The Gathering Storm

Another week of busy marching and jockeying resulted in little net headway for the McCarthy v. Army investigation. But the footwork was typically intense.

In a closed meeting of the committee charged with probing the dispute, Acting Chairman Karl Mundt requested both sides to present him with formal specifications of their complaints. Joe McCarthy's precocious Counsel Roy Cohn represented his boss, who was in Arizona treating a throat infection with dry desert air. Senator McCarthy had made no charges against the Army, said Cohn, but would merely answer the Army's accusations.

That did not fool the Mundt committee's Counsel Ray Jenkins for an instant. McCarthy had charged the Army with "blackmail," he snapped, and if Cohn did not want to write out the details, he, Jenkins, would. Cohn backtracked, agreed to supply the information.

Next day copies of the Army's "bill of particulars" against McCarthy & Co. were circulated around Capitol Hill. Inevitably the bill leaked out to newsmen. To prevent further "piecemeal leaks," Missouri's Senator Stuart Symington, a committee Democrat, released the full text. McCarthy, himself a skillful practitioner of the calculated leak, cried foul. Cohn trumpeted a threat to obstruct the investigation, and demanded an investigation of the leaks. Later he withdrew the threat.

An Imposing Portfolio. The bill of particulars, which named names, dates, places and circumstances, began bluntly: "The Department of the Army alleges that Senator Joseph R. McCarthy as Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations . . . and its chief counsel, R. M. Cohn, as well as other members of its staff, sought by improper means to obtain preferential treatment for one Pvt. G. David Schine." It repeated much of the story told last month in the Army's report on favor-seeking for Private Gerard David Schine and added a few new incidents. It grouped the Army's charges into 29 parts, which added up to an imposing portfolio of incidents and sequences of actions, including: P:Demands that Private Schine be assigned to special work in New York: by Cohn, 8; by McCarthy, 6. P:Demands for special privileges for Schine: by Cohn, 9; by McCarthy, 2. P:Threats that failure to give in to the demands would result in 1) extended investigation of the Army, or 2) dire consequences to Army Secretary Stevens and other Army personnel: by Cohn, 14; by McCarthy, 3.

A Rare Exception. Against these charges, a defensive McCarthy salient was sketched out by his request to the Pentagon for the number of times since Pearl Harbor that Congressmen have intervened with the armed forces on behalf of servicemen. McCarthy's request made no distinction between incidents of legitimate congressional concern for constituents and demands accompanied by threats of reprisal against the armed-service departments. The Pentagon answered that demands for special treatment of individuals are "rare." Navy Secretary Robert Anderson, reflecting the view of the three services, said he knew of no case in which a Congressman "has persisted in a request for action . . . which in equity and good conscience could not be done." Said Secretary Stevens: "The case involving Private Schine is an exception."

Meanwhile, senatorial opinion hardened on the role that McCarthy should have in this week's hearings. Chairman Mundt announced that Joe should not be allowed to sit as a committee member because, under the committee's rules, that would permit him to question witnesses, a privilege that would be denied to Army lawyers. If McCarthy refuses to withdraw, the issue would probably be taken to the Senate floor, but no one thought Joe would want to risk a rebuke by a roll-call vote of the whole Senate.

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