Truman Attacks Critics Of Administrators

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 April 1950, Page 6

Truman Attacks Critics Of Administrators

WASHINGTON, March 30.— President Truman today accused some Republican members of the United States Senate of aiding the Soviet by attempting to sabotage the United States’ foreign policy. Speaking at a press conference at Key West, Florida, Mr Truman said that Republican efforts to discredit the State Department in its fight in the cold war were just as bad as shooting American soldiers 'in the back in a war of arms. The President said he was “fed up” with the attacks on the State Department by Senators Joseph McCarthy (Wisconsin), Styles Bridges (New Hampshire) and Kenneth Wherry (Nebraska), all of whom are Republicans. Mr Truman said: “The greatest asset the Kremlin has is the partisan attempt in the Senate to sabotage the bipartisan foreign policy of the United States.” Sharp And Bitter Mr Truman spoke sharply and bitterly of the recent criticism of the Secretary of State (Mr Dean Acheson) and the United States Ambassa-dor-at-Large (Dr Philip Jessup). Asked if he thought that Senator McCarthy was achieving anything by his charges of Communism in the State Department, the President replied that he thought Senator McCarthy was the Kremlin’s greatest asset in the United States.

Mr Truman praised Senator Arthur Vandenberg (Michigan) and Mr H. L. Stimson, a former Secretary of War, both of whom are Republicans. He said he was considering the eventual appointment of an outstanding Republican to succeed Dr Jessup as Ambassador-at-Large as part of the bipartisan world policy. Dr Jessup is now on leave from Colombia University.

Critics Reply To President Senators McCarthy, Bridges, and Wherry today replied to Mr Truman’s charges that they were sabotaging the bipartisan foreign policy. Senator McCarthy said: “I would like to plead guilty to sabotaging our foreign policy in the Far East. Our batting average there is zero. If someone can disrupt the plans for turning the rest of the Far East over to the Communists, that is what I hope we will accomplish. I wish someone had (' sabotaged it sooner.” ( Senator Bridges said that the only sabotage of which he was guilty was

an effort to sabotage “some of the subversive and security risks so that they will be thrown out of preferred spots in the Government.” Senator Wherry said that the best way to prove who was aiding the Kremlin was for Mr Truman to give the Senate investigators access to the Government’s secret loyalty files.

[Yesterday, officers of the Senate served subpoenas demanding that high Government officials should produce loyalty records which Mr Truman had declined to make available to a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.]

Senator Repeats Charges In the Senate today Senator McCarthy continued his criticism of the State Department. He displayed papers which, he said, were “documentary evidence” to back up his charge that Professor Owen Lattimore was a Russian agent. Professor Lattimore, who is a professor at Johns Hopkins University, is at present on his way home, after serving with a United Nations mission in Afghanistan, to reply to Senator McCarthy’s charges. Senator McCarthy said that the papers were affidavits showing that Professor Lattimore was important in Communist Party circles for years; was a Sovietjagent, and was or had been a memoer of the Communist Party; and had been in Moscow in 1936 to receive instructions from the Soviet Government. Senator McCarthy . said he would turn the documents over to an agent of the Federal Bureau in Investigation.

Senator McCarthy said that Professor Lattimore had a position of tremendous power in the State Department’s formation of its Asiatic policy. At one point in his long speech, Senator McCarthy said that perhaps he had placed too much emphasis- on his charges that Professor Lattimore was the “top Russian espionage agent” in the United States. He added: “More important than whether Professor Lattimore is or is not a spy is Professor Lattimore’s great influence on State Department policy, and whether his aims are American aims or coincide with Soviet aims.” Senator McCarthy renewed his criticism of Dr Jessup, who has denied under oath that he has Communist sympathies. Senator McCarthy described Dr Jessup as “a, very willing stooge” of Professor Lat- ' timore, and “a very valuable tool of ] the Communists.”