"A Vigorous Individual"

Two prominent Washington bachelors were vacationing at the Del Charro Hotel in La Jolla, Calif, last week, and a local reporter asked one of them to give his opinion of the other. Said FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover in one of his extremely rare personal endorsements: "Senator Joe McCarthy is an exmarine. He was an amateur boxer. He's Irish. Combine those, and you're going to have a vigorous individual who is not going to be pushed around . . .

"I've come to know Senator McCarthy well, officially and personally. I view him as a friend and I believe he so views me. Certainly, he is a controversial man. He is earnest and he is honest. He has enemies. Whenever you attack subversives of any kind, Communists, Fascists, even the Ku Klux Klan, you are going to be the victim of the most extremely vicious criticism that can be made. I know. But sometimes a knock is a boost. When certain elements cease their attacks on me, I'll know I'm slipping."

Then Hoover had a cautious afterthought. "I am not passing on the technique of McCarthy's committee," he said, "or other Senate committees. That's the Senators' responsibility. But the investigative committees do a valuable job . . ."

At his press conference last week, Attorney General Brownell, Hoover's boss, told reporters that the formal investigation of McCarthy's financial conduct was continuing--presumably under the guidance of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. Then a reporter asked him a question that fouled Brownell in his own syntax: "Do you think it appropriate for a member of the Justice Department to make a statement evaluating the character of a person whose affairs are under study in the department?"

"Oh," said Brownell, after some hesitation. "If you mean Mr. Hoover, I have not read his statement . . . But the important thing here--I have such full confidence and admiration for J. Edgar Hoover--I would like to stress that whenever possible."

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