McCarthy Gets His Lady

At the height of the McCarthy hubbub last spring, Maine's Senator Margaret Chase Smith rose on the floor of the Senate and directed some pointed remarks at her glowering colleague. "As a U.S. Senator," she said, "I am not proud of the reckless abandon in which unproved charges have been hurled from this side of the aisle." Her Declaration of Conscience, which six other G.O.P. liberals also signed (TIME, June 12), declared "it is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques."

Last week Senator McCarthy, who swings a good deal more weight in the 82nd Congress than he ever did in the 81st, got his revenge. As ranking Republican on the Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments, he briskly ousted Margaret Smith from a choice Senate investigating subcommittee (which last year investigated the five-percenters in Washington and homosexuals in the State Department). In her place he put California's freshman Senator Richard Nixon, who made his mark on the House Un-American Activities Committee as the man who brought down Alger Hiss. Margaret Smith was banished to the subcommittee on reorganization, with little to do but look into any executive plans for implementing the Hoover Commission recommendations.

Behind committee doors, Margaret Smith protested bitterly. McCarthy was unmoved. To reporters he explained blandly: "It's not right to say she was bumped. She was promoted to another highly important job."

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