A Responsible Witness

Army Secretary Robert T. Stevens returned to the Mundt committee's witness stand this week, slightly windburned from a brief Montana vacation. It was his 14th day of testimony. He was called for only one purpose, carefully specified by Committee Counsel Ray Jenkins: was Stevens responsible for the Administration's actions in the case of Private G. David Schine? Or did the responsibility lie higher, perhaps in the White House?

To questioning by Jenkins, Stevens affirmed that Army Counsel John Adams received suggestions, but not orders, from Justice Department and White House officials when he conferred with them. If McCarthy's charges against the Army are true, Senator John McClellan asked Stevens, "Are you the one who is responsible?" Said Bob Stevens, "Yes"

But this did not satisfy McCarthy, who had charged Stevens with "blackmail," but now seemed to wish that the accused would assert his innocence by passing the buck up the chain of command.

McCarthy asked again and again if Stevens had received orders or advice from outside the Pentagon. Stevens answered again and again that he. Stevens, was responsible. Said he: "Certainly there was consultation and advice, but the responsibility is mine."

McCarthy: Did you order the preparation of the formal charges [against McCarthy & Co.]?

Stevens: I think it would be a fair assumption that I did.

McCarthy: We can't assume things.

Stevens: I'm responsible.

McCarthy: Did you order these smear charges prepared, strike the word smear? Secretary Stevens laughed.

McCarthy: This is no laughing matter.

I want to find out whether you are telling the truth, and you grin and smirk and laugh.

Stevens: I think that's a bit uncalled for, if I may say so, Senator.

A moment later Jenkins was telling Stevens, "It may be that your failure to give a direct answer to a direct question accounts for the fact that you've been on the stand so long."

Stevens gave many televiewers the impression that he was evading. But this impression arose from McCarthy's assumption that "orders" were given or taken by Stevens in this case. Stevens and his aides had probably consulted with scores of officials during the development of the Cohn-Schine affair. One made this suggestion, another wrote that sentence. To unscramble all that would be clearly impossible--and irrelevant. An official often tries to dodge responsibility by retreating into the bureaucratic maze. Stevens did the opposite. He took the responsibility and sought no refuge in "orders." Finally, Stevens succeeded in making this point.

"You don't seem to be able to understand," he told McCarthy, "that often people have to get together to exchange views, and there is no written order." What Joe McCarthy understood quite well was that the more high Administration officials he could involve, the longer he could avoid taking the witness stand himself.

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