<--PREV Doc #215  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #217 Document #216; May 27, 1953 To Walter Bedell Smith Series: EM, AWF, Dulles-Herter Series ; Category: Personal and confidential The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XIV - The Presidency: The Middle Way Part II: Settling into "the long pull"; May 1953 to August 1953 Chapter 3: "A time for continued vigilance"   Memorandum to the Acting Secretary of State: Subject: Theodore Kaghan.1 Yesterday I was visited by Jack McCloy.2 You are aware of the very high opinion I have of his abilities and especially of his capabilities as a public servant and his dedication to our country. Consequently I bring to your attention a point that came up during the course of our conversation. He referred to the case of the discharge or resignation of Theodore Kaghan.3 Jack says that this man was during a considerable period on duty in Vienna. In that place he was reported by Austrian officials (among them, I believe, the now Chancellor Figl) as being the most effective opponent of Communism among all of the allied personnel.4 Apparently the Austrians considered Mr. Kaghan to be of extraordinary value. I was further told by Jack that this man was discharged from the State Department because of a piece of evidence that once when he was a young man he was a roommate of a Communist. I realize that there must be a very great deal of decentralization in the handling of these cases, but it is also necessary to make certain that no considerations of fear of persecution influence executive action. It is vital that we rid our government of subversive individuals; all of us are pledged to do so. This means, of course, that we must get strong, capable men in government service. We cannot do this unless every man is sure that he will be considered innocent until proven guilty, and that his superiors will back him up to the limit until proven guilty of some offense under methods approved by American tradition.5 1 Kaghan, a University of Michigan graduate and career Foreign Service officer, had been Acting Deputy Director of the Office of Public Affairs of the U.S. High Commission for Germany until early in the month (see below). 2 John Jay McCloy, Assistant Secretary of War during World War II and afterward president of the World Bank, had served as U.S. High Commissioner for Germany between June 1949 and July 1952 (for background see Eisenhower Papers, vols. I-XIII). McCloy had met with the President the morning of May 26. 3 In early April Roy M. Cohn and G. David Schine, staff assistants to Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, had visited West Germany while investigating American informational activities in Europe. The two young men discovered in Kaghan what they held to be "Communist tendencies." On April 7 McCarthy had recalled Kaghan to testify before his Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, a prospect Kaghan said he welcomed as an opportunity to "tell the Senate and the American people what I have accomplished in the `cold war' against Soviet communism here in Europe when the threat is an everyday reality rather than an excuse for creating political confusion." Testifying before the McCarthy subcommittee on April 29, Kaghan defended himself against charges that as a college student in the mid-1930s he had written plays in which, McCarthy said, Communist characters won out "as usual"; that later in New York City he had roomed with a member of the Communist party (a fact Kaghan admitted but believed trivial); and that he once had signed a petition to place a Communist councilmanic candidate on the city ballot (Kaghan said he merely wanted the person to have an opportunity to stand election). Kaghan had resigned his post on May 11, after the State Department, according to his friends, pressured him to quit (New York Times, April 8, 9, 12, 27, 30, May 6, 12, 1953; see also Richard H. Rovere, Affairs of State: The Eisenhower Years [New York, 1956], pp. 125-43). 4 Between 1945 and 1953 Leopold Figl, a farmers' union official who had survived German concentration camps during World War II, had been Chancellor of Austria, where Kaghan had worked before assignment to Germany. A Catholic and avowed anti-Communist, the former Chancellor had written a letter commending Kaghan's work with the Austrian government, noting Kaghan's willingness to risk his life when the Communists threatened to gain power by force. Kaghan had read Figl's endorsement to the McCarthy subcommittee the day he testified (ibid., Apr. 30, 1953, and enclosure with McCloy to Eisenhower, May 27, 1953, AWF/M: PF, Quotations; see also no. 221). 5 There is no reply to this letter in AWF/D-H. After leaving the Foreign Service, Kaghan found work with the New York Post (see New York Times, June 4, 1954). Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. Personal and confidential To Walter Bedell Smith, 27 May 1953. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 216. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/first-term/documents/216.cfm <--PREV Doc #215  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #217

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