MOVE TO DIVEST McCARTHY OF POWERS IN SENATE

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27375, 14 June 1954, Page 9

MOVE TO DIVEST McCARTHY OF POWERS IN SENATE

(Rec. 7 p.m.)

WASHINGTON, June 12.

Senator Ralph Flanders (Republican, Vermont) asked the Senate yesterday to strip Senator Joseph McCarthy of his key committee chairmanships unless he quickly purged himself of what Senator Flanders called “contempt” of the Senate.

Senator Flanders earlier went to the Senate Sub-committee inquiry room and notified Senator McCarthy of the impending resolution. Senator McCarthy challenged Senator Flanders to testify under oath in the Army-McCarthy case. Senator Flanders then went before the Senate and charged Senator McCarthy with “contempt of his peers” for refusing to go before 'a Senate Rules Sub-committee to answer questions about his finances.

let, and whether he diverted funds contributed to his anti-Communist campaign to his own use. Senator Flanders said it was “surely clear” that Senator McCarthy was in contempt of the sub-committee by refusing to testify and in attacking the group. In view of the vote, he said, “the original contempt of the junior Senator from Wisconsin extended to the whole Senate.” The Senate Republican Leader (Senator William Knowland) opposed the resolution. He said that a Senate showdown on the motion —which Senator Flanders or any other senator 1 could demand at any time—would set off a fight that might completely disrupt the legislative programme for the balance of the year. Senate Democrats “took to the sidelines” to let the Republicans thresh out the issue among themselves. One Democratic leader said: “I don’t intend to comment ... let the Republicans kick it around for a while.” Senator Knowland said that among his main objections to Senator Flanders’s resolution was that it was introduced before the Army-McCarthy hearings were finished. “Secrecy” in Administration During the Army-McCarthy hearings today Senator McCarthy said that he was investigating the Foreign Operations Administration, headed by his old political foe, Mr Harold Stassen, a former Republican Governor of Minnesota. Senator McCarthy made the announcement in denouncing what he called “a dangerous trend towards secrecy” in the Eisenhower Administration.

Senator Flanders offered a resolution proposing that Senator McCarthy be “separated from his chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Government Operations and, furthermore, be prohibited from being chairman or vice-chairman of any sub-committee thereof.”

That would, if adopted, strip Senator McCarthy of his chairmanship of the Senate Permanent Investigating Subcommittee which has been investigating alleged communism in the Army and other agencies, and of its parent Government Operations Committee. It would leave Senator McCarthy as chairman of a Senate Appropriations Sub-committee. Senator Flanders asked that his resolution “lie on the desk” until sufficient time had been given for Senator McCarthy to purge himself of contempt by answering in detail the charges in the questions the Sienate Rules Sub-committee raised about his finances.

Senator Flanders said in his speech that the questions raised by the Rules-Sub-committee included whether Senator McCarthy acted properly in accepting 10,000 dollars from the Lustron Cprporation for a housing pamph-

He appealed to both Democrats and Republicans to help him fight it. aiming his plea particularly to the Democrats.

► Senator McCarthy, on the witness stand for the third consecutive day, produced what he said was a directive circulated by the Foreign Operations Administration. He said the directive forbade disclosure of any information on administration, personnel, financial or operating practices in the big foreign aid agency until all such practices become firm policies. The directive, dated March 26, was an indication of “a most dangerous trend towards secrecy” throughout the entire Administration, Senator McCarthy said. He called it especially interesting because “we are investigating the agency.” Immediately after the day’s session, the proceedings were enlivened by a bitter dispute between Mr Roy Cohn, Senator McCarthy’s chief assistant, and Mr Robert F. Kennedy, lawyer for the Democrats on the sub-committee. No blows were struck, but hot words were exchanged. Mr Kennedy said Mr Cohn threatened to “get” Senator Henry Jackson, a Democrat, of Washington, because Senator Jackson ridiculed a report Private. G. David Schine had prepared for the -State Department advising it how to run a psychological warfare programme.

Mr Cohn said Mr Kennedy had a “personal hatred” for the McCarthy side- in the dispute. Mr Kennedy said he told Mr Cohn he had been “threatening all the Democrats and threatening the Army, and not to try it on