The Redhunter (61 page)

Jean saw it coming and thought to do the one thing Joe never associated with the turmoil that otherwise moved with him wherever
he went. She called Esther Chambers and asked whether she could bring Joe around. Esther came quickly back to the phone and
told Jean they would both be welcome.

McCarthy had angered Whittaker Chambers two and one-half years earlier, at the outset of President Eisenhower’s term. In the
dispute over the nomination of Charles Bohlen as ambassador to the Soviet Union, McCarthy had left a large trail when he set
out to call on Chambers. The two men had visited for not more than an hour or two, but McCarthy had left the pursuing press
with the impression that he had stayed the entire weekend in Westminster, rounding up adverse information on the nominee—about
whom Chambers had no negative opinion other than that he was a member of the State Department establishment that had so consistently
misread Soviet intentions. Chambers had refused many invitations to disavow McCarthy, but he had deplored, in correspondence
with critically situated friends, McCarthy’s misorientation of the anti-Communist cause.

Chambers greeted him warmly in the cold and bright November day, the leaves now mostly gone, only traces of gold and red remaining.
Jean went to the kitchen to help Esther make the coffee. Esther said, “Whittaker knows what it’s like to feel down and out.
You know he will be kind, don’t worry.” Jean had been on edge as the days went quickly by, the vote on censure now scheduled
for early the following week.

Jean brought up the question as they waited for the water to boil. “There have been only five votes of censure in the history
of the Senate.”

“Oh?” Esther responded.

Jean struggled to make light of it. “Only three in this century, Esther, and two of them were for a fistfight on the Senate
floor. The other was, well, complicated. It had to do with a vote on a tariff bill and whether somebody with special interests
should have been brought in. It was a
very
distinguished senator. Hiram Bingham. Professor, archaeologist. He discovered Machu Picchu—the great Inca city in Peru.”

Esther let Jean go on. Then said, “It’s certainly not
welcome
news, Jean, but I don’t see why it should be, well, the end … the end of Joe’s career.”

Esther carried the coffee and cakes to the living room. Jean prayed to herself that Joe would not ask for a drink. He didn’t.
And the subject of the impending action never arose. Whittaker was telling stories and laughing. Joe was trying to laugh along
with him. He did not succeed, but then Chambers deftly guided the conversation to his farm, the activity surrounding them
where they sat, and on to a problem his son, John, was having with the chickens. McCarthy’s eyes brightened. He got up. He
wanted, he said, to see the chickens. Chambers exchanged a quick glance with Esther, who opened the door to the chilly outside
and called out to her son, busy placing winter cover on the windows of the garage.

“John. John, dear. Would you take Senator McCarthy over and show him the chicken shed? Tell him about the problems?” Joe was
outside now, and walked briskly with the young man to look in on an earlier preoccupation that had overwhelmed him, back when
he was John Chambers’s age.

The McCarthys left as the sun went down. The Chamberses waved them good-bye.

“Senator McCarthy is through,” Whittaker Chambers told his wife as they made their way back into the house.

That night Chambers wrote to Harry.

He was a crushed man. I said to the senator just about this: “I want you to know something so that I shall not have to refer
to it again. This farm is always a haven for you. When Washington gets too much for you, come here. I want you to know that
this will always be so and has nothing to do with political differences.”

Chambers took a longer view of the phenomenon of his afternoon visitor.

Tell your friend Professor Sherrill, who you tell me is outspoken at Columbia on the McCarthy question, that I think it would
be a mistake to perpetuate a myth of McCarthy as something he really was not. For the Left will have no trouble in shredding
a myth which does not stand on reality. I am urging a decent prudence, unstinting but firm, because I believe that the tighter
the Right clings to a myth which will not justify itself, the farther and faster it will be swung away from reality; will
be carrying, not a banner, but a burden. Give this man, as a fighter, his due and more than his due. Hamlet has noted the
penalties in giving anybody merely his due. But let the Right also know where and when to stop, what is at stake. Of course,
time, the obliterator, will take care of much of this.

NOVEMBER 30, 1954

The pro-McCarthy forces were by no means to be counted out. William Knowland and Democratic powerhouse Pat McCarran, both
prominent in the anti-Communist movement, announced that they would vigorously fight, on the floor, the contemplated censure
of Joe McCarthy. Sam Tilburn noted, without surprise, that the Hearst Press was steadfast against censure, as also the
Chicago Tribune
and David Lawrence’s
U.S. News & World Report
. The Catholic War Veterans issued a stirring manifesto, and Rear Admiral John G. Crommelin headed up a national committee
to collect signatures. He arrived at Senator McCarthy’s office on the eve of a rally scheduled at Madison Square Garden with
crates of folders, claiming 1.8 million names.

The rally’s sponsors were not all crusty Catholic war veterans. They included writers, academics, a former ambassador to the
Soviet Union, and a dozen retired generals and admirals.

Thirteen thousand enthusiasts thronged the Garden, with balloons and confetti and a huge brass band that played John Philip
Sousa music. What sounded like thirteen thousand voices joined in singing “America the Beautiful.” Eight speakers were introduced
to robust applause. Former New Jersey governor and sometime secretary of the navy Charles Edison, son of Thomas, spoke of
the need to continue to train on the main thing, the Communist threat. Roy Cohn spoke to tumultuous applause. But the audience
was hungry
for the main event, and when Senator McCarthy appeared, hand in hand with his wife, Jean, the crowd rose to its feet and cheered
for ten minutes, as though at a nominating convention applauding a presidential nominee.

McCarthy waved but appeared pale, his jowls accentuated by the floodlights. He had spent twelve days at Bethesda Naval Hospital
submitting to painful treatment for an injury to his elbow. Jean, tears in her eyes, her hand waving at the receptive crowd,
forced a bright smile. Admiral Crommelin begged for silence, and McCarthy finally began. Within a few seconds the Garden was
silent.

He thanked the audience. “From the moment I entered the fight against subversion back in 1950 at Wheeling, West Virginia,
the Communists have said that the destruction of me and what I stand for is their number one objective in this country.”

Cheers stopped him.

He resumed. “Let me say, incidentally, that it is not easy for a man to assert that he is the symbol of resistance to Communist
subversion—that the nation’s fate is in some respects tied to his own fate.”

There was a smattering of applause. The participants were eager to know what he would say next.

Two days ago, he said, Alger Hiss left jail. “Four years is how long you have to stay in jail for serving as an agent of the
Soviet Union.” He went on to recount his special targets, with much emphasis on Owen Lattimore. He cited with great pride
the White House’s own figures, 1,400 dismissed since his crusade began. The Watkins Committee, he declared, was “the victim
of a Communist campaign,” the “involuntary agent.”

“Thank God for ‘involuntary,’ ” Harry whispered to Willmoore, seated with him in the bleachers—

“I would have the American people recognize, and contemplate in dread, the fact that the Communist Party—a relatively small
group of deadly conspirators—has now extended its tentacles to that most respected of American bodies, the United States Senate;
that it has made a committee of the Senate its unwitting handmaiden.”

“Oh, no.
Oh, no!
Edward Bennett Williams, in his office alone the next morning, received the news of the rally the night before. “Get me Senator
McCarthy,” he told his telephone operator.

“Joe, you—you—
dumb
bastard! You
promised
me you’d check all public statements with me
the day before yesterday!
I tell you what you’ve done, Joe. I had a deal made with Lyndon Johnson and Carlson and Case. They were ready to interpret
the
least
statement you’d make about Gillette-Hendrickson-Zwicker as clearing you of censurable motivation. You’ve blown it, Joe. What
got
into
you?
Handmaidens of Communism!
I mean, Joe, why, why,
why?
”

“Sorry about that, Ed. But I thought it was a pretty good speech. I mean, that’s what it boils down to, isn’t it? They
are
handmaidens of Communism, the ones who want to vote censure, aren’t they? Look, I copied it down from the dictionary when
the fuss exploded this morning. I have it here, listen. … ‘Handmaiden. Something that serves a useful subordinate purpose;
piety as the handmaiden of religious faith.’ That’s what the censure senators are doing, isn’t it?”

Ed Williams hung up on his client.

Sunday, on
Meet the Press
, Senator Sam Ervin, who had remained silent during the first three days of debate, said to TV host Larry Spivak, “If Senator
McCarthy
didn’t
really believe what he said, that was pretty solid ground for expelling him from the Senate on the grounds of moral incapacity.
If McCarthy
did
believe what he said, then he suffers from mental delusions and mental incapacity.”

Two days later the Senate voted 67 to 22 to “condemn” Joe McCarthy for the acts cited by the Watkins Committee. The Democrats
voted unanimously against him. Senator McCarran had given up pleading for him.

Was there a difference between “condemning” and “censuring”? a reporter asked.

“I guess it wasn’t a vote of confidence,” Joe said, leaving his office to drive home, where he wept, uncontrollably.

APRIL 27, 1957

Harry walked up to the door of the little house on Third and North East. Mrs. Kerr had died, so only Joe and Jean and the
baby, Tierney, now lived there. Harry didn’t get down to Washington very often. He had left the
Mercury
in the fall of 1954 and was embarked now on a dissertation for NYU: subject, The Techniques of Nineteenth-Century Demagogy
in England. Jeanie had said on the telephone three weeks before that Harry need never give notice when his plans brought him
to Washington. “Just arrive at the door—Joe’s always here.”

So now Harry rang the bell. He could hear the vacuum cleaner’s
whish
. He had to ring again to make it stop. A moment later the door opened. She was in jeans, a long apron, a bandanna tied around
her head.

“Come on in, Harry.” They embraced. “Joe’s in the study. Here, let me take your coat. Quite wrong of you, Harry, putting on
a coat, beautiful spring day like this.”

“How’s he doing?” Harry asked in a low voice.

“Don’t worry,” Jeanie replied, her voice at natural pitch. “He can’t hear us where he is. Not too good, Harry. Doesn’t have
much interest. Then there’s the usual problem. And also his sinus and stuff are bad. I want to take him to Wisconsin in the
next month or two, get a real rest.”

“From what?” Harry asked, a grain of sharpness in his voice.

“From viewing television serials, I guess.”

“It’s that bad?”

“It’s pretty bad.”

“Does he get to the Senate?”

“Once, maybe twice a week. All the stuff that has to be done is done, Ray and Mary attend to that. When it’s a matter of a
vote in the Senate, Ray comes up with a senator on the other side, and they pair the vote, both senators absent but recorded.
The only thing they can’t deal with is a constituent—or a professor—or a madman—or a kid—who wants to meet Senator McCarthy.
They get told what you’d expect. He’s out of town. … He’s out of the office working on a project. Whatever.”