THE NATION

The Harry Dexter White case, one of the most important dramas of recent U.S. politics, reached a climax--and firm ground--last week with the testimony of Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. and FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. The case was not settled or ended because the basic conflict underlying it still goes on. But it had come to a point where the nation could take stock.

A Diversionary Tactic. The uproar began on Nov. 6 when Brownell, in a speech, told the Executives Club of Chicago: "Harry Dexter White was known to be a Communist spy by the very people who appointed him to the most sensitive and important position he ever held in Government service." This, added Brownell, was evidence of the "persistent delusion that Communism in the Government of the U.S. was only a red herring," and of the "blindness which inflicted the former Administration on this matter."

Brownell had chosen the words "delusion" and "blindness" with care. Neither they nor any other words used in Brownell's speech carried an implication of conscious disloyalty to the U.S. on the part of the people who appointed White. Nevertheless, the molders of the Democratic Party's line looked at Brownell's words and laid down a heavy smoke screen. Democratic National Chairman Stephen Mitchell cried that Brownell had accused Harry Truman of disloyalty, had "tried a former President of the United States for treason before a luncheon club."

In a way that he did not mean, Mitchell got very close to the heart of the long and obscure fight over subversion in government. Men like Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and Dean Acheson knew they were loyal to the U.S.--and they knew that 99% of the people knew they were. When charged with softness toward Communism, or overconfidence in Stalin's word, or blindness to Communist infiltration of the Government, they often reacted as if their patriotism, not their judgment, had been challenged. On a month-to-month basis, this reaction was good politics. But long range, it kept them caught in the Red-issue flypaper. They would not face the ever-mounting evidence, admit their mistakes and thus bury the issue. Mitchell's counterblast at Brownell followed a long-established line.

A Self-Confident Man. The story might have stayed there except for Harry Truman's supreme confidence in himself. His first reaction to Brownell's charge was to scoff that he did not remember ever seeing an FBI report naming White in connection with spying. But he added that "as soon as we learned he was disloyal we fired him."

Again, the story might have stopped, hanging inconclusively in the partisan air. But former Secretary of State James Byrnes came forward with a highly detailed account of a painful conversation in which he urged Truman, in the light of the FBI report, to withdraw White's name as Truman's appointee to become U.S. director of the International Monetary Fund. Obviously, Byrnes was telling the truth, and no Democrat has since cast doubt on his story.

Truman took to the air with two defenses, one old, one new. He eloquently stressed what everyone knows: that Harry Truman is a loyal American. His new defense:* he had known of the charges against White, but had let his appointment to the Monetary Fund go through because withdrawing it would have alerted White and his co-conspirators to the fact that they were under suspicion.

A Riddled Explanation. When Brownell and Hoover took the stand last week, the two principal questions to be aired were: 1) What had the FBI told Truman about White? 2) Was White left in the job in order to help the FBI gather evidence against the spy ring?

J. Edgar Hoover and Herbert Brownell strode into the red-carpeted U.S. Senate caucus room in Washington to answer these questions. Hoover's appearance caused a sensation. As all of Washington knows, the FBI chief intensely dislikes testifying in security cases and might not have done so except to protect the FBI against the implications of Truman's speech.

Brownell produced some of the letters that the FBI chief had sent to the White House. They left no doubt of the FBI's urgency and sense of alarm. He described one 28-page report--devoted exclusively to White--in which the FBI told the White House that its facts had come from 30 informants, all evaluated as reliable sources. /-

When Brownell finished, G-Man Hoover took the stand. In an eight-month period beginning Nov. 8, 1945> he said, the FBI had sent seven communications to the White House discussing Harry Dexter White's espionage activities. Hoover had also told his direct superior, Attorney General Tom C. Clark, that it would be unwise to permit White to serve in the international monetary job. Snapped the FBI chief: "At no time was the FBI a party to an agreement to promote Harry Dexter White and at no time did the FBI give its approval to such an agreement."

In their two hours on the stand, Brownell and Hoover solidly supported Brownell's original statement as to what Truman had known about White, and thoroughly riddled Harry Truman's new explanation--that keeping White was an evidence-seeking operation.

At his news conference the next day, President Eisenhower was asked whether he thought that exposure of Communist infiltration under previous Administrations would be a big issue in the 1954 congressional election campaign. He hoped that this whole thing would be a matter of history by the next election. The issues, he thought, would be determined by what his Administration did to meet the needs of the country, and those needs included cleaning out the Government. When a reporter asked whether he thought his Administration had "embraced McCarthy-ism," as Harry Truman had charged, Eisenhower reddened, then said he was willing to take the judgment of the Washington press corps on whether Truman's statement was true (see PRESS).

1954 and All that. Most Americans might agree with President Eisenhower's hope that the Reds-in-Government issue will disappear next year. But there seems little chance that the hope will be realized. The intense interest in the last three weeks of debate on the White case shows how alive the issue is. The debate was obviously not an antiquarian exercise--not a mere digging up of the past. It disclosed sharp present differences between the attitudes of Democratic and Republican leaders on how to deal with Communist subversion.

U.S. politics is always conducted by using the past record to disclose and correct past mistakes. The Teapot Dome scandal lived for years as an example of Republican laxity toward corruption; it died only when the Republican leaders convinced the country that their attitude had changed. Through the 1930s, the U.S. watched a grim pageant of congressional hearings which dug into banking and brokerage practices that had contributed to the excesses of the boom years.

These investigations were partisan in nature, but they also produced some constructive results, e.g., the act setting up the Securities and Exchange Commission; As a result of both the Teapot Dome investigations of the 1920s and the money investigations of the 1930s, shining reputations were dulled and some leading citizens went to prison. It was a painful and unpleasant process, and men of good will in both parties often wished that the end would come.

Until these issues died, they affected--and were meant to affect--elections. When these issues died, they did so because a genuine settlement had been achieved.

In the White case revival, Truman, Mitchell and many other Democratic leaders demonstrated that there was still an enormous gap between the parties on the issues involved. If that gap is still present in the fall of 1954, the Reds-in-Government issue will be a factor in the congressional elections. That is the way U.S. politics works. It works both ways. And, on the whole, it works well.

-It was not brand-new. A few days before Truman spoke, some newspapermen (notably the New York Times's Arthur Krock) began writing stories reflecting Truman's defense that White was left in his job so that the FBI could watch him.

/- For the record of the Brownell-Hoover testimony, see pp. 19-23.

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