Act of Humiliation

The Secretary of State nudged his chair up to the green-topped table of the Senate Subcommittee on Appropriations and prepared for trouble. Ostensibly Secretary Acheson was in the drab, denlike hearing room on the Capitol's first floor to talk about next year's budget. But he knew that the committee's Republican lions had long been sharpening their claws over his deliberate declamation at a press conference five weeks before: "I do not intend to turn my back on Alger Hiss."; New Hampshire's Styles Bridges batted first with a soft paw. "Mr. Secretary," he asked across the table, "what do you consider a security risk?" With deadpan seriousness Acheson ticked off departmental regulations on treason, espionage, sus picious association and moral weaknesses that could be "preyed upon." His Deputy Under Secretary for Administra tion, John Peurifoy, added th statistics. Since early 1947, he said, 202 State Department employees (out of 17,000) had resigned in loyalty investigations; 91 of them had been found on morals counts.

Added Peurifoy: "Most of them were homosexuals. In fact, I would say all of them were." The committee did not stop to deal with this shocker. Bridges was ready with a second question for Acheson. "Would you say . . . that a friend of a known Communist would be a security risk?" "Yes, I should think probably so," Acheson responded. Then Bridges pounced: "Would you consider a friend of a person, convicted, say, of perjury in connection with a treasonable act and found guilty, a security risk?" Acheson flushed: the shoe fitted nobody present but himself, and no Democrat lifted a finger to help him out of it. His eyes bulged coldly. "I think that's a matter you would look into," he said.

That seemed as far as the matter was going to go until the Senators began to pick up their papers as though to ad journ. Then Alabama's long-jawed Demo crat Lister Hill, staunch supporter of the Administration on foreign policy, spoke up like a desperate prompter in the wings.

"Before you leave," he said to Secretary Acheson, "would you like to make any comment about the Alger Hiss convic tion of perjury?" The Secretary paused a moment on the fateful cue. "Senator, I was not notified that I would have to make any comment," he replied. "If the committee wishes me to explain what I said, I'll do it. I have no desire to do it." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a prepared state ment, and an aide behind him began pass ing out mimeographed texts to newsmen in the room. His hands trembling, Dean Acheson began to read: "I have been so harassed by misrepre sentations as to what I said [in January] that as long as the matter has been brought up I'll make a statement ... I hope this will dispose of this matter for good and all." First, he insisted, as a lawyer, he would never presume to discuss the charges of perjury against Alger Hiss. But because the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had inquired into his feelings about the Hiss case when he was confirmed as Secretary, he felt he had both a right and duty, after the conviction, to tell how he felt.

"There were also personal reasons," Acheson read on. "One must be true to the things by which one lives . . . The consequences of living with a decision which one knows has sprung from timidity and cowardice go to the roots of one's life . . . Mr. Hiss is in the greatest trouble in which a man could be ... It is in regard to a man in this situation that I referred to Christ's words setting forth compassion as the highest of Christian duties and as the highest quality in the sight of God . . .

"But for the benefit of those who would create doubt where none existed, I will accept the humiliation of stating what should be obvious, that I did not and do not condone in any way the offenses charged, whether committed by a friend or by a total stranger, and that I would never knowingly tolerate any disloyal person in the Department of State."

When he had finished, Acheson abruptly tossed his manuscript on the table with an air of relief. Nobody pushed him further. But next day his good friend, the Washington Post, summed up the statement editorially: "There is nothing in it which persuades us to change our view of either the impropriety or the unwisdom of [his first statement]. In the public interest this wretched and subordinate incident should be closed."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.