WASHINGTON, March 8, 1950 (UP) - Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, R-Wis., testified today that a former U.S. woman representative to the United Nations has been affiliated with 28 Communist front organizations. Sen. McCarthy, first witness before a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee investigating his charges of Communists in the State Department, identified her as Dorothy Kenyon.
He said she is listed in the government registry as a U.S. member of the Commission on the Status of Women and of the U.N. Commissioners of the Economic and Social Council.
(A State Department spokesman said Miss Kenyon never worked for the department. He said Miss Kenyon was a U.S. delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women until her three-year term expired Jan. 1. She got this job under a Presidential appointment, he said, and was paid at the rate of $12,000 a year. She was paid, however, only for time worked, which usually was about two weeks a year. The spokesman said the money came from State Department funds.)
Sen. McCarthy also promised to discuss later what he described as U.S. Ambassador-At-Large Philip Jessup's "unusual affinity ... for Communist causes."
Sen. McCarthy said the "Communist activities of Miss Kenyon are not only deep-rooted but extend back through the years." He said "it is inconceivable that this woman could collaborate with a score of organizations dedicated to the overthrow of our form of government by force and violence ... and be ignorant of the whole sordid and un-American aspect of their work."
The hearing began with a heated verbal battle. Chairman Millard E. Tydings, D-Md., challenged Sen. McCarthy to bring formal charges against a "high-ranking" State Department officer, who, Sen. McCarthy said, tampered with personnel records to shield a "flagrant homosexual" from discharge. Sen. McCarthy had made the charges in a Senate speech.
After a 40-minute argument, the dispute was resolved when Sen. Tydings asked Sen. McCarthy to tell the subcommittee at the next hearing whether the "high State Department official is to be made the subject of a special case" and can be identified at a closed session.
Sen. McCarthy has charged that there are at least 57 Communists on the State Department's payroll.
In his opening statement he indorsed the loyalty standards set forth by Secretary of State Dean Acheson before another Senate committee.
"I am convinced," he said, "that in a sizable number of cases these standards have not been applied properly. One bad risk is too many and a very few might well be disastrous to our national security."
Then Sen. McCarthy began presenting his charges against Miss Kenyon.
He said "this lady has been affiliated with at least 28 Communist front organizations, all of which have been declared subversive by an official government agency."
He listed among those organizations the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, the American Russian Institute, the Conference of Pan-American Democracy, the Political Prisoners Bail Fund Committee, the Consumers Union and the Congress of American Women.
Sen. McCarthy testified that Mrs. Dean Acheson was listed in records of the House Un-American Activities Committee as a sponsor of the Congress of American Women. And he said Dr. Jessup "was also a sponsor of the American Russian Institute."
He said Miss Kenyon, as a sponsor of the Council of American Soviet Friendship, welcomed "the Red Dean of Canterbury," Hewlett Johnson, at a New York rally Nov. 16, 1948. He said she then "collaborated" with such "pro-Communists" as Ben Gold, president of the CIO Fur Workers Union, and Paul Robeson, singer.
Sen. McCarthy said Miss Kenyon had joined in defending a Communist employed by a New York Councilman in 1937.
Sen. McCarthy testified that on Feb. 21, 1940, Miss Kenyon signed a protest sponsored by the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade "condemning the war hysteria being whipped up by the Roosevelt Administration."
Sen. Brien McMahon, D-Conn., noted that Sen. McCarthy's document to back his charge that Miss Kenyon signed the protest consisted of a clipping out of the Daily Worker, a Communist newspaper.
Sen. McCarthy said his document was a photostatic copy of a "paid ad" in the Daily Worker.
Before Sen. McCarthy started reading his prepared statement on Miss Kenyon, Sen. McMahon objected to the naming of any names in public session. He said the charges would be "Page One" in the newspapers and if an innocent finding is made it will be "Page 27."
Sen. McCarthy said that he, too, would prefer to give the names in executive session, but that he has been challenged by Democratic Leader Scott W. Lucas (Ill.) to name names.
Sen. McCarthy was interrupted repeatedly by bickering between the Republican and Democratic committee members.
Sen. Tydings objected when Sen. McCarthy named some, but not all, sponsors of the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship. Reading from a photostat of a letter supplied by Sen. McCarthy, Sen. Tydings identified as co-sponsors:
Former Sen. Arthur Capper (R-Kan.), Sens. Claude Pepper (D-Fla.), Elbert D. Thomas (D-Utah), and James E. Murray (D-Mont) also playwrights Maxwell Anderson and Lillian Hellman, and Helen Keller, Mrs. Thomas W. Lamont, author Thomas Mann, Robeson, labor leader R.J. Thomas, conductor Leopold Stowkowski and Sen. Tydings' father-in-law, Joseph E. Davies, former U.S. ambassador to Russia.
Later, in a formal. Statement, Sen. Tydings returned again to Sen. McCarthy's unwillingness to name the "high State Department official" who, Sen. McCarthy says, asked other State Department employees to "repudiate" affidavits regarding a colleague charged with homosexuality.
Sen. McCarthy's statement could lead only to the conclusion that the "high official was responsible for the department's files and was in a position to "fix" the files during the course of the committee inquiry, Sen. Tydings said.
"This charge is so grave that if this State Department official is guilty of the charge leveled against him by Sen. McCarthy, he should be removed at once from any government department where he may be found until the charge is proved or disproved by full investigation," Sen. Tydings said.
He termed this facet of the inquiry a "mystery case." He said he had not sought to clarify the matter with the State Department because Sen. McCarthy alone could provide the official's name.
Sen. Tydings said that Miss Kenyon would be given opportunity to testify, but added that it might be a long time before Sen. McCarthy completed his presentation.
