Frank Knight: It’s time for the Longines Chronoscope, a tele­vi­sion jour­nal of the impor­tant issues of the hour. Brought to you every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. A pre­sen­ta­tion of the Longines-Wittnauer Watch Company, mak­er of Longines, the world’s most hon­ored watch. And Wittnauer, dis­tin­guished com­pan­ion to the world hon­ored Longines.

Good evening. This is Frank Knight. May I intro­duce our coed­i­tors for this edi­tion of the Longines Chronoscope, Mr. William Bradford Huie, edi­tor of the American Mercury, and Mr. Donald I. Rogers, an edi­tor of the New York Herald Tribune. Our dis­tin­guished guest for this evening is the hon­or­able Joseph R. McCarthy, United States Senator from Wisconsin. The opin­ions expressed are nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the speakers.

Donald I. Rogers: Senator McCarthy, you’re prob­a­bly the most con­tro­ver­sial fig­ure on the American polit­i­cal scene. McCarthy and McCarthyism are well-known words. I’m sure our audi­ence is very much inter­est­ed in your polit­i­cal career, so sup­pose we start right out, Sir. Tell us about the cam­paign in Wisconsin. You’re run­ning for reelec­tion, I believe.

Joseph R. McCarthy: I can’t tell you too much about it, Mr. Rogers, except I heard that a new man announced today it will be a tough, close con­test I think in the primary.

Rogers: In the primary.

McCarthy: Yes.

Rogers: A Republican opponent.

McCarthy: I’ve got three or four Republican oppo­nents, and I heard now— I hope that I’m cor­rect in this. I heard that a new man, Len Schmitt, announced today.

Rogers: This is the man who ran for gov­er­nor, is it not?

McCarthy: He ran for gov­er­nor two years, ago and ran up a siz­able vote.

William Bradford Huie: If Mr. Schmitt—

McCarthy: An effec­tive cam­paign­er, yes.

Huie: He is an effec­tive cam­paign­er, and you regard Mr. Schmitt, if he’s run­ning, as your per­haps most dan­ger­ous opponent.

McCarthy: I would­n’t want to insult the oth­er young men who are run­ning by say­ing they were not dangerous.

Huie: I see. And you say that the pri­ma­ry fight will be seri­ous. What kind of pri­ma­ry do you have? It is an open pri­ma­ry? Do both Democrats and Republicans vote in the Republican primary?

McCarthy: Yes. We have an unusu­al sit­u­a­tion in Wisconsin, Mr. Huie. The Democrats can all vote in the Republican pri­ma­ry if they care to, and the Republicans of course could vote in the Democratic pri­ma­ry if they cared to. That means that if the Democrats could induce enough of their Democrats to go over to the Republican pri­ma­ry and vote against me, it could make it very rough.

Rogers: Could be dan­ger­ous for McCarthyism, could it?

McCarthy: I should say that I think that I’ll get about as many Democratic votes out there as any oth­er can­di­date. We get some awful­ly good Democrats in Wisconsin.

Huie: Is this going to be one of those that cam­paigns that con­sid­er­able amounts of mon­ey will be spent from out­side the state? Do you expect that mon­ey will be spent there, sent into Wisconsin to try to help defeat you?

McCarthy: There is a for­tune being sent into Wisconsin already. In fact I think there’s been more cam­paign lit­er­a­ture put up by my oppo­si­tion up to this time than there nor­mal­ly has been doing dur­ing an entire cam­paign. On top of that— In addi­tion to that, I should say, there’s a book com­ing out, it’s being writ­ten by one Drew Pearson’s men, a man from the New York Post. Originally they were going to call it ​“The Hairy Ape” or ​“The Missing Link.” I guess the new name they have for it is ​“The Senator and the Ism” or some­thing like that. It’ll be all the usu­al smear by innu­en­do. It’s going to be an unpleas­ant campaign.

Rogers: Well, speak­ing of sup­port from out of the state, you have banned sup­port­ed or endorsed by such gen­tle­man as Gerald L. K. Smith and Upton Close. Do you accept their sup­port, or do you welcome?

McCarthy: I don’t think I have been endorsed or sup­port­ed by Gerald Smith or Upton Close. Not that I know of.

Rogers: They—

McCarthy: Let me say this. I am not going to pass upon any man, no mat­ter what his rep­u­ta­tion is. I know cer­tain men have rep­u­ta­tions of being anti-Semitic. I am sure that no one can point to any­thing in my back­ground to show that I am anti any par­tic­u­lar group.

Rogers: I have here—

McCarthy: None of my votes, noth­ing else.

Rogers: I have here, Senator McCarthy, a pub­li­ca­tion called ​“Headlines and What’s Behind Them.” Another pub­li­ca­tion called ​“Conspiracy: the Philip Dru Case.” Are you famil­iar with these?

McCarthy: Not with the pub­li­ca­tion, Mr. Rogers.

Rogers: They men­tion your name in here, endors­ing you. And they also men­tion that General Eisenhower is that part of a Semitic plot to over­throw the world. It’s part of the lit­er­a­ture that cir­cu­lat­ing about. Do you know about these publications?

McCarthy: No, I don’t. May I say that whether Eisenhower or Taft is nom­i­nat­ed, in either event I think we’ll have a good nom­i­nee. By say­ing Eisenhower or Taft, I don’t want to exclude the pos­si­bil­i­ty of anoth­er great American, like General MacArthur or some oth­er good can­di­dates. But I’m not at all dis­turbed about the Americanism, the loy­al­ty, of any of the fron­trun­ning can­di­dates we have. 

Huie: Well, on the—

McCarthy: I think they’re good Americans. I think they’re good Republicans, too.

Huie: On the nation­al scene—

McCarthy: May I say that any pub­li­ca­tion which inti­mates that there’s any­thing un-American about any of our fron­trun­ning can­di­dates is mis­tak­en, putting it mildly.

Rogers: All of our can­di­dates in your opin­ion are sol­id American gentleman. 

McCarthy: All of those fron­trun­ning can­di­dates. All those that have been men­tioned in con­nec­tion with the—

Rogers: These pub­li­ca­tions which endorse you and oppose General Eisenhower you do not believe should be cir­cu­lat­ed, do you?

McCarthy: I don’t know what’s in that pub­li­ca­tion, Mr. Rogers. But all I can say is that I’ve been tak­ing no part in the Presidential race. I’ve been ful­ly sat­is­fied that regard­less of which one of the men are nom­i­nat­ed, he would be a good can­di­date. We’ve got a bunch of good del­e­gates at Chicago, good Americans. And I won’t be afraid to sup­port him to the hilt, and I intend to do that regard­less of who’s nominated—on the Republican tick­et, that is.

Huie: Well Senator, speak­ing of cam­paigns, do you expect a cam­paign out­side of Wisconsin between now and November?

McCarthy: Mr. Huie, I have some heavy oblig­a­tions to oth­er sen­a­tors, men who have come to my aid when things looked black­est in this fight against com­mu­nists in gov­ern­ment. Some of them are in the so-called mar­gin­al states. If they think they’re hav­ing dif­fi­cul­ty in their Senate race, if they think that I can help them, I will come into their states. I may say this, that if the Republicans should take over the Senate, I hap­pen to be the rank­ing mem­ber on the inves­ti­gat­ing com­mit­tee. That means that McCarthy would become Chairman of the Senate Investigating Committee. And if he does, I’ll make you one promise. That Leavenworth won’t hold them, Mr. Huie.

Huie: You’re going going to use the same tac­tics that you have used right along, sir.

McCarthy: Well now, you said the same tac­tics. You see, if you have a com­mit­tee with the pow­er to sub­poe­na inves­ti­ga­tors, you don’t use the same tac­tics you use when you have no com­mit­tee, no pow­er to sub­poe­na. We’ve got to dig and root out the com­mu­nists and the crooks, and those who are bad for America. Where you have a com­mit­tee, so you have the pow­er of sub­poe­na, you can get their records. And if we have a Republican pres­i­dent, we’ll be able to get those records, I’m sure. It will be a less spec­tac­u­lar fight, but much more effec­tive. You see, it’s dif­fi­cult when you’re all alone with the entire pow­er of this fed­er­al bureau­cra­cy against you… Difficult to dig them— Even [?], you see, we have exposed—gotten in the government—eleven of those I orig­i­nal­ly named. Some of them have been con­vict­ed, oth­ers before the grand jury. But all out of the gov­ern­ment under the Loyalty Program.

Rogers: and I know you do, too, that Mr. Lattimore has been request­ed not to leave the country.

McCarthy: Mr. Lattimore was not one of the eleven because he was no longer in the gov­ern­ment. He had been used as an advi­sor, but I did­n’t count him amongst the eleven.

Huie: Senator, now you—

McCarthy: He’s not being used any longer.

Huie: —you spoke of—

McCarthy: May I say some­thing fur­ther in answer to Mr. Rogers’ com­ment? The State Department has been tak­ing cred­it for the ban upon Lattimore’s leav­ing the coun­try. That is just improp­er, because the State Department did not ini­ti­ate that ban—

Huie: Who did?

McCarthy: It was the Justice Department. The Justice Department either phoned or wrote Mrs. Shipley’s divi­sion, the visa divi­sion, and said close the Canadian bor­ders, close the Mexican bor­ders, close the Atlantic, close the Pacific, on Lattimore. Don’t let him leave the country.

Huie: Is this the result of our new Attorney General?

McCarthy: I don’t know. The pre­vi­ous Attorney General, McGrath, was a good friend of mine. I am very hap­py to see the new Attorney General appar­ent­ly going about his job in a good, seri­ous fashion.

Rogers: Uh, Sena—

McCarthy: May I make a…just anoth­er ten sec­onds? If I were mak­ing pre­dic­tions I would make this pre­dic­tion tonight. That is this. The State Department will use every bit of pow­er at their dis­pos­al to try and get Owen Lattimore out of this coun­try with­in the next two or three months. 

Huie: You must have rea­sons for say­ing that, sir.

McCarthy: Very good rea­sons, and may I sug­gest that you just watch what hap­pens over the next few weeks and few months and you’ll under­stand why.

Huie: Now let me under­stand these two pre­dic­tions that you’ve made, Senator. They sound very impor­tant to me. You are pre­dict­ing for our view­ers that with­in the next few weeks, the State Department will use its influ­ence to get Professor Lattimore out­side the country.

McCarthy: That’s correct.

Rogers: Can you say why, sir?

McCarthy: Frankly, I can’t. 

Huie: Now—

McCarthy: I mean I could but I… For rea­sons which I’ll explain to you after we get off the air, I just could­n’t do it here tonight.

Huie: Now, the other—

McCarthy: You’ll under­stand why with­in a mat­ter of weeks or months—

Huie: Alright, I’ll call our view­ers atten­tion to your prediction—

McCarthy: Will you do that?

Huie: And now the oth­er thing that I’d like to get very clear because it sounds impor­tant. If you are elected—reelected—Senator, and if there’s a Republican vic­to­ry this fall, then you will be Chairman of the present—what’s known as the McCarran Committee, will you not?

McCarthy: No, not the McCarran Committee. It’s now known as the Senator Hoey Committee, for­mer­ly the the Truman Committee. It’s the spe­cial Senate inves­ti­gat­ing committee.

Huie: I see. And you also made the pre­dic­tion that if you can get con­trol of that com­mit­tee, that you expect to fill up Leavenworth and a few more of the fed­er­al pris­ons. Is that correct?

McCarthy: Yes. I think, Mr. Huie, that any good American in charge of that inves­ti­gat­ing committee—

Huie: Senator, there’s one oth­er— You men­tioned a book, and there’s one book here that we should call our view­ers’ atten­tion to. It’s your book that is pub­lished today, I believe.

McCarthy: Yes.

Huie: Now, in effect, what’s the mes­sage of this book to the peo­ple of America, sir?

McCarthy: Well, Mr. Huie, we call the book McCarthyism: The Fight for America. It is a care­ful­ly doc­u­ment­ed his­to­ry of the fight to expose com­mu­nists, bad secu­ri­ty risks, and the dupes and stooges of the Kremlin who have been and still are in our fed­er­al government.

Huie: Well, Senator—

McCarthy: May I say this also, if we’ve got—

Huie: I’m sor­ry that our time is up. But I’m sure that our view­ers have appre­ci­at­ed your very forth­right views, and thank you for being with us, sir.

McCarthy: Thank you.

Frank Knight: The edi­to­r­i­al board for this edi­tion of the Longines Chronoscope was Mr. William Bradford Huie and Mr. Donald I. Rogers. Our dis­tin­guished guest was the hon­or­able Joseph R. McCarthyism, United States sen­a­tor from Wisconsin.

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We invite you to join us every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening at this same time for the Longines Chronoscope, a tele­vi­sion jour­nal of the impor­tant issues of the hour. Broadcast on behalf of Longines, the world’s most hon­ored watch, and Wittnauer, dis­tin­guished com­pan­ion to the world hon­ored Longines. 

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