Some days ago Senator Taft told me he was not feeling well. Shortly afterwards he went into the hospital (Walter Reed) and later went on to Ohio, where he entered another hospital.1 I understand that there are grave doubts among the doctors as to the exact nature of his trouble. There is currently some fear that he is really very sick, possibly even indefinitely incapacitated. On the other hand, there is a possibility that he merely has some kind of acute glandular disorder and will soon be able to take up his normal duties.
From the personal viewpoint, an indefinite incapacitation on his part would be quite a blow to me. Over the past several months Senator Taft and I have gradually developed a curious sort of personal friendship. It is not any Damon and Pythias sort of thing that insures compatibility of intellectual viewpoint, nor even, for that matter, complete courtesy in the public discussion of political questions. On the other hand, we have reached a very amicable and definite understanding as to the methods of handling common problems and to date, he has never failed to attack vigorously any particular chore that I ask him to undertake within the Senate.
On the partisan political side, his loss would be little short of calamitous--because it would probably mean loss of Republican control of the Senate. The Governor of his state is a Democrat and would be expected to appoint a Democratic senator.2 With Senator Morse voting with the Democrats, this would give to them a majority, and of course we would lose the chairmanships.3
On the broader horizon of the country's welfare, I am not certain how I would calculate the effect of Senator Taft's disappearance from political activity. In most domestic matters he and I stand firmly together. The real point of difference between us is that he wants to cut taxes immediately, believing that this is possible if we arbitrarily reduce the security establishment by about ten billion dollars. And he believes that in no other way can the Republicans be returned to the control of Congress in 1954. I personally agree with none of this. I believe that the American public wants security ahead of tax reduction and that while we can save prodigious sums in the Defense Department without materially hurting our security, we cannot safely, this year, knock out enough to warrant an immediate tax reduction.4 To do it without a tax reduction5 would, of course, produce another deficit of extraordinary size, force us to seek an increase in the legal debt limit, and would be most inflationary in its effect.
But I do believe that we can make sufficient reductions this year to show the American people that we are doing a sensible and sane and efficient job, and win an election next year on a record of economy, efficiency and effective security. With consistent attention to these matters, I believe that we can cut the government expenditures far enough to justify real tax reductions for the fiscal year `55. All this, of course, assumes that we go ahead with the elimination of the excess profits tax and the emergency rise in personal income taxes, on next January first.6
In the foreign field, Senator Taft never disagrees with me when we discuss such affairs academically or theoretically. He believes in the theory of cooperative security and mutual aid. However, when we take up each individual problem or case, he easily loses his temper and makes extravagant statements. He always does this when he starts making a public speech--he seems to work himself into a storm of resentment and irritation.
The result of all this is that our allies fear him and all he influences. They think he gives McCarthy ideas and McCarthy, with his readiness to go to the extremes in calling names and making false accusations, simply terrifies the ordinary European statesman. Incidentally, I very recently read part of a German broadcast, in which the German, Von Cub, stated in effect "McCarthy makes it so easy to hate Americans that it is necessary that all of us who understand America's decent motives and basic friendliness should speak up in behalf of the things she is doing in our own countries."
The implication from all this is that Senator Taft and I will never completely really agree on policies affecting either the domestic or the foreign scene. Moreover, we will never be sufficiently close that we are impelled by mutual friendship to seek ways and means to minimize any evidence of apparent opposition, no matter how much we might differ in basic belief.
In many ways he has cooperated so well as to excite my admiration and certainly far exceeded the expectations I held last December. On the other hand, he is so impulsive, and at times so irrascible that he can scarcely be classed as a skillful statesman.7 His best friends explain his irrascibility as frankness, and his blind prejudices as outspokenness. His worst enemies call him stupid and a political schemer. He is certainly not this last. But he is likewise far from being a Dick Nixon, who is not only bright, quick and energetic--but loyal and cooperative.
