Do you know what this story is missing? A big Presidential scandal. I know! Let's have one!
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The Oppenheimer Scandal
Sparkman had been President for barely two weeks when a major scandal erupted. A product of Stevenson’s appreciation for all things intellectual, it had been building for months. Had Stevenson not been assassinated, it is certain that the scandal would have damaged him politically. Instead, fate mandated that the scandal unfold on Sparkman’s watch…forcing him to take the heat and clean up the mess. The man who blew the lid off the scandal and benefitted from it was none else than Joseph McCarthy. First: some background information. At the time of Stevenson’s assassination, the senior Senator from Wisconsin was laying the groundwork for a major “Red Democrat” assault aimed at undermining the majority party as the country headed into the 1954 midterm election season.
“Nothing would delight me more than exposing the public to the truth and making them realize that only Republicans can protect them from the Communists,” he stated. Of course, McCarthy had conducted the same campaign against the Democrats in 1952…and failed to stop them from winning big at the polls. In his eyes, it wasn’t the strategy that failed; instead, the problem was that he apparently didn’t speak out enough for the American people to hear him. Undeterred, McCarthy would be shouting even louder than he did two years earlier. To help him gather the “facts” proving that the Democrats were in bed with the Communists, McCarthy privately hired a New York lawyer named Roy Cohn in late January 1954 to dig up dirt on the opposition.
A Jewish Democrat with Republican sympathies (he voted for Dewey in 1948 and Taft in 1952), Cohn had experience aggressively fighting Communists in the courtroom. He jumped at the chance to undermine the present Administration – no doubt the promise of being rewarded handsomely had something to do with it – and went to work. After doing some research, Cohn provided McCarthy some juicy information on February 24th. It had been leaked to him by a twenty-eight-year-old special counsel at the Justice Department named Robert F. Kennedy. The younger brother of Senator Kennedy, RFK was an aspiring lawyer who received his position at the Justice Department through the influence of his father: former United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom Joseph P. Kennedy. A family friend of McCarthy, Robert was willing to help him out due to his distaste for Stevenson. He thought the President was intellectually arrogant; worse, he wouldn’t stand up to the Soviets if push came to shove.
“We got to get this guy out of office,” RFK warned,
“I am afraid to think what will happen if the Soviets get tough with him.”
Acting on a tip (it’s still unclear today where the tip originated from), Cohn approached Robert and asked if he had potentially damaging information about the Administration. With no feeling of guilt at all, RFK replied that he did and handed over some classified information. When McCarthy got hold of it, he was beside himself with glee.
“This will get that Adlai bastard,” he boasted to Cohn. The information revolved around a memo sent to the White House from the Justice Department on December 2nd, 1953. In it, Attorney General Lausche reported to Stevenson that J. Robert Oppenheimer’s past associations with Communists made him a security risk. Oppenheimer, who headed the Manhattan Project in the early 1940s, had been appointed by Stevenson to serve as a special advisor on the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union. The President deeply respected Oppenheimer’s intellect and was unwilling to move against him. After reading the memo which spelled out
“evidence indicating that Mr. Oppenheimer is more likely than not to be a Communist spy,” Stevenson returned the memo to Lausche with written instructions to shelve it. There would be no effort to throw Oppenheimer under the proverbial bus.
McCarthy could barely contain himself when he read the detailed memo.
“It’s all here,” he declared,
“Clear-cut evidence that Adlai is knowingly protecting a Communist spy!”
Up until now, McCarthy’s anti-Communist charges had been wild and unsubstantiated. Now he had in his possession proof that the President was knowingly covering-up Oppenheimer’s Communist connections. The Senator relished the thought of leaking this to the press and watching the White House be rocked by scandal. To maximize the effectiveness, he decided to delay the leak until March 3rd – giving him a week to prepare for his big assault. Of course, before McCarthy could launch his attack, Stevenson was assassinated by Puerto Rican nationalists on March 1st. He felt cheated by the murder; he had been plotting to undermine the President, now his target was dead. In a rare moment of self-awareness, McCarthy knew his best chance at inflicting damage had been dashed. Even if he leaked it to the press now, he would not have the joy of watching Stevenson try to explain it away. Furthermore, the new President was a Southern Conservative. That meant trying to paint Sparkman as being soft on Communism would be as effective as building a roof in the middle of a category four hurricane. McCarthy shelved the leak, disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to use it. It might well have stayed on the shelf had Sparkman not unwittingly gave the Wisconsin Senator the green light to use it.
On March 6th, Sparkman gave his first press conference as President. Standing outside the White House next to his Press Secretary (and with the Secret Service right behind him), Sparkman took questions from reporters. One reporter asked him if Oppenheimer would stay on as special advisor, especially given rumors about his Communist ties.
“I have heard these rumors about Mr. Oppenheimer,” he answered,
“I can assure you that these rumors are false. As far as I know, no evidence has been found which implies Mr. Oppenheimer is disloyal.”
McCarthy’s ears perked up, but he held his fire. The key words
“As far as I know” stopped him from contradicting the White House with his evidence. Unwilling to take on a Southern Conservative, McCarthy gave him the benefit of a doubt. There was no proof in Cohn’s file which suggested that Sparkman had seen the memo. On March 9th, proof surfaced that said otherwise. RFK leaked to Cohn a private memo written by Sparkman to Lausche shortly after taking office. In it, the President told the Attorney General that he planned to quietly deal with Oppenheimer.
“We’ve got to handle this so that all our scientists are not made out to be Reds,” he wrote. On the same day he gave his press conference, Sparkman dealt with the Oppenheimer matter by ordering a blank wall be placed between top-secret information and the suspected security risk. He then named a special three-member panel to secretly look into whether the physicist really was a security risk. If he was, then Sparkman would sack him in a way that wouldn’t raise public suspicion. What the President didn’t know was that McCarthy knew he was lying during his press conference.
The day after getting the latest news from Cohn, McCarthy launched his spring offensive. Speaking to reporters, the Senator revealed that he had in his possession official memos which contradicted the President’s March 6th statement.
“As you can see,” McCarthy exclaimed,
“The White House knew as far back as December 2nd of last year that Oppenheimer is a Communist spy no doubt feeding sensitive information to Moscow. Not surprisingly, President Stevenson ordered a cover-up in order to protect him from being tried for his red-handed crimes. Now, this other memo shows that not only is President Sparkman continuing this cover-up but that he also knowingly lied during his press conference of March 6th. It is obvious to me looking at the evidence that this White House is incapable of fighting the Communists.”
The reaction to McCarthy’s revelation was national outrage. Not only did Stevenson knowingly protect an alleged Communist spy, but also his successor apparently lied when he said that
“no evidence has been found which implies Mr. Oppenheimer is disloyal.”
For McCarthy, the Oppenheimer Scandal (as history would call it) gave him a much-needed recharge. Until this point, his star had faded and people were tired of listening to him endlessly accuse the Administration of being soft on Communism without serious proof. Now, he had proof to back up his latest charges. Overnight, McCarthy status as a powerful national figure was restored. People once again were listening to him and taking him seriously. If he was right this time, what would he be right about next? Far from going away, the Wisconsin Senator came roaring back into the limelight. Republicans again treated him like a hero; on the other hand, Democrats discovered to their dismay that McCarthy was still a villain to be weary of.
With his credibility injured by the scandal, Sparkman was forced into damage-control mode. He scrapped the panel and cancelled Oppenheimer’s security clearance. The former director of the Manhattan Project was promptly fired from his post, never to serve the Federal Government again. RFK was also fired from his government job when an official investigation into the leak revealed him to be the source. Given all the trouble Sparkman got into by lying about Oppenheimer’s Communist connections, one can’t help but ask why he did so in the first place. According to the President’s memoir, the justification was his concern about Stevenson’s legacy. He admitted that Stevenson had shown him the December 2nd memo and was asked for his opinion. Sparkman said he urged him to act on it and subsequently opposed the decision not to. Once Stevenson had been killed, Sparkman became worried about his legacy should the public get wind of the Oppenheimer issue.
“The last thing I wanted,” he wrote,
“Was to see Adlai’s image get tarnished by the revelation that there was some truth to the ‘soft-on-Communism’ charges that Senator McCarthy was making on an almost-regular basis. At the time, I felt I could protect Adlai and push Dr. Oppenheimer out the door at the same time. I never anticipated the unjustified betrayal by Senator Kennedy’s brother that destroyed this effort.”
In trying to protect Stevenson’s legacy, Sparkman injured his own. Having shot himself in one foot, he would shoot himself in the other foot two months later with his controversial response to one of the landmark events of the 1950s: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.
