communist conspiracy" was thrown out because the question was so "imprecise and ambiguous" that it was not a crime to refuse to answer it. The court of appeals panel in the O'Connor case consisted of two judges who had ruled on Lattimore plus Warren E. Burger. Their ruling was unanimous. O'Connor told an Illinois newspaper that he was "delighted that it is now possible for an American citizen to have contempt for Joe McCarthy without having to go to jail."^[63]

Rover's assistants, Troxell and Donegan, were divided on whether there was any case at all in the absence of the two backdrop counts Youngdahl had thrown out; Troxell thought the minor counts were weak, but Donegan wanted to go with them. Sobeloff, Tompkins, and Rover were to meet June 27 to make a decision.^[64]

Hummer's report to the bureau says that Rover had no part in the decision; Sobeloff and Brownell were responsible. They wasted no time. The headline to the page-one New York Times account of June 29, 1955, tells the story: "Lattimore Perjury Case Dropped by Government. Conviction Made Difficult by Courts' Killing Key Counts, Brownell Says."^[65]

Brownell's one-page news release of June 28 gave a brief history of the case, carefully noting that the original indictment had come under the previous administration. It concluded: "Upon a consideration of all aspects of the case, it has been decided not to apply to the Supreme Court for review on certiorari on the two counts that were recently invalidated. In the absence of these counts there is no reasonable likelihood of a successful prosecution on the five counts remaining from the first indictment. Therefore, the United States Attorney for this District intends to take the necessary steps to bring about a dismissal of these counts, thus bringing this litigation to a conclusion."^[66]

Now Leo Rover, spearhead of the Lattimore prosecution for two and a half years, faced the embarrassing prospect of going before Luther Youngdahl, whom he had excoriated as unfit, and asking that the case be dismissed. To Youngdahl's credit, he did not take advantage of his triumph. As Youngdahl told the story in December 1977:

Chief Judge Laws—he was the one who gave me the case had a place out near Goose Creek. Arthur Godfrey had a place out there, and there's a wonderful golf course. We played golf out there. One day during a golf game [Laws] said to me, "Luther, Rover has been to see me, and he said the Department of Justice wants to dismiss that entire"—this was after the second appeal, where they split 4-4, on this two-count indictment—"the Justice Department wants to dismiss that entire case, only they're afraid you'll come out with another barn-burning order." I said, "If they want to come in and dismiss it I'll be a good boy and grant the dismissal and adjourn court in a hurry." So Rover came in one morning, moved to dismiss, and I said, "Motion granted." And I got off the court, almost ran off the bench. That was the end of that.^[67]

Actually, Youngdahl said more than that. The official notation reads, "Government's oral motion for leave to dismiss the remaining counts of this indictment is by Court granted; dismissal entered; Defendant discharged."^[68]

It was time. There had never been a case against Lattimore. William C. Sullivan, at one time number three man in the FBI, says in his memoirs:

The dangerous threat of Communism was, of course, one of Hoover's obsessions. During the Eisenhower years the FBI kept Joe McCarthy in business. Senator McCarthy stated publicly that there were Communists working for the State Department. We gave McCarthy all we had, but all we had were fragments, nothing could prove his accusations. For a while, though, the accusations were enough to keep McCarthy in the headlines. One of his major targets was a State Department employee

[sic ] named Owen Lattimore who McCarthy thought was an important Soviet agent, and a lot of government money was spent on digging through FBI files for evidence to prove it. We investigated the hell out of Lattimore, read every letter and memo, everything he ever wrote, but we never found anything substantial to use against him. McCarthy's accusations were ridiculous.^[69]

Roy Cohn, of course, never saw it that way. In my interview with him in December 1979 he argued that only a subversive judge kept Lattimore from his due:

Cohn: I never had the opportunity of legally defending that indictment in District Court. It was dismissed on a bunch of technicalities.

Newman: Why did that prosecution fail?

Cohn: That prosecution never failed because it never happened. When a judge throws out something on a technicality, I don't consider a prosecution failing.^[70]

Warren Olney, looking back on the case from the perspective of the 1970s, thought the case could have been handled better. Even though it was weak, the government should have been more sophisticated. Olney was particularly unhappy about Rover's affidavit of bias: "To our consternation, Leo got so incensed at this adverse ruling that he made a very unwise blast at the judge in public. It got into the papers, and it was very embarrassing to us to have that happen. Of course, it made the judge furious, and his fellow judges also. It was disastrous for Leo himself. . . . He undoubtedly would have been a district court judge if he hadn't blown his stack and fired off at the judge when he shouldn't have."^[71]

Roger Kennedy, again writing as "Brian Gilbert" in the New Republic , deserves the last word on the dismissal of the Lattimore case. He reviewed the poisonous climate of the times, the excesses of the congressional investigators, the dubious efforts of the government to use perjury as a vehicle to repress dissent, the brazen effort to intimidate the courts, and the need to preserve freedom of speech. His conclusion:

There is another, and more serious lesson: we cannot afford another Lattimore case. Certainly no other private litigant will be likely to find a law firm like Arnold, Fortas and Porter which will take such a case without fee. (Time charges for an "ordinary litigant" by such a firm would run close to $250,000.) But in a broader sense, the cost has been too high. The perjury case against Lattimore grew out of a political

prosecution. It was forwarded by improper political pressure upon the Justice Department, upon the press (represented by the magazine Pacific Affairs ) and, of course, upon the Judiciary. Luther Youngdahl, practicing constitutionalist and Christian, fierce defender of the rights of heretics, sat firm upon the bench and fought off a berserk attack upon the integrity of our judicial system. Now, finally, the attackers seem a little ashamed, as they wipe their eyes and feel the passing of the fever in whose grip they did so much that was ignoble. Luther Youngdahl has won his fight; and so have we, and liberty.^[72]

When Brownell announced the end of the prosecution, Owen and Eleanor Lattimore were in Sweden, visiting one of their friends from the 1930s at a cottage in the country. They returned to their Stockholm hotel the evening of June 28, 1955. The telephone rang, and a "very Swedish voice" told them the news just in from Washington. They had not expected it so soon.

They telephoned several friends in Stockholm hoping to find someone to help them celebrate. No one was at home. As Lattimore wrote Joseph O'Mahoney, "We went to a hotel balcony overlooking an arm of the harbor and ordered champagne and smoked salmon and smoked reindeer, and drank a toast to all the many people without whom we'd never have survived."^[73]

The rest of their European tour was one long celebration. European intellectuals had never understood the Lattimore prosecution. They had read Lattimore, many knew him personally, and they believed him to be a loyal American and capitalist to the core. They did not think him a liar. The Lattimores spent July and August in England, where he lectured to appreciative crowds at Oxford, London, and elsewhere. Then they attended the history congress in Rome and headed back to America.