Combine & Conquer

When the Senate hearings resume this morning, the Democrats on the Permanent Investigations Subcommittee would do well to keep their sights trained on Senator McCarthy and forget about embarrassing President Eisenhower. Last week, when they demanded that the men who advised the President on how to handle McCarthy be forced to air their strategy under oath, the Democratic members played right into McCarthy's hands.

For it is abundantly clear by now that President Eisenhower has made up his mind either to reform McCarthy or destroy him as a political force. This was still doubtful as little as two months ago. At that time, the President's strategists were well portrayed by the cartoon of an elephant pacing to and fro before a picture of Joe, muttering, "Will he gain me votes or lose them?" But since then, various activities of McCarthy have been criticized by Eisenhower's Vice-President, his Foreign Aid Director, and his Secretary of Defense. His political worth has been questioned by no less a man than Chairman Hall of the Republican National Committee. Insofar as the publication of the Cohn-Schine charges were the turning point in McCarthy's national popularity, they too, it turns out, were the result of a deliberate decision by the White House. It is impossible to view this string of events without concluding, to borrow a favorite expression from Red-hunters themselves, that they were "all part of a planned pattern of operations, delibrately calculated" to break the Senator from Wisconsin.

That McCarthy lost ground soon after the President took action proves what has been said so often: Eisenhower, with his tremendous personal popularity and the prestige of his office, is the only person capable of destroying McCarthy's influence. The Democrats, on the Subcommittee and in the nation, should realize this. It is true that they disagree with Eisenhower on national security and civil liberty matters. One example is the difference between the Traman and Eisenhower security directives, the former resolving doubts in favor of the individual, the latter in favor of the government. But these are honest differences over means to an agreed-upon end. In the President, the Democrats are not dealing with a man who publicly equates the Democratic administrations with "Twenty Years of Treason."

This difference points out why the Democrats should not try to catch McCarthy and Eisenhower in the same net. For such an effort might dissuade the President from continuing his offensive against the Senator, or, at best, make his task harder. To play partisan politics at this time will confuse and hinder what is shaping up as a bipartisan drive to destroy this totalitarian thug, and restore party competition to the area of trust where it must be to survive in a democracy.