CRUSADER FROM CONNECTICUT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000200310007-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 3, 1999
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: September 1, 1964
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

READER'S DIGEST
Sanitized - Approvee : CIA-
Hard-headed, hard-working Senator
Thomas J. Dodd fights a non-stop battle
for freedom-at home and abroad'
Crusader
From Connecticut
BY EUGENE H. METHVIN
RESIDENT John F. Kennedy
looked around the White
House dining; table on, Feb-
ruary 14, ig61, at the ag Cabinet and
.legislative leaders assembled for the
first joint breakfast meeting of his
administration. The bacon and eggs
finished, he'raised a touchy question.
"We have this request to let a Ver-
mont manufacturer ship ball-bear-
ing machines to Russia," he said.
"Senator Dodd asked President Eis-
enhower to hold it up, pending Sen-
ate investigation. Now he says the
shipment Will harm our national se-
curity. What about it?"
"The Russians can buy the same
kind of machines from European
manufacturers," said Secretary of
'machines cited by the Commerce
Department approached the capabil
ities of the American machine. The
latter was a unique product repre-
senting the pooled expertise of many
companies; 72 of these machines had
been enough to supply the entire
U.S. military and space effort with
the tiny precision bearings that en-
Abled us to miniaturize equipment
and so offset the Soviet rocket-thrust
advantage. Yet" we were about to
hand 45 of the machines to the Rus-
siansl
When he finished reading, Presi-
dent Kennedy ordered the shipment
to Russia canceled.
For Whom the Bells Tolled.
Hard-headed, . hard-working Sen.
Thomas Joseph Dodd is a man
with a passion, for getting and ana-
lyzing the facts--especially facts-
Commerce Luther Hodges. ,If we !about communists, communism and
bar the shipment, we only cheat our the cold war, Time and again,
own businessmen out of the profits." events have proved his forecasts
"I wouldn't jump to a conclusion !right. Even many who disagreed at
L
id
i
ynx- ,
ennt
ce r res
So 11guuY, Salo V
don Johnson. "Tom Dodd has a .was right on Laos, West New Guin-
habit of being right." ea, the Congo, Cuba, British Guiana,
Two weeks later, Senator Dodd .Berlin, Ghana and many other for-
discovered that the machines were eign-policy tests. He has justly won;
going to be shipped despite his pro- . respect for what one columnist calls
tests. Whereupon he strode into "his ability to foresee crises long be-
President Kennedy's. office and fore they, have tumbled about our
handed him a seven-page report of cars." He has become the Senate's
the Senate Internal Security Sub- most dynamic voice for a foreign'
committee, of which Dodd is vice policy based on freedom for people
chairman. Twelve of the most everywhere.
eminent technical experts in the ' Whenever great Kremlin-goner-
field, the President read, agreed to a 1 ated tides of euphoria and "peace
man that not one of the European ful. coexistence . have washed over
Washingtoiq, Dodd'has stood fast as
,Continued
 -717 -~- a..., cowl .aa'.. wa. ~..LItJiI, VCCd11iC
example,
whg>}lutptl~~'stpr1,_t16'~il~u~id'3~7=2
i
Was Iniv
teU tV tou UIG vU1LCU mings asked him to join the Federal I
States, the nation was immediately Bureau of Investigation. the ir h name of race haaate f race he,te, th thee Nazis commu-
engulfed in a wave of naive hope. Dodd rapidly made his mark as nists in the name of class hate."
0 Dodd was too tough-minded to go a gang-buster. Assigned to St. Paul, { Weary and soul-sick, Dodd re-
along with the mood. Looking every he helped chase the most wanted turned to Connecticut-to Hartford
Inch a Senator, with snow-white gangster of the era, John Dillinger. -to practice law. Ironically, it was
hair, a ruddy face and a grim set to Wounded in a gunfight, Dillinger hiS opposition to anti-communist
his finely-chiseled Irish jaw, he rose escaped. But it was Dodd who demagoguery that called him back
in the Senate to remind his col- tracked down and arrested "Doc" into national affairs. In 1950, Sen.
leagues who this visitor was. May,' the gangland medico who
purge stumped the state,
"Khrushchev rose as hangman of treated Dillinger for his wounds. Joseph McCarthy
the Ukraine," he said. "In a single. In 1934, Dodd left his promising oc ati~Sen BrianoMcMahon. Mind-
year 400,000 men, women and chil-:FBI career to become Connecticut ful dren were murdered under his di-;director of the National Youth sti of their heavilyate Ctholic ead-
rection. I have documentation here, Administration, establishing educa- cr1i other state political lead-
rection. " s declined to reply to McCarthy.
if anyone wants to see it." Dodd tional and job opportunities for Dodd, convinced that the Wisconsin
,then reminded his colleagues of Depression-deprived young people. Senator was careless with facts and
Khrushchev's role in subduing the (Another young- New Dealer, Lyn- reckless and indiscriminate in his
1956 Hungarian rebellion, in which don 13. Johnson, had the same job
ld
t
i
h
i
no
arges cou
st c
commun
ant
, the Soviet boss earned the title of i
T
N
ll
h
d
n
exas)
ext
e was ca
to
e
., refuse. Said Dodd, "I never saw a
"Butcher of Budapest." Washington to help organize the stronger case with a weaker lawyer.
During his 1959 visit to the United Justice Department's Civil Rights Senator McCarthy actually harms
States, Khrushchev was shocked by Division. Trying civil-rights cases the anti-communist cause by making
the strength of the anti-communist before southern juries, then cases of
.
It seem ahonuwon. n. And so compel-
feeling he found. (Many towns-fol- Nazi subversion and espionage, and' McMahon w
lowing Dodd's suggestion-greeted later, wartime industrial cheats, he ling him with silence or with tolling made an impressive name for him- was Dodd 's eloquence that in
churchbells.) Back in the Kremlin self. In the spring of 19p45, he was 195 952 the Democrats urged him to
run for ngress. Aer two terms
'he said, "There are forces in the sent to' Nuremberg to rpare for in
the Hous , he as elected to the
United States working against us. the Nazi war-crimes prosecutions. Senate.
They must be publicly whipped, Nightmare Memories. As chief Lone Voice. Many times Dodd
subjected to the torments of helll" trial counsel at Nuremberg, Dodd has spoken out on foreign policy in
0" Ever since, the communist press put in 18 grueling months. It was a a lone, scorned voice. In May i96o,
has directed a drumfire of smears long time before he could sleep he denounced the unpoliced; nu-
at the senior Senator from Connect. soundly again. Not only Nazi bru- clear-test moratorium, which? had
icut. tality sickened him; he watched So- then been in effect 18 months, ex-
Eloquent G-Man. From earliest viet prosecutors try to blame the pressing the "gnawing conviction
boyhood, the Senate was Tom Nazis for their own army's massacre that the communists are not abiding
Dodd's goal. The, family home in of 15,ooo captured Polish soldiers in by it." Khrushchev confirmed the
Norwich, Conn., was a good start- the Katyn forest, near Smolensk, in suspicion in September 1961 with a
ing place. Tom's mother, a former 1940. "It was perfectly clear to any series of 30 nuclear explosions punt,
schoolteacher, used to stand her lit- honest lawyer that they had fabri- tuated by a monster 57-megaton
tle son atop the kitchen table and cated the evidence," Dodd says. blast. This gullible trusting of the
school him in the art of advocacy.. < Something else stuck in his craw. communists, said Dodd, proved to
At the dining table his father, a con- I learned of the desperation and ter- be "the most flagrant' bipartisan
tractor, would toss algebra problems ror of hundreds of thousands of Rus- blunder in the long history -of' our
to his five children, or quote Shake- sian war prisoners and slave laborers foreign policy."
speare by the page, or recite from the' held by the Nazis whom we, Yet Washington soon returned to
inaugural addresses of every Presi- through ignorance, returned against' the old routine. By February 1963,
d
f
Cl
l
d
G
h
i
ll
h
h
ent
rom
rover
eve
an
on t
..
e
r wi
to t
e Soviet aut
orities
Meanwhile, playing around his I am still tormented by accounts
grandpa's livery stable-which was of mass suicides in which men
a local Democratic Party hangout- slashed their wrists with tin cans
young Tom breathed politics. and women jumped with their
While at Yale Law School in 1932,' children from upper-story win-
Tom Dodd organized "The Flying' dows, rather than face return to
Wedge," a band of reform-minded. Russia.
0
young liberals who made crusading "I. was conducting a postmortem
speeches for Franklin D. Roosevelt's, of the Nazi terror machine," Dodd
New Deal. He so impressed Homer recalls, "but I saw communism's
Cummings, ' a Connecticut lawyer similarities in a thousand details.
with a draft treaty on the table in
Geneva, talk was buzzing of new
U.S. concessions to bring about a full
nuclear-test ban. In a 20,000-word
speech, widely praised for its tech-
nical expertise Dodd cited the rec-
ord of 13 major U.S. concessions:
retreating from on-site inspection of
all suspicious. earth tremors to 20
inspections a year, then to 12, then
8, then 5; and-ultimate folly-
agreeing that 'Russians could man
continu()d
SEP 1964
 the monitoring stations in their own hurt anybody through guilt by asso- ed action against him. First, State
territory. 'S 0tiSYedou44p edahof:Release: CIA-RDP7A40V49I QQft?f3Pt2
ing gangsters to police themse ves," The rally went off as scheduled. then last September sought to fire
said Dodd.
The Geneva treaty became a dead
issue. Dodd, supported by 33 other
Senators, then renewed his z96o pro-,
posal for limited, atmospheric test
ban, violations of which can be read-
ily detected. Within three months.
the Treaty of Moscow was signed,
and the Senate ratified it-after the
administration promised vigorous
underground testing to maintain the
U.S. deterrent.
Thankless Task. To be vice chair-
man of the Senate Internal Security
'Subcommittee, investigating com-
munist subversion,, is a stormy and
thankless task. But, in 1959, Senate
majority' leader Lyndon Johnson
persuaded Dodd to take the post out
of duty, as a liberal whose record as
a civil-rights advocate would reas-
sure those fearful of new excesses. power, did U.S. policy in Cuba mis- the State Department has been chas-
His performance in,the job has been carry so disastrously? Investigating, ing the policeman instead of the
one of scrupulous fairness. Says Sen- i Dodd discovered that as early as culprit."* .
ator Paul Douglas, dean of the Sen- '1955 the FBI was sending reports Dodd thinks that the effort to
ate liberals, "Although Tom Dodd to the State Department describing "gct" Otepka comes from interme-
is a vigorous anti-communist, I ominous communist involvements diate State Department bureaucrats
know personally that he has many in Castro's background and organi- who are still smarting under the
times stood up for those unfairly ac- zation. The tempo of such reports resentments generated by Senator
cused by the far right." increased during 1957 and 1958. McCarthy's wholesale charges.
In May 196o the New York chap-! Why, then, did Washington actually against the Department in'the early
ter of the Committee for a Sane encourage Castro's takeover? 1950's. Dodd does not charge that
Nuclear Policy (SANE) called a . For two years the subcommittee the State Department is full of com-
gigantic rally at Madison Square : took testimony, heard half a doz- munists. He does say, "We'd be fools
Garden.. Scheduled to speak were en ambassadors, double-checked the to think that attempts at infiltration
Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, Michigan State Department's own massive in- ended with Alger Hiss and Harryy
Gov. G. Mennen Williams, labor quiry. A vast amount of evidence Dexter White. That is why we need.
leader Walter Reuther and former came to focus on one official, who, hard-nosed professional security
GOP Presidential candidate Alf had systematically summarized the j men like Otepka, and con ressional
Landon. Then, 48 hours before the !'intelligence reports to say there was , investigating committees."
meeting, Dodd verified information i no conclusive evidence that Castro In pursuing his forthright course,
that SANE's New York chapter had was communist-a true statement
been heavily infiltrated by commu- 'by itself, yet a distinct misrepresen-
nists, who planned to use it to sup- ; cation of the intelligence flowing in.
port Soviet diplomatic pressure on Called before the subcommittee to
the United States. The chief planner explain, the official's own testimony guided by principle, and by the over-
and organizer, of the rally, Henry was damningly vague, contradictory, riding conviction that the most fate-
Abrams, was a veteran member of evasive. After long questioning, the ful issue today is whether the fron-
the Communist Party. subcommittee had to conclude that tiers of freedom or of communist
Dodd telephoned SANE's nation- he had lied and dodged under oath. tyranny will advance.
al chairman, Norman Cousins, edi- Why? "The disturbing truth is we "Freedom must move forward,"
tor of the Saturday Review, and laid ' don't know," says Dodd, "and the says Dodd. "The struggle can be
the evidence before him. Cousins. State Department has taken no won only by a mighty national ef-
flew to Washington and asked Dodd meaningful action to find out." fort, which our ideals now call upon
not to release the material so short The upshot? While the officer in us to make--an cifort to defend
a time 'before .the meeting. "Many question got a pay raise, the State freedom where it exists in the world,
prominent, innocent people will be Department fired its chief of se- and to extend it where it does not:'
present ; who could be damaged by curity evaluations, Otto F. Otepka ta ,
OAt the hadlines,"he said. Dodd agreed, -the man who made the first ex- an this .rriting, otepka, dismissal ea L still
on appeal to secretary of State tate Dean Rink.
saying, "I certainly don't want to haustive investigation pf the offi-
cer's performance and recommend-
SEP 1964,
Later, Dodd publicly revealed the him for cooperating with Senator
communist role, ordered a closed Dodd and the subcommittee. To
hearing and called in 27 witnesses prove this cooperation, trash bags in
from SANE's Greater New York Otepka's office were secretly rum-
chapter. When 22 of them, including maged, torn papers were pieced
nine local chairmen, took the Fifth together, his, files searched, his type
Amendment on questions of Com- writer ribbons and carbons "read"
munist Party membership, SANE ; -even though federal law guaran-
expelled them. It revoked the charter tees the right of any civil-service 11 of the New York chapter and built employe to furnish information to
a new one excluding communists. "`either House of Congress."
"Torn Dodd could have seriously On November 5, 1963, State an-
damaged SANE and made political nounced that it was firing Otepka
capital out of the investigation," says ' as guilty of "conduct unbecoming
Norman Cousins. "Instead he con- an officer of the Department of
fined himself to a few specific cases State." That afternoon Dodd
and maintained absolute respect for, stormed on the Senate floor: "No
the rights of the individuals con- one suspected of. espionage or dis
cerned." loyalty has been subjected to such
Cuban Hangover. How, in the surveillance and humiliation. In the
critical year before Castro came to topsy-turvy attitude it has displayed,'
Tom Dodd has received his share
of brickbats, slurs and even threats
on his life. Despite all efforts to side-
track him, he moves straight ahead,