WHO IS TO STOP McCARTHY ?
get a chance to do it until November, 1958. In the meantime it is a matter of reducing his present power in Congress and that is a highly technical task on which few people, other than Americans, are qualified to speak with certainty. It is even doubtful whether many Americans have a firm answer yet. It will certainly not be easy to find one, for McCarthy relies on the perfectly respectable constitutional doctrine of the right of Congressional committees to call the Executive to account. It is reported, for example, that the Senate Republican policy committee is reviewing the rules of investigating committees with the aim of . making it impossible for a single senator to issue subpoenas and conduct one-man hearings. McCarthy is said to regard this investigation with equanimity, and indeed it is unlikely that his teeth can be drawn by this device alone.
In fact the most promising line of attack must lie within the Republican Party machine—that arcanum of esoteric calculations in smoke-filled rooms into which the uninitiated cannot penetrate. The most that can be said is that, if President Eisenhower has the will, the chances are that he can find a way, inside his party, to scotch the ambitions of his chief rival within that party. For that is what Senator McCarthy is. He has been spoken of as a potential President of the United States. It is just as well to face that from the. start, if only to underline the necessity to stop him. Any formal disclaimers on his part must of course be automatically discounted. But perhaps we can ignore for the time being such flesh-creeping possibilities. It is no doubt true that McCarthy's chances of running for President in 1956 are smaller than they would have been if the Democrats had won again in 1952 and thus had four more years in which to present themselves as a tired, careless and confused target to their opponents. But, as Mr. Walter Lippmann has pointed out, McCarthy's intention to make himself supreme boss of the Republican Party is just about as plain as it could be. What is more, with Senator Taft dead. Governor Dewey carrying the stigmata of a twice-defeated Presidential candidate, and President Eisenhower still a child in the labyrinth of party management, McCarthy will be difficult to stop.
The fact remains that he can be stopped, if only the Republican leaders make up their minds that the party stands to gain more by disowning him once and for all than by hanging on for fear of losing the votes he can swing. Of course he can swing votes. But there is no certainty that the votes he gains for the Republican Party through his crude appeal to the man from the wrong side of the tracks are more numerous than those he loses through the disgust and repulsion which he inspires in all decent Americans. And in any case, in the last analysis, he only swings votes for his own personal benefit. That is the real meaning of McCarthyism. It is not just anti- Communism, isolationism, xenophobia, brutality or cheap posturing, though all these means are employed to achieve McCarthy's real end. That end is the power and glory of Joseph McCarthy himself personally. That is why the leaders of the American Republican Party must stop him now. If they do not they will be playing false not only to their country. but to themselves as well.
This situation, in which the central operation is a hatchet job carried out behind the scenes, is apt to induce a feeling of frustration and helplessness'in the onlookers. Such feelings must be possessed in patience, and not allowed to spill over into aimless verbal attacks on McCarthy. It is quite plain that such attacks, particularly when they come from outside America are likely to do him more good than harm. Even Mr• Herbert Morrison's very moderate speech on Saturday was turned in America to the Senator's advantage. Attacks there must be. It would be beyond human endurance to remain completely silent while this crucial struggle is in progress. But they must be attacks with a fixed purpose. And their spear- head is American.
Americans may in this connection be divided roughly into four groups. First come those who approve of McCarthy and all his works. They are a minority. Second are those who disapprove of him but regard him as a necessary evil. These are a larger group than most non-Americans realise, and a particularly determined effort to understand their point of view is desirable, for thdy constitute, as it. were, a floating vote. Third comes the very large group of those who dislike McCarthy but do not go out of their way to say so. And finally there are those who are his open and avowed enemies. Clearly his defeat is possible. Equally clearly the attack must be strongly led. Before it can be said with confidence that it will 'be so led one final question must be asked, and Wednesday's White House Press conference has certainly not answered it. In which group is President Eisenhower ?
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