"I Guess I Am a Softy"

Hell hath no fury like a reformer caught in a saloon, even if he is only having a short beer. As President Truman's cleanup man, New York's dressy, blue-blooded Republican Newbold Morris has been having a terrible time with a similar embarrassment--a connection (TIME, March 17) with the Chinese tanker scandal. But when he sat down last week to be questioned by Senate investigators, he seemed determined to keep cool, smile, smile, smile, let superior reason (his) prevail, and thus sweep all before him. Result: he alternated between anger, self-pity, exaggerated politeness and flippancy.

At his wife's behest, he brought in a small sign which reminded him to "Keep Your Shirt On," and placed it on the table before him. Relaxed, nibbling on his tortoise-shell spectacles, at times almost hammily polite, he did not argue the fact that his law firm had represented United Tanker Corp.--a Chinese-financed firm which had bought surplus U.S. ships and shipped cargoes to Communist ports in 1949 and 1950. He was equally calm in the face of another fact: he is president of a philanthropic organization, China International Foundation, which control s United's stock.

How to Hurt the Reds. Morris' defense is that the shipments were not contrary to official U.S. policy at the time, and that he, busy with running for mayor of New York, didn't know about the shipments until shortly before they stopped. Morris further maintained that he did not get a penny, personally, from the tanker deal. But South Dakota's stubborn Republican Senator Karl Mundt wanted to know: "What was your share of [the Morris law firm's] $158,000 in fees?" To keep his temper, Morris counted slowly, "One . . . two . . . three . . ." and then said he did not know. Mundt estimated $30,000. With a put-upon air, Morris did not deny it.

The going got rougher. At one point, Morris complained that his questioner of the moment--Wisconsin's Joe McCarthy --"is a terrier. He likes to shake the animal."

Said McCarthy: "Let us assume . . . without admitting it, that your purpose was simon-pure. I am asking whether you and I agree that your tankers did help the Communist cause in China . . . By giving them scarce oil?"

Of all the replies Morris might have made, he chose one best calculated to annoy the committee and cast doubts on his own judgment. Said Morris: "Well, if you want to look at it from another point of view, think what a dreadful thing they did to the Communist economy. They deprived them of dollars . . . They helped to draw dollars out of Russia. Was that not good?"

The questioning continued:

McCarthy: "Now that you are aware that your tanker [a United Tanker Corp. ship] moved roughly 250,000 gallons of aviation lubricating oil to a Communist port . . . about a month before the Korean war started . . . is it too farfetched to assume that aviation oil did result in the deaths of American men up in Korea?"

Morris: "Well, 250,000 gallons wouldn't take care of the taxicabs in Washington in one day. . . How do I know it was for the war machine of China? You said it was. How do I know?"

McCarthy: "Do you think it was not? Do you think they were using aviation lubricating oil for something other than the war machine of China? Do you?"

Morris: "They might have had passenger planes in China. I don't know."

McCarthy summed up his case: "Since your foundation owned all the stock in United and you helped sign the death warrant of American boys in Korea, you were either the greatest dupe or the greatest dope of all time . . ."

Morris turned beet-red, removed his "Keep Your Shirt On" sign. "Excuse me," he shouted. "You've knocked off a lot of characters before, but you're not going to knock mine off."

Mental Brutality? As the session drew to its close, Morris blew up with a bang. "Down here in Washington," he said, "you've created an atmosphere so vile that people have lost confidence in their Government . . . I don't think that any man with red blood in his veins could sit here and take the insinuations left by the diseased minds in this chamber!"

At another point, Morris reached the depths of public self-pity with this:

"It [McCarthy's questioning] is very similar to what they did to Cardinal Mindszenty, what the Hungarian Communists did. Gradually, you can wear a witness down. That is what you call mental brutality." Later, Morris, his lips trembling with emotion, repeated his speech on TV.

When Morris ducked questions about his personal business, the committee pointed out that Morris, in his capacity as investigator, had sent out 25,000 questionnaires asking Government employees searching questions about their personal business.

Whatever else it did, the investigation would hurt Morris' effort to get subpoena powers from Congress. He just did not seem to be made for either the giving or receiving end of an investigation. As he himself put it: "I am a queer kind of guy. You probably wouldn't understand me . . . It is kind of hard to explain. I guess I am a softy, Mr. Chairman."

* In trying to minimize the importance of the oil to Red China, Morris erred factually as well as tactically. All the taxicabs in Washington would take about nine months to use 250,000 gallons of lube oil, and the present Chinese Red air force might get along for three months on it.

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