Woman of Distinction

Mildred McAfee Horton, at 53, is a woman of distinction: Who's Who takes 35 lines to sketch her main achievements. For 13 years she was president of Wellesley College, during World War II she was commander of the WAVES, and she is currently a member of the board of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. as well as a director of the New York Life Insurance Co. and NBC. Outspoken by nature, politically liberal by inclination, she has been quick to pounce on what she regards as overzealous antiCommunism, opposed a Massachusetts bill barring Communists as teachers, and once disparaged the House Committee on Un-American Activities for helping build up a climate of "fear." She was also an enthusiastic Ike-before-Chicago partisan.

Early last March, just back from a State Department (Truman Administration) cultural mission in India, Mrs. Horton was invited by State (Eisenhower Administration) to serve as U.S. delegate to the U.N.'s Economic & Social Affairs Commission. But then she heard no more about the invitation. The White House did not send her name to the Senate. Mrs. Horton checked with the U.N., phoned State, wrote an inquiring letter to Secretary John Foster Dulles. At length the deep silence was broken in a curious way. The Republican National Committee's Assistant Chairman Bertha Adkins informed Mrs. Horton that the appointment was off: "We are saving you and the State Department embarrassment . . . You've belonged to many organizations . . ." State followed with a polite, cryptic letter to the effect that there was not time enough to push Mrs. Horton's appointment through the Senate.

Last week, when news of the Horton fiasco leaked out, the State Department kept mum, officially. Unofficially, reporters learned: 1) that the department's new security watchdog, ex-FBIman Scott McLeod, had warned about Mrs. Horton's membership in alleged Communist-front groups, 2) that, nevertheless, Secretary Dulles had found Mrs. Horton entirely acceptable. But Dulles & Co. preferred to pocket-veto the whole thing rather than fight out the nomination before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The New York Times found the story more than it could stomach. "The reductio ad absurdum has now been reached," said the Times. "The entire lunatic fringe of frightened, vacant little minds must be babbling with happiness. And the rest of us must be sickened with shame."

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