"The Devil's Advocate"

Senator McCarthy has always been fond of the word "whitewash." When the Tydings Committee showed there was no basis for his charge that there were 205 Communists in the State Department, he dismissed the whole thing as a deliberate whitewash. But now, it seems that Roy Cohn and the Senator himself will get the same treatment from their own committee.

The affair of Roy Cohn vs. the United States Army first began to assume the aspects of a farce when it was announced that McCarthy's committee, temporarily headed by Senator Mundt, would investigate its chairman. But Mundt assured the nation that justice would be carried out, that the committee would hire a counsel who had a proven record of impartiality, and who had never before taken part in a major government investigation. Senator Mundt played his hand carefully. Instead of starting the investigation immediately, when public opinion was strongly in favor of the Army, he waited two weeks on the pretext that he had to select a counsel. But he didn't have far to look. In his desk he had a letter from Samuel P. Sears '17, asking for the job.

Mr. Sears has previously demonstrated his impartiality with statements such as: "There would be 200 more Communists in the government if it weren't for McCarthy. The Senator has done a great job and will continue to do so." No matter how sincere Mr. Sears may be in his statement that he will go to Washington unprejudiced, his past actions make this unlikely. Only by getting rid of Sears and replacing him with someone less partial, can Mundt and his committee prevent what may well be one of the country's biggest whitewashes.