The Redhunter (28 page)

Through her sobs, he made out the words. “I know. I know.”

As usual, Joe took lunch back in his office during the two-hour recess of the committee. Even the cool, disdainful Tydings,
he thought, had been impressed—and visibly disconcerted—by what he had heard about one Josefa Kalli—McCarthy had that morning
given out her real name, as agreed. There was quite general apprehension about
what she would say, what experiences she had had with the security system so ardently defended by Senator Tydings and the
Truman administration. Two reporters, hoping to get more details on what the witness would be exposing that afternoon beginning
at two, followed the senator from the committee room to his office. McCarthy, as always, chatted affably. But—he told them—he
had given the committee that morning all the information he was at liberty to give out. They would have to wait until two
“for the fireworks.”

He was sipping on a beer with his fried chicken, eating at his desk, running over the list of questions he was preparing for
Mrs. Kalli. His mouth was full when Mary’s voice came in over the little speaker.

“I know you are lunching, but he says it’s a major emergency. All he gives is the name ‘Henry.’ ”

Joe picked up the receiver and heard the report. He was less than one minute on the phone. He rang for Don. “Come quickly.”

Surine opened the door to the office and closed it behind him. He remained standing. Joe said: “She’s committed suicide. They
just found her. They’ll investigate the possibility of foul play, but right now they think the pistol that was aimed into
her mouth was put there by—Maria Ouspenskaya.”

McCarthy managed a wry half smile.

Neither of them spoke for a moment.

“So, Don. She was a nice lady, I thought. Well … we have fifteen minutes before we go back and chew the rag with Senator Tydings.”

“What you going to say, Joe?”

“What is there to say? ‘Just a little infield practice, Senator.’ ”

But the shock was very real, and all the office felt it. And it was fueled by frustration and rage. But rage at, exactly,
whom?

“Has the bureau given anything new out since four?” Ed Reidy wanted to know.

“Yeah. Just a half hour ago their press guy said that she died between eleven and eleven-fifteen. No one heard the shot. On
the other hand, there wasn’t anybody in the apartment next door, or the ones above or below. She had been to the post office,
and in her purse was a receipt for a registered letter that went out with the mail at noon—”

“To anybody we know, Sam?”

“Yeah. Get this. It was mailed to Senator Joseph R. McCarthy.”

“Well … I’ll … be …
damned!
So maybe Joe gets the last word? Has the bureau intercepted it?”

“Interesting question, Ed. But now just think for a minute. a) There’s no way to do it, not for sure. The letter’s en route
from Baltimore, could be by mail truck, could be by train—could even be by airplane. The post office uses all three, Baltimore-Washington.
b) The FBI would need a court order to intercept a private communication, and since there is no evidence that Josefa Kalli
committed a crime, the court would have to be persuaded there was immediate cause for taking possession of somebody’s privately
addressed letter—”

“And privately addressed to a senator.”

“Let alone a letter addressed to Senator McCarthy,” Sam topped him. “I figure there’s no way the letter is going to say that
McCarthyism is the reason why she decided to end it all. That’s going to ruin the whole week for Drew Pearson. He’s already
filed copy, my good friend who will be nameless told me—”Sam Tilburn—Ed Reidy had got used to it—had tipsters everywhere—”for
his column tomorrow, blaming Joe for causing her to commit suicide.”

“Oh, sure. That’s what he’ll write about. ‘McCarthyism Caused Old Lady Suicide.’ You can bet he’s not going to write, ‘McCarthy
Finds Former Communist Spy Who Commits Suicide Before Testifying.’

“What do you imagine she wrote him, a couple of hours before—biting the bullet? Poor, poor Josefa. We got to do a big story
about her. But what did she have to tell Joe? Apologies?”

“I don’t know, Ed. Maybe she said she couldn’t bear to live in a society with two hundred and five Communists in its State
Department.”

“Ha ha. Fun
nee.
… You’re certainly helpful today, Sam. … Well, I’ll write something.”

“You always do, Ed.”

“Good night, Sam.”

“Good night, Ed. Ed?”

“Yeah.”

“Say a prayer for that poor lady.”

On the opening day of the meeting of the special Senate subcommittee, Chairman Tydings had surprised McCarthy by asking him
to reveal the names of the suspects.

McCarthy said that he thought it wrong to give them out in a public session—”Some of the material associated with some of
the names might prove wrong, or outdated.” But the chairman, sustained by the three-Democrat majority, wanted names, and McCarthy
edged in, releasing the name of the man he dubbed the “top Russian spy” in the United States, Owen Lattimore. What’s more,
McCarthy said he would provide a witness who would identify Lattimore as a Communist wielding great influence.

Coming to testify, McCarthy said, would be Louis Budenz, now an assistant professor of economics at Fordham College. Budenz
had been a party member for ten years, reaching the commanding post of managing editor of the
Daily Worker.
He had defected in 1945 and given testimony concerning four hundred U.S. members of the Communist Party.

On the day that Budenz was to appear, five hundred people were crowded into the Senate hearing room. “Excuse me,” Joe said,
approaching the table set up for him, facing the examiners. He needed to step over the legs of a photographer attempting a
floor-based
angle shot of the full committee seated at the long mahogany table opposite: Senators Tydings, McMahon, Green, representing
the Democratic majority, and Lodge and Hickenlooper, the minority.

“Sorry, Senator—”the photographer, lying on the floor, bent his knees up toward his chin, allowing the senator to slide up
to his seat. McCarthy propped his briefcase on the table and sat down. A flashbulb went off directly in front of him, and
klieg lights from newsreel cameramen blazed on. On his right, on his left, and behind him were tables fully occupied by news
reporters.

It was a scene packed with bodies and with drama. Senator Tydings banged the meeting to order, and instantly Senator Hickenlooper
put in for a point of order. He advised the chairman that the minority wished to have counsel of its own during the forthcoming
proceedings. Tydings denied the request, banged down his gavel again, and to everyone’s surprise turned to McCarthy, “You
will kindly stop interrupting the proceedings, Senator.”

Everyone was surprised, inasmuch as McCarthy had not opened his mouth since sitting down. He looked over at Hickenlooper with
bewilderment. The senator from Iowa merely shook his head.

Louis Budenz was sworn in. It was achingly hard to get his story because he was interrupted ever step of the way.

Budenz: It was then that I met with Frederick Vanderbilt Field.

Ed Morgan (committee counsel): How do you spell the name?

Budenz: F-r-e-d-e-r-i-c-k V-a-n-d-e-r-b-i-l-t F-i-e-l-d. Mr. Field, of course, is well-known as a Communist—

Morgan: Mr. Budenz, we are not going to take for granted such charges as—

McCarthy: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman. If you can’t say Frederick Vanderbilt
Field
—is a Communist, you can’t say Harry Truman is a Democrat—

Tydings (his gavel pounding down): I remind the junior senator from Wisconsin that I am presiding over this hearing—

McCarthy: But Senator Tydings, Senator Tydings, I mean, would we have to prove that
Stalin
was a mem—

Tydings (renewed use of the gavel): If the senator does not obey the rulings of the chairman, we will call a recess—

McCarthy: All right. All right.

Tydings: Counsel may resume.

Budenz was shaken by three hours of this. “What’s happened,” he said as they walked out together at the lunch recess, “is
obvious. They’re on the public record about Lattimore. He seems to be very special for Tydings. They’ve all lionized Lattimore.
What’s that all about?”

“It’s all about McCarthy,” Joe volunteered. “I said on the Senate floor—you know—that my case would stand or fall on Lattimore.
That means they’ve got to take good care of Lattimore.”

Owen Lattimore was a professor at Johns Hopkins, a specialist in Far East Studies. When asked by a student journalist what
he had to do with the State Department, his answer had been, “Nothing.” Then the student asked, Why was his name brought up
to begin with, if indeed he had nothing to do with the State Department? Lattimore commented, “I’ve told everybody, Senator
McCarthy is crazy if he got me mixed up with the State Department. I have never been in the State Department.” At the third
session Tydings informed the committee at large that he had checked with the State Department and indeed there was no record
of Lattimore’s having served.

Budenz had never met Lattimore. He had learned of Lattimore’s commitment to the party from party faithful Frederick Vanderbilt
Field. “Why didn’t you mention Lattimore in your article in
Colliers
magazine last year when you wrote about Communists in government?” Tydings asked. Budenz replied that
Colliers
had not wanted him to name Lattimore for legal reasons, but that he had in effect named him when Budenz complained of the
Communist authors who wrote for
Pacific Affairs,
a journal edited by Lattimore. Budenz said he could not there and then document the leaning of all the articles published
in
Pacific Affairs,
but that Lattimore was its editor and no one would deny that the journal was pro-Communist in its direction.

“Was he the top Soviet agent?” Senator Tydings asked.

“From my own knowledge, I would not say he was a top Soviet agent.”

The headline in the following day’s
Milwaukee Journal
read, “Budenz Says Lattimore ‘Aids’ Reds But Refuses to Call Him Communist.” The testimony of Budenz was largely discounted.
“Budenz has been around the ring once too many times,” the
New York Post
article read, making reference to Budenz’s numerous appearances on the witness stand. “Most probably he’s just making it
all up, to help Joe.”

The following day, Tydings called the committee into executive session, no press allowed. Executive sessions were generally
attended only by the committee’s executive members, though all were reportedly notified, and entitled to attend.

At the start of this session, Budenz was asked to give such other information as he had about Communists in the State Department.
At just that moment, Senator McCarthy opened the door and entered the room. It was the first meeting of the committee in executive
session, and he had arrived late. At the door of the chamber he had bumped into Minority Counsel Robert Morris, who told him
that, moments before, Tydings had ordered him to leave the room, on the grounds that minority counsel would not be permitted
at executive sessions. Joe angrily shut the hearing door and strode to his seat.

Tydings: “The junior senator from Wisconsin is not a member of the investigating committee and will leave the room.”

McCarthy sizzled for a moment, then stood up and wheeled around toward the door. But then he stopped to peer down at an alien
presence sitting to one side at the end of the table.

He would give many a speech, telling and retelling it: that at the same executive session to which minority counsel was denied
admission and Senator McCarthy was denied admission, there sat—Owen Lattimore, accompanied by his lawyer.

That evening they spent at McCarthy’s office. Ray Kiermas, Jean Kerr, Don Surine, Mary Haskell, and Harry Bontecou. Harry
had begun work only the week before but had been assigned from the first day to the Lattimore case.

Joe drank a bottle of beer and munched a salami sandwich. The
staff had Coca-Cola with their sandwiches. “I’m going to say tomorrow, on the floor, that maybe I was wrong to say about Lattimore
that he was a top espionage agent. But the way the hearing’s shaping up, nobody thinks Lattimore has done anything except
study and write books. Yeah, Harry?”

“I pulled out Lattimore’s book. There’s a revealing blurb on the jacket. Want to hear it?”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

“It says,’He’—Lattimore—‘shows that all the Asiatic people are more interested in actual democratic practices such as the
ones they can see in action across the Russian border, than they are in the fine theories of Anglo-Saxon democracies which
come coupled with ruthless imperialism. … He inclines to support American newspapermen who report that the only real democracy
in China is found in Communist areas.”

“Holy
Jezus!”
McCarthy dropped the sandwich on his plate. “You got to be kidding, I mean, show me the book.”

“They wouldn’t let me take it out of the library. I wrote out the blurb.”