Testimony on Disaster

Veteran U.S. Diplomat John Carter Vincent has long been No. 2 on Senator Joe McCarthy's list of accused Communists in the State Department. Last summer ex-Communist Louis Budenz echoed McCarthy's accusation.

Home on leave from his post as U.S. consul and diplomatic agent at Tangier, the gaunt, silver-haired diplomat testified publicly last week in his own defense. Budenz, he told Senator McCarran's Internal Security subcommittee, was a liar; and we "cannot defend democracy with perfidy or defeat Communism with lies." Four days of questioning revealed little to support Budenz' charge.

On the other hand, Vincent's testimony bogged down when he tried to defend U.S. China policy in the '40s. As chief of the Division of Chinese Affairs, he had sponsored his good friend Owen Lattimore as a State Department consultant. Now, he admitted, he knew better. Confronted with some of Lattimore's statements, Vincent found them "unrealistic ... a clear misconception of Communism."

Vincent also testified that he had approved of U.S. efforts to promote a coalition government in China, one in which the Reds could participate. He had helped write the directive for the ill-fated Marshall mission that had tried to bring this about. Clearly, when his advice had counted most, Vincent too had misjudged the Communists.

In short, the testimony, while it failed to support the charges of Budenz and McCarthy, did confirm that Vincent had been one of the chief architects of a policy that led to a triumph for Communism and a disaster for the U.S.

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