“I don’t think the President is responsible for this,” the Wisconsin Republican said in expressing his views that others had conceived the idea of silencing Adams and had merely obtained President Eisenhower’s signature to accomplish their purpose. “I don’t think his judgment is that bad.”
“There is no reason why anyone should be afraid of the facts, of the truth, that came out of that meeting,” Senator McCarthy thundered. “It is a very important meeting. It doesn’t have to do with security matters. It doesn’t have to do with national security. It merely has to do with why these charges were filed.
“The question is ... how far can the President go? Who all can he order not to testify? If he can order the Ambassador to the U. N. [Henry Cabot Lodge] not to testify about something having nothing to do with the U. N., but a deliberate smear against my staff, then ... any President can, by an executive order, keep the facts from the American people.”
Senator McCarthy brought up the 1952 campaign in which government secrecy had been a key issue: “I do think that someone ... should contact the President immediately and point out to him ... that he and I and many of us campaigned and promised the American people that if they would remove our Democrat friends from control of the Government, then we would no longer engage in Government by secrecy, whitewash and cover-up.”
It was a pathetic plea from a man who by now had completely destroyed his public image by his own brutal performance. His voice was raucous. His heavy beard gave him a rough, almost uncouth appearance despite his efforts to modify it by shaving during the noon recess.
Still, he hammered on. “I think that these facts should be brought to the President because the American people will not stand for such as this, Mr. Chairman. They will not stand for a cover-up halfway through a hearing.”
Seldom had there been more right on the side of McCarthy, but seldom had there been fewer people on his side. Many people who at first had been inclined to approve Joe McCarthy as “doing some good against the Communists,” had been antagonized by his television image. Many editorial pages of a press that was normally much more objective had developed an attitude that anything that is bad for Joe McCarthy is good for the country.
Public sentiment against him was so strong that I did not believe it could have been changed to his favor—even if the committee had succeeded in eliciting testimony on the January 21, 1954, meeting and no matter how embarrassing it might have been to the Eisenhower administration.
There remained, nevertheless, the possibility that the Eisenhower letter could be used again. I was shocked at the wording of it. On the face of it, it seemed to extend the claim of “executive privilege” to prohibit Congress the access to any records or testimony that might involve communications within the executive branch. The letter was a directive with regard to excluding testimony in one hearing—the Army-McCarthy hearing. However, it was certainly broad enough that the Defense Department could use it to block any investigation.
Moreover, if an administration could successfully block any probe of high-level discussions in the Defense establishment, why couldn’t it use that same “executive privilege” to block any investigation in any other executive agency? The thought disturbed me. The Teapot Dome scandals of the Harding administration could have been buried if those officials had applied even the mildest interpretation of “executive privilege” set down by President Eisenhower in the May 17 letter.