Transcript:

“On the other side of the world this policy condoned the surrender of whole nations to an implacable enemy whose appetite for conquest sharpened with every victory. This penetration meant a domestic policy whose tone was set by men who sneered and scoffed at warnings of the enemy infiltrating our most secret counsels.

“It meant — in its most ugly triumph — treason itself.

“These years have, indeed, been a harrowing time in our history. It has been a time of both honest illusion and dishonest betrayal — both terribly costly. It has been a time that should have taught us, with cold finality, the truth about freedom and communism.

“Most of us, young or old, wise or naive, have learned. An important few have not. They have learned very little — and they admit nothing.

“They are men about whom there is nothing great except their vanity and their complacency. They are proud prisoners of their own mistakes.

“Who are these men?

“They are those who cheered the blithe dismissal of the Alger Hiss case as ‘a red herring.’ They are those who applauded two weeks ago when an Administration servant declared that Communists in our national life were ‘not very important’ and that we should not waste time chasing ‘phantoms.’ They are those who slapped their sides with laughter when the same man dismissed the quest for Communists in our government as a kind of silly game played in the Bureau of Wild Life and Fisheries.

“Do you think these fish stories, ghost stories and animal stories are really very amusing? Such comedy touches do little to relieve the tragic knowledge that we have been for years the gullible victims of Communism’s espionage experts. These experts in treason have plundered us of secrets involving our highest diplomatic decisions, our atomic research. Tragically, we do not know how much more our security may have been jeopardized.

“This, I repeat, has been a calamity of immeasurable consequence. It is not irreparable: We are strong enough and wise enough to survive it. But for a disturbed people it is made easier to bear — not by making light of it, but by assuring the people it cannot be repeated. To minimize it is criminal folly.

“You can never cure malignant growth just by a hearty bedside manner!

“I must be blunt, for this is a serious matter. I speak not as a partisan or as a candidate but simply as an American Citizen — moved to honest anger by this persistent, gnawing threat of Communist treason in our national life. I know that millions of both parties today are moved to anger and to action.

“Neither these millions nor I can understand a politician who one week makes jokes about this menace, and another week — after public reaction has dampened his humor — promises to offer a serious solution.

“Now, my fellow Americans, we must do more than recognize a menace in order to defeat it. When a free country frankly faces this menace, what should it do — and what should it not do?

“As a people we must be wise enough to know this principle: Freedom must defend itself with courage, with care, with force and with fairness. Failing to remember this principle, freedom in destroying its mortal enemy, could destroy itself

* * *

“Armed with a clear and uncompromising respect for freedom, how then shall we defend it?

“To begin with: All of us — citizens, jurists, officials — must remember that the Bill of Rights contains no grant of privilege for a group of people to join together to destroy the Bill of Rights. A group — like the Communist conspiracy — dedicated to the ultimate destruction of all civil liberties cannot be allowed to claim civil liberties as its privileged sanctuary from which to carry on subversion of the Government.

“At the same time we have the right to call a spade a spade. That means, in every proved case, the right to call a Red a Red. The time is past when we can hide our heads in the sands of stubborn ignorance or spend our days in the leisurely indulgence of abstract argument.

* * *

“Every official of government must bear clear responsibility for the loyalty and fitness of his own immediate subordinates. And every official of the Federal Government — on every level — must answer any question from appropriate sources touching upon his loyalty and devotion to the United States of America.

“If we add candor to our fidelity to freedom’s principles, I sincerely believe our attack on the Communist threat will be well under way. I am confident that a new administration — but only a completely new one — can organize and press this attack successfully.

* * *

“But above all there is needed firm and determined leadership. The climate of our Federal Government must be one that Communists and their sympathizers would find not only uncongenial but thoroughly hostile.

“I am confident that millions of Americans of both parties will, in this autumn of 1952, demand — with the fervor of an aroused people — the appointment of new guardians of our country’s security.

“We have all had enough, I believe, of those whose thinking is still haunted by past illusions, those who are prisoners of their own fuzzy thinking and their own mistakes.

“We have all had enough, I believe, of those who have sneered at the warnings of men trying to drive Communists from high places — but who themselves have never had the sense or the stamina to take after the Communists themselves…”

And Eisenhower was campaigning in 1952 on a Republican Platform which said:

“We charge that they [leaders of the Government of the United States under successive Democratic Administrations, and especially under this present Administration] have shielded traitors to the Nation in high places, and that they have created enemies abroad where we should have friends.

* * *

“By the Administration’s appeasement of Communism at home and abroad it has permitted Communists and their fellow travelers to serve in many key agencies and to infiltrate our American life. When such infiltration became notorious through the revelations of Republicans in Congress, the Executive Department stubbornly refused to deal with it openly and vigorously. It raised the false cry of ‘red herring’ and took other measures to block and discredit investigations. It denied files and information to Congress. It set up boards of its own to keep information secret and to deal lightly with security risks and persons of doubtful loyalty. It only undertook prosecution of the most notorious Communists after public opinion forced action.

“The result of these policies is the needless sacrifice of American lives, a crushing cost in dollars for defense, possession by Russia of the atomic bomb, the lowering of the Iron Curtain, and the present threats to world peace. Our people have been mired in fear and distrust, and employees of integrity in the Government service have been cruelly maligned by the Administration’s tolerance of people of doubtful loyalty.

“There are no Communists in the Republican Party. We have always recognized Communism to be a world conspiracy against freedom and religion. We never compromised with Communism and we have fought to expose it and eliminate it in government and American life.

“A Republican President will appoint only persons of unquestioned loyalty. We will overhaul loyalty and security programs. In achieving these purposes a Republican President will cooperate with Congress. We pledge close coordination of our intelligence services for protecting our security. We pledge fair but vigorous enforcement of laws to safeguard our country from subversion and disloyalty. By such policies we will keep the country secure and restore the confidence of the American people in the integrity of our Government.”

* * *

On March 9, 1961 Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois placed in the Congressional Record (pages 3334,3342) twenty-four columns of small print purporting to be a list of “achievements during eight years of a Republican Administration.” Mr. Dirksen described the account as an “authentic compilation” but nowhere is there the slightest reference to anything the Eisenhower Administration even attempted — much less achieved — in order to fulfill the promises made in the Milwaukee speech and 1952 Platform, with regard to ridding the government of subversives or those who shielded subversives in one way or another.

As a matter of fact any Republican, worthy of the name, who wishes to find out what happened to the Grand Old Party after 1952, would do well to compare the 1952 Platform and Senator Dirksen’s interminable catalogue of “achievements.”