Master of the Senate (223 page)

Drawing up agenda; Truman’s reaction:
“Subjects to be Covered at Meeting on Friday, Aug. 4,” attached to Johnson to Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson, Aug. 2; Truman to Louis Johnson, Aug. 4, which includes: “I am returning the letter from Lyndon Johnson, together with the subjects he desires to cover. Apparently he has never read about the conduct of the war in the 1860s.” President’s Secretary’s Files—General File, PSF Box 124, HSTL.
Masterstroke:
“General Survey of the Truman Committee (Requested by Senator Johnson Aug 2) … (The following are direct quotes from the Final Report of the Truman Committee), Box 116, LBJA SF, “Statement of Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, Statement of Policies and Procedures of Subcommittee” (with Johnson’s markings in margins). This statement is dated July 31, but it is based on the Aug. 2 “General Survey” and Busby says it was drafted in response to Truman’s displeasure; Official File 419, OF Box 1239, HSTL. Johnson sent him: “Dear Matt, I want you to see a copy of a statement…. Some paragraphs in which you might be especially interested are marked…. I hope, whenever you can, you will have the President look this over, too …,” Johnson to Matt Connelly, Aug. 3; “I … have passed it on to the President,” Matt Connelly to Johnson, Aug. 7, Official File 419, OF Box 1239, HSTL. In furtherance of this strategy, Johnson also sent Truman a list of “Excerpts from Truman Committee Reports,” with the covering note: “Reverting again to the President’s own experiences serving in a similar capacity, we have attempted on the subcommittee to follow the President’s example in vigorously criticizing those situations where it appeared that criticisms would forward the national defense. As a matter of interest, we are attaching some precedents in that respect, set for this subcommittee by the Truman Committee” (Box 124, General File, HSTL).
Phrases that echoed:
McCullough, pp. 255–91.
“Approved them”; “MEMORANDUM: Visit at White House”:
Aug. 8, unsigned, Box 116, LBJA SF.

“
A NEW
”:
Albright, “Gallery Glimpses,”
WP
, Aug. 6. In talking to Albright, Johnson noted another similarity to the original Truman Committee. After talking to him, Albright wrote that the Johnson Subcommittee “will get down to ‘cases’ and try to correct
them. The old Truman Committee used the ‘case system,’ scouting out bottlenecks in the preparedness effort and trying to break them.”
“Like father”:
WS
, Sept. 19.

Work of one man; involving other:
McCullough, Chapter 7.
“They would”:
McCullough, p. 263.
Johnson discouraging participation:
Busby, McGillicuddy, Reedy interviews.
Kefauver’s proxy:
Transcript of Johnson telephone conversation with Allen, March 30, 1951, “Notes and Transcripts of Johnson Conversations—1951,” Box 1; Kefauver to Johnson, Aug. 28, Box 345, JSP.
Chapman’s drunkenness:
Busby, Jenkins interviews.
Receptivity:
Goldsmith, p. 21.
“An apparatus”:
MacNeil interview.
Would value:
Anton interview.
Get his
quid:
Anton, McGillicuddy interviews.
“Work will take”:
AP story, paper unidentified, Aug. 1.

Truman Committee’s openness:
Preliminary Inventory of the Records of the Special Committee of the Senate to Investigate National Defense Program, 1941–1948
, compiled by Harold E. Hufford, assisted by Toussaint L. Prince; General Services Administration; 1952, 8E-2, 5/15/5, Boxes 14, 27, NA; National Archives Preliminary Inventory No. 48: Records of the Special Committee, 1952; NA, Washington, D.C.; Gillette, McCulley interviews. (Truman was chairman from April 15, 1941, to June 19, 1944.)
“Memorable Days”:
McCullough, pp. 272 ff. The contrast between the Truman and Johnson committees came through in a memo from Cook to Johnson “Re: Work of the Truman Committee.” The memo covers the earlier committee’s work even after Truman, having become vice president, was no longer chairman. The memo says that “during the seven years of its existence, the Committee issued fifty-one reports (including two minority reports) and held 432 public hearings…. In the first year of its existence, the Committee issued only six reports. During the remainder of 1942, it issued eight more reports … On the other hand, the Committee held a large number of public hearings … Hearings were in progress during almost every month of the Committee’s existence during the first year, and the record indicates that this procedure continued practically throughout the Committee’s entire existence.” As for the Johnson Subcommittee, Cook was to write—in an article published in 1951—that “in practice, the subcommittee had not found it necessary to conduct elaborate hearings where witnesses are interrogated at great length” because the information it needed was available in documents or was given to the subcommittee’s staff “informally.” “Occasionally,” he wrote, “the explanations are made at a formal hearing before the subcommittee in executive session. Since it is a policy announced by Senator Johnson … to develop the substantial rather than to exploit the sensational, very rarely are the hearings public.” (Donald Cook to Johnson, July 11, 1951, Box 116, LBJA SF; Cook, “Investigations in Operation: Senate Preparedness Subcommittee,”
University of Chicago Law Review
, Spring 1951). See also unsigned, “General Survey of the Truman Committee (Requested by Senator Johnson, Aug. 2); “Excerpts from Truman Committee Reports”; “Memorandum to the Senator,” unsigned, undated, all Box 116, LBJA SF.

Few Johnson hearings:
S. Res. 18, U.S. Congress, Senate,
Committee on Armed Services, Legislative Calendar
, 81st Cong., 1949–1950; 82nd Cong., 1952; “Senate Armed Services Committee Calendar,”
CR
, 82/2; 83/1 and 2.
Bulk closed:
Ibid
., 82/2; 83/1 and 2; BeLieu; Busby, McGillicuddy, Reedy interviews.
“On S. 1”; “to facilitate”; not even funded:
Richard T. McCulley,
Memo Concerning Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee on Armed Service and the Universal Military Service and Training Act of 1951 (82nd Congress, 1951–1952)
, Oct. 19, 2001, Finding Aid for the Senate Committee on Armed Services, Center for Legislative Archives, NA.
Nineteen open hearings:
Even this figure may be misleading. Nine of the nineteen were on alleged scandals in the construction of overseas bases, and they followed a series of articles by Homer Bigart in the
NYHT
. Johnson had no choice but to open these hearings to the press, Daniel McGillicuddy says. “After all the press had broken the story. We
couldn’t
keep them closed.”
Staffers involved:
Busby interview.
“Unusual”:
Darden OH. Stennis became a member of the Presidential Preparedness Subcommittee on March 13, 1951, after the hearing on S.1 had been concluded.
“Skillfully guided”:
Fite, p. 253.
“The UMT thing”:
Busby interview.
Task forces; “Chairman Johnson”:
Richard T. McCulley,
Memo Concerning Task Forces of the Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee
, Oct. 4, 2001, Reference Reports, 7/1999, Center for Legislative Archives, NA, Busby, McCulley, Reedy interviews.

Several simply rewritings; drafting procedure:
Busby, McGillicuddy, Reedy interviews.
“If you get”:
McGillicuddy interview.
“He looked”; “fifteen”:
McGillicuddy interview.
“We just”; “Johnson wanted”:
Busby interview. “He got every report unanimous.
Sounds great. You’re talking statesman” (MacNeil interview).

Infused:
MacNeil, Steele interviews; McNeil OH.

“
PACKETING
”:
Levison to Beshoar, Aug. 31, 1951.
“NOT FOR USE”:
“Johnson—Acheson—McNaughton,” undated.
“Trouble is”:
McConaughy to Beshoar, undated.
“Had a long”; “I think”:
Beal to Elson, Sept. 16, all SP.

“He worked”:
McNeil OH.
“TEXAS WATCHDOG”:
Time
, Sept. 18.
“Mild-mannered but determined”:
The Nation
, Oct. 21.
“Prominence”:
Leslie Carpenter, “The Whip from Texas,”
Collier’s
, Feb. 17, 1951.

“It was”; “when Tydings”:
Busby interview.
McCarthy defeating Tydings:
Reeves,
Joe McCarthy
, Chapters 13, 14.
Big money from Texas:
Theodore H. White, “Texas: Land of Wealth and Fear,”
The Reporter
, May 25, 1954.
Ten thousand dollars:
Reeves, p. 337.

All dates are 1951 unless otherwise noted.

“The whole”:
McGillicuddy interview.
“No”:
BeLieu interview.

Complaints about Lackland:
NYT, WP, WS
, Jan. 27.
Rumors were all they were:
NYT, WP
, Jan. 30;
WS
, Feb. 4.
“We are all”:
Finletter to Johnson, Feb. 6, Appendix 2,
Investigation of the Preparedness Program: Fifth Report … Interim Report on Lackland Air Force Base
, Feb. 26 (referred to hereafter as
Fifth Report
).

Johnson emerged:
WP
, Jan. 28.
“To make”:
Johnson quoted,
NYT, WP
, Feb. 1.
“We’ve got”:
Johnson, quoted by Busby, Tyler.
“He points”:
Johnson quoted in Tyler interview.
Busby’s feelings; “Listen”:
Busby interview.

“I
NVESTIGATORS SLEEP
”:
DMN
, Feb. 1.
“No undue”; no suicides; no pneumonia epidemic, etc.:
Fifth Report
, pp. 2–4.
Johnson was informed:
Busby interview.
“Many parents”:
FWS-T
, Feb. 19.
Johnson touch:
Fifth Report
, pp. 1–13.

McNeil’s prediction:
NYWT
, Feb. 19.
“Sizzling”:
For example,
AA-S
, Feb. 18.
“It was”:
FWS-T
, Feb. 19.
“GREED”; “MESS”; “HOARD”:
WS, WT-H, WP
, Feb. 19.
“Completely”:
FWS-T
, Feb. 19.

“I want”:
Johnson, quoted in
FWS-T
, Feb. 19.
“All branches”:
Investigation of the Preparedness Program … Ninth Report: Military Indoctrination Centers
, April 16.

McGillicuddy at Breckenridge:
McGillicuddy interview.
“We hit”:
McGillicuddy, Tyler interviews.
Housing conditions at Breckenridge:
Investigation of the Preparedness Program … Twenty-eighth Report … Interim Report on Substandard Housing and Rent Gouging of Military Personnel
, July 19, and
Thirtieth Report: Second Report on Substandard Housing and Gouging
…, Sept. 24.
“This will”:
Reedy, quoted by McGillicuddy in interview. Reedy confirmed McGillicuddy’s account.
“When you go”; Johnson’s rage:
McGillicuddy interview.

“A thousand signs”:
Smathers OH.
“He
had
to win”:
Emmette Redford interview.
“Any kind”:
Siegel OH.

“A real challenge”:
Goldsmith,
Colleagues
, p. 21. Kefauver had, in fact, given Johnson his proxy to use in subcommittee meetings, Kefauver to Johnson, Aug. 28, Box 345, JSP.
“Drinking makes you”; “Bobby, you tryin’”
Baker,
Wheeling and Dealing
, pp. 75–77.
His drinks weaker:
Gonella interview.
Drinking with Chapman:
Busby interview.

“As trustworthy”:
McPherson,
Political Education
, p. 79.
“Why, you”:
Mooney,
LBJ
, p. 47.
Tactics with Saltonstall:
Reedy interview. Saltonstall once said of Johnson: “He knew how to go after people, so to speak. He never put the whips on men, to use that expression, in any sense of the word. He would say, ‘Help me’” (Saltonstall OH, quoted in Mooney, p. 54).

Helping Bridges on wool:
Cook to Bridges, March 30, Box 353, JSP.
Help against constituents:
Report of Proceedings, Hearing Held Before Preparedness Subcommittee of the Committee on Armed Services—Executive Session, July 9, 1951
.
“Some investigator”:
Bridges,
ibid
., pp. 33, 4.
“Whenever”:
Cook,
ibid
., p. 34.
Rapport:
Busby, Reedy interviews.

“Wake him up!”:
Busby interview.
Chapman’s death:
WS
, March 8.

Obtaining unanimity:
BeLieu, Busby, McGillicuddy interviews.
“Sometimes”:
McGillicuddy interview.
“He’d tell”:
BeLieu interview.

Aides would hear:
Busby, Jenkins interviews.
“A detailed”:
Goodwin,
Lyndon Johnson
, p. 123.
“Most chairmen”:
BeLieu interview.
“Especially remarkable”:
“The Watchdog Committee and How It Watches,”
Newsweek
, Dec. 3.

“Chiselers”:
NYT
, Sept. 30.
Biloxi:
WP
, Oct. 20.
“Inexcusable”:
NYHT, NYT
, Nov. 11.
Warm clothing:
NYHT
, Nov. 1.

“Congress has”:
Alexander,
Boston Herald
, Nov. 22.
Long articles:
Leslie Carpenter,
“The Whip from Texas,”
Collier’s
, Feb. 17; Eliot Janeway, “Johnson of the Watchdog Committee,”
NYT Magazine
, June 17; Paul Healy, “The Frantic Gentleman from Texas,”
SEP
, May 19.