The Third Day

When the hearings adjourned for the weekend, the committee members had time to mull over Senator McClellan's motion. It soon became apparent that most of them did not quite understand what the motion meant. Did it mean that --as McCarthy chortled to newsmen--Joe had been handed the Army key to Pandora's box and would be allowed to dredge up from it all conversations relating, however remotely, to the Army's handling of Communists? Did not Joe's "chronological order" play take the future sequence of the hearings right out of the committee's hands? Did the motion assure--as some Senators thought it did--that the subpoenaed documents would actually be admitted as evidence? The committee finally agreed to meet some time this week behind closed doors to try to decide what it had already tried to decide.

Counsel Jenkins opened this week's sessions by concluding his examination of Stevens, who added details to his earlier charges against the McCarthy team.

Then came a jarring change in the procedure. Jenkins pointed out that, having elicited through direct examination the Stevens version of the Army-McCarthy dispute, it now became the committee counsel's duty to try to test that version through crossexamination. Having already demonstrated that he was totally unafraid of McCarthy, Jenkins began to rough Stevens up; his way of being impartial was to carry chips on both of his huge shoulders. As he began to cross-examine Stevens, Jenkins' tone grew harsher, he clapped his hands to emphasize his words, he stabbed at the table with his fingers. Bob Stevens stood before the onslaught without flinching, but his laugh grew a bit hollow, he frequently sipped water from a tumbler on the witness table.

"Greatly Over-Exaggerated." After the McCarthy committee started its Fort Monmouth investigation, said Stevens, the Army suspended 29 employees from that establishment. Asked Jenkins: "Were there 29 suspensions as a result of the McCarthy investigation?" Said Stevens: "My answer to that would have to be no. Then I have to say 'but'--I think it is probably true that as a result of this committee's activities some of those suspensions took effect sooner than they otherwise would have." The exchange continued, rapid-fire:

Jenkins: Did the McCarthy committee supply any information . . . when these suspensions were put into effect?

Stevens: I would say they supplied some information.

Jenkins: Now, Mr. Secretary, you are not trying to minimize the efforts of the McCarthy committee, are you?

Stevens: My own feeling is that it was a greatly over-exaggerated situation. I concede that Senator McCarthy and his staff . . . speeded up to some extent the suspension of some people, but we had information about all of these people and the action would have been taken . . .

Jenkins: You would say that Senator McCarthy . . . did an important piece of work that enhanced national security--time being of the essence in the detection of Communists ... Is that not correct?

Stevens: Well, I certainly agree it is correct to find the security risks, loyalty cases, and act on it fast ... I think it would have been far more effective if he had not pursued the publicity tactics that went with this investigation. I think that did a lot of harm . . .

Jenkins: Mr. Stevens, you wanted it dropped, didn't you?

Stevens: Yes, sir.

Jenkins: Consequently, you wanted Senator McCarthy's investigation stopped, didn't you?

Stevens: No, sir, I didn't want it stopped.

Ray Jenkins then tried to show that Stevens had tried to use Schine to halt the McCarthy investigation. He recalled that Stevens had visited Schine's apartment in New York and later had been the guest of Schine's parents at dinner. He produced a photograph of the Army Secretary posing with Schine, by then in Army uniform. Sneered Jenkins: "Mr. Stevens, isn't it a fact that you were being especially nice and considerate and tender of this boy ... in order to dissuade the Senator from continuing his investigation of one of your departments?"

Bob Stevens sat bolt upright in his chair. Said he: "Positively and completely not."

"An Unequivocal Lie." For Stevens, the luncheon period could only have seemed the briefest of respites--and then he returned to face more of Jenkins' hammering questions. Said the veteran Tennessee trial lawyer: "One other serious charge has been made against you, and that is, from time to time you offered up a bigger bait even than David Schine to this committee to let you alone, to wit, the Air Force or the Navy, it being alleged that you tried to divert this committee from the Army to the Air Force or the Navy. What do you say about that charge?"

Even through his heavy glasses, Stevens' eyes flashed fire. His ringing reply: "I say it is an unequivocal lie!"

Said Jenkins, his voice heavy with sarcasm: "That is one phase of this investigation about which your memory hasn't failed you?" Said Stevens: "It certainly has not."

Then committee members began to question Stevens. Chairman Mundt directed his questions to the charges made against McCarthy's staff director, Francis Carr, who had also been accused by the Army of intervening on Schine's behalf. In reply to Mundt, Stevens said Carr had not sought preferential treatment for Schine to nearly the extent that Roy Cohn had. Stevens concluded: "I think Mr. Carr might have been a little more active in trying to stop some of the conversations that went on, and he did not do that."

Throughout the day, Joe McCarthy had been far more subdued than at previous sessions, nibbling thoughtfully on the bow of his horn-rimmed glasses. When he started questioning Stevens, he was friendly, almost gentle. Said he: "Look, Bob, you're accusing Carr, my staff director, of a very serious thing . . . You see. Bob, you are asking that a young man be discharged .... and you can't tell us what he said."

On that same note, the third day's hearings ended. Said Mundt to Stevens: "May the chair be sure that we understand that you are going to search your mind concerning Mr. Carr and in the morning either particularize the charge or withdraw it against Mr. Carr?" Replied Secretary Stevens, earnestly: "I am certainly going to search my mind and try to do that."

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