His eyes narrowed. “That might be difficult. An inquiry has to go wherever the truth leads.”
“Bullshit. Drew, this investigation has all sorts of political strings, and you damn well know it. Look at the emphasis on gambling—I don’t see the mob’s influence on big-city machine politics coming under the microscope.”
A more elaborate shrug. “…I can try.”
I leaned forward. “Certainly you can understand it would be devastating to Frank’s career right now, if he were called in front of TV cameras to testify about gangsters he met on his summer vacation.”
Nodding slowly, Pearson said, “Yes. I can understand that…. I can but try.”
“Thank you. I’ll let him know—he’s under a hell of a lot of pressure. You see, Frank’s also got a problem with another Senate inquiry…courtesy of a certain old pal of ours.”
Pearson knew at once who I was talking about. “I can well imagine. Frank has a good heart—and he believes in the right causes. That’s enough to make him a ‘pinko’ in some circles. I can well imagine that ‘Tailgunner Joe’ might relish lining the Voice up in his capricious sights.”
“No imagining necessary. Really, that’s my main reason for coming to Washington…to try to reason with Joe McCarthy.”
“Well, then you’ll be the first one to manage that unlikely feat.”
I frowned. “Your relationship with McCarthy has completely soured?”
“It verges on war. Even he and Jack aren’t friendly, anymore.”
It might seem unlikely that Pearson and McCarthy had ever been soulmates, but the archliberal columnist and the ultraconservative senator had a shared interest in weeding out federal corruption. Pearson’s credentials in that arena were impeccable: he cracked the Russian spy ring in Canada; he exposed the Silvermaster Communist spy ring; and he ferreted out miscellaneous congressional skulduggery, ruining the careers of a number of powerful legislators.
Wisconsin’s McCarthy—elected to the Senate in 1946, in part by courting Communist support (“Communists have the same right to vote as anybody else, don’t they?” he’d asked rhetorically)—had been for several years a key Pearson source of inside info about his congressional colleagues and their secrets. I knew McCarthy because I followed leads he provided Pearson, about the so-called “five percenter” influence peddlers.
But earlier this year, after a national magazine rated him our nation’s worst senator, McCarthy bragged to Jack Anderson that he had come up with “one hell of an issue.” Shortly thereafter, McCarthy gave a speech to the no doubt bewildered little old ladies of the Republican Women’s Club of Ohio County, declaring to have “in his hand” a list of 205 members of the Communist Party, currently operating in the State Department, with the secretary of state’s blessing.
Never mind that within a day the list had dwindled to “fifty-seven card-carrying Communists”…or that Communist Party members hadn’t carried “cards” for years. McCarthy had made himself an instant household word…and a feared man in Washington.
Only, Drew Pearson didn’t fear anybody in Washington or anywhere else.
“Before he’s through,” Pearson was saying, “no one’s reputation will be safe—the whole political process will be poisoned.”
“He’s got a real, rabid following.”
“That’s why he’s got to be cut down now, before he becomes a walking national disaster area. Frank Sinatra? A Communist? Good Lord, where would such lunacy stop?”
“You’re losing a hell of an informant.”
“My best on the Hill,” Pearson admitted. “A good source, but a bad man…. McCarthy’s already caught up in the demagogue’s compulsion toward escalation. He upgrades ‘fellow travelers’ into Communists, and pro-Communists into spies!”
“Well, your friend Estes has provided him the blueprint for witch-hunting. You have that coonskin cap to thank.”
Pearson’s nostrils flared, his eyes hardened. “Don’t compare the two, for God’s sake! Estes is a sincere, honest man, a true servant of the people. There’s something…pathological about McCarthy, some inner demon that pushes him to take extravagant risks.”
I shrugged. “Maybe he’ll undo himself.”
An eyebrow lifted. “Waiting until that time would be a risk too extravagant for me to take. I’ll handle this in my own fashion.”
“How?”
He nodded toward his battered old typewriter. “With my usual weapon—my column, my radio show. Within the coming weeks, every American will learn that their esteemed Redbusting hero has committed a laundry list of transgressions.”
Pearson began to enumerate: State Judge McCarthy had sold “quickie” divorces to campaign contributors; he had violated the Wisconsin constitution by running for Senate without resigning from the bench; his disbarment had been recommended by the State Board; he’d falsely attributed lavish campaign contributions to his father and brother, who didn’t make five grand a year between them; he retained his judgeship while serving in the Marines; he’d cheated on his income taxes; and he’d exaggerated his war record, a much publicized “wound” a phony….
None of it seemed terribly impressive to me, frankly— McCarthy sounded like a typical politician. But Pearson knew just how to parcel this stuff out, and really put a guy through the meat grinder.
As I watched the tips of Pearson’s waxed mustache rise ever higher as the columnist smiled, listing the Wisconsin senator’s various sins (assembled by Anderson, no doubt)—soon to be shared with the American public—it came to me that Joe McCarthy was about to really find out what smear tactics were all about.
On this cool, quiet Sunday night in September, under a starless sky, the Mall—that wide expanse of green, extending a mile and a half up from the Washington Monument to the Capitol Building—was bathed in light by streetlamps, thousands of luminous orbs lining the pavement, crisscrossing this most accessible of parks. The Capitol Building seemed a glowing crown in this sweeping array of marble, grass, and floodlights. Unencumbered by the rush of people—save for a few tourists attending the church of their government—the Mall gave Washington a sense of pageantry, of elegance, of order. How Joe McCarthy fit into this was anybody’s guess.
One of three white marble buildings facing the Capitol grounds, the Senate Office Building—inevitably nicknamed the S.O.B.—was at First and B Street, near the northeast corner. Capitol Hill was all but deserted, and even nearby Union Station—where I’d parked my rental Ford—seemed underpopulated.
I trotted up the broad flight of steps on the southwest corner, to a terraced landing, then on to the main doorway, which opened onto the second floor, depositing me in a marble two-story rotunda with a balcony, conical ceiling, and armed security guard. Fortunately McCarthy had seen to it my name was on the guard’s clipboard list, and—after my ID was examined, and I’d signed in—he allowed me to clip-clop across the marble floor, creating disturbing echoes in the vast, underlit chamber. It felt wrong, being here after hours, and eerie, the long shadow I cast resembling an intruder skulking unbidden into the hallowed halls of government.
Through an arch, down a white marble corridor, I crept along, like a ghost haunting the place. I was not entirely alone, however: now and then, slashes of light at the bottom of doors indicated Senator McCarthy was not the only person taking advantage of the peace and quiet and lack of hubbub a Sunday night could afford.
But only McCarthy’s office seemed to be going more or less full throttle. When I entered the anteroom, a secretary and two staffers were bustling about, much as Pearson’s crew had been—typing, filing, poring over research materials.
Delores—an efficient, pleasant-looking woman in her thirties who McCarthy called “mother”—recognized me from previous visits. She smiled in a harried manner, said I was expected, and hustled me in to the senator’s spacious, rather underfurnished office.