U.S. REPUBLICANS CONTINUE RED HUNT IN STATE DEPARTMENT

Wanganui Chronicle, 27 April 1950, Page 5

U.S. REPUBLICANS CONTINUE RED HUNT IN STATE DEPARTMENT

WASHINGTON, April 25 (Recd. 9.5 pm)).—Senator Joseph McCarthy alleged in the Senate today that Louis Budenz, a former Communist, had told Senate investigators that a high Slate Department official was a Communist. Senator McCarthy did not disclose the official’s name but said the official was receiving a very high salary and was in a very important position. Dr. Bella Dodd, a former Communist, tonight told Senate investigators that she had never known Professor Lattimore to be a Communist, a fellow traveller, or even a friend of the party. This contrasted with testimony by Budenz, who said high party officials told him Professor Lattimore was a member of a Communist cell. Professor Lattimore denied the charge. Dodd said she was expelled from the Communist Party in 1948 because she differed from certain of its policies. She had been in close touch with leading Communists and knew what was going on. The Republican attacks aga-nst the loyalty of State Department employees were “a filthy business” which threatened to undermine the entire foreign policy of the United States, said Mr. Acheson, Secretary of State. Mr Acheson was replying to Senator Joseph McCarthy’s charges in an off-the-record speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, part of which was made public by the State Department tonight. Mr. Acheson described the disloyalty accusations as a “mad and vicious operation.” It was a deliberate attempt to destroy the people’s confidence tn their Foreign Office and the Government in one of the most critical hours in the nation’s history. The method adopted was like calling out all the fire apparatus in town in the hope of finding a fire, but not knowing whether there was one. The right way of trying to detect subversives In the State Departmeit was through the loyalty programme established by the former Secretary of State, Mr. George Marshall. In an address to the Federal Bar Association, President Truman said that anyone who had information about Ihe presence of a Communist in the Government should furnish information to the Attorney-General, but he strongly criticised what he called “sensational accusations based on gossip, hearsay, or hunch.” He ridiculed the false patriots and even some honest reactionaries who had thrown charges of Communism at persons within the Government, and called for dismissal of employees on Hie basis of unsupported Charges.