Official and Confidential_ The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover - Anthony Summers [99]
Lowenthal’s book sold badly, though not necessarily because of the attacks in Congress. Such criticism can boost sales rather than limit them. ‘One of our objectives was to kill the sale,’ William Sullivan revealed years later. ‘We even went to some stores and asked them not to stock it … We spent an enormous amount of time and taxpayers’ money.’
At the White House, President Truman had ignored a long and plaintive letter from Edgar about Lowenthal – a letter in which he craftily avoided mentioning that the offending book was all about the FBI. Truman, who had already seen the book in manuscript, merely sent Edgar’s letter on to Lowenthal for his entertainment. The President said he ‘got a great kick’ out of reading the book, and praised the author for his ‘wonderful service to the country.’
That was in private. Asked at a press conference whether he had read the book, Truman said he had not. He dared not show his true feelings about Edgar in public, let alone fire him. In the country at large, Edgar’s popularity was now at a new high. For a generation frightened by Soviet possession of the atom bomb, the start of the Korean war, the Rosenberg espionage affair and the recent indictments of American Communist leaders, it was easy to believe Edgar’s claims that the nation was riddled with subversives.
In the words of the then Attorney General, Howard McGrath, Edgar had ‘gotten too big to handle.’ And in the world of power politics, he had become one of the handlers.
18
‘We don’t have free speech in this country … This is grown-up politics, and it’s stupid and dangerous.’
Hubble Gardner, character in the movie The Way We Were, set in the McCarthy era
‘Listen, you bastards,’ the drunkard shouted at a group of reporters. ‘I just want you to know I’ve got a pailful of shit, and I’m going to use it where it does me the most good.’
It was February 1950, and Joseph McCarthy had just made his sensational claim that the Truman State Department was knowingly harboring more than 200 members of the Communist Party. The claim was bogus but, in an America awash with fear of Communism, the Senator from Wisconsin was about to become a hero.
Over the four years that followed, and as Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, McCarthy was to play grand inquisitor, hurling wild charges at two presidents, dozens of decent officials and a parade of mostly innocent citizens. Today ‘McCarthyism’ is a word in the dictionary: ‘the use of indiscriminate, often unfounded accusations, sensationalism, inquisitorial investigative methods.’ Yet Edgar cultivated the Senator, fed him information and persisted in helping him when he ran amok.
Ten months before the fantastic accusation about the Truman State Department, Edgar had gone to the Senate Radio Room to join the forty-one-year-old McCarthy in a fifteen-minute broadcast to the people of his home state. This was a rare gesture of support for a junior politician, irreconcilable with Edgar’s supposedly nonpartisan status, and it was not publicized in Washington. Later, in the Wisconsin newspapers, Edgar endorsed McCarthy for reelection.
Edgar had been briefed on McCarthy, as he was briefed on every member of Congress. Yet when he recorded the broadcast, he praised the Senator’s previous service as a judge – praise that had to be edited out of the tape. McCarthy had recently been censured by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and came close to being disbarred as an attorney.
Edgar knew McCarthy was disreputable, yet he took him under his wing long before he became a national figure. The Senator dined with Edgar and Clyde at Harvey’s and visited the track with them on weekends. He was reportedly the only elected official allowed to use Edgar’s private box at Charles Town