Part 6 (1/2)
Although these matters of state held Jack's interest, they initially commanded less of his attention than practical questions about his Senate influence and even more mundane ones about organizing his Senate office. Republican control of the Upper House by a two-seat margin-49 to 47-meant that Kennedy, a freshman member of the minority, would be one of the least-influential members of the Senate. Like the House, the Senate placed greater value on members.h.i.+p in the majority and seniority than on a new senator's abilities, however impressive they might be.
But even if circ.u.mstances were different, Jack's top priority had to be setting up an office that met the needs of his home state. He relied on the same devoted and effective a.s.sistants that had helped him in the House. Ted Reardon became his D.C. administrative a.s.sistant, and Frank Morrissey continued to head the Boston office. To meet his larger responsibilities as a senator, Jack hired two native Nebraskans, Evelyn Lincoln as his personal secretary and Theodore C. Sorensen as his number two legislative a.s.sistant.
Mrs. Lincoln, as Jack always addressed her, was born Evelyn Maurine Norton in the hamlet of Polk, Nebraska. Her father, a farmer and devoted Democrat, served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives in the late 1920s and early 1930s. As a resident of the capital, Evelyn Norton earned a degree from George Was.h.i.+ngton University. After marrying Harold Lincoln, a political scientist, Mrs. Lincoln worked on Capitol Hill from 1950 to 1953, where she became acquainted with Congressman Kennedy and worked in his 1952 Senate campaign. ”A pleasant brunet with a ready twinkle,” the forty-year-old Mrs. Lincoln impressed Jack as certain to be a devoted aide who would patiently meet every request. He was not disappointed. As he later told Sorensen, ”If I had said just now, 'Mrs. Lincoln, I have cut off Jackie's head, would you please send over a box?' she still would have replied, 'That's wonderful. I'll send it right away. Did you get your nap?'”
Sorensen was another exceptional find for a new ambitious senator. Jack hired him after two five-minute interviews; but he had ample information about the twenty-four-year-old lawyer from Lincoln, Nebraska, who had been ”a lowly attorney” at the Federal Security Agency and then counsel to the Temporary Committee of the Congress on Railroad Retirement Legislation. Sorensen came from a progressive Republican family with a father who had been a crusading Nebraska attorney general and ally of Senator George W. Norris. Sorensen's mother, Annis Chaikin, was the offspring of Russian Jews and, like her husband, a social activist committed to women's suffrage and other progressive causes. Kennedy also knew that Sorensen was his parents' child-a civil rights activist, an avowed pacifist, and an outspoken member of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), an organization supporting reform candidates and causes.
Sorensen was an unlikely choice. In fact, before he went to his first interview, a knowledgeable D.C. attorney told him, ”Jack Kennedy wouldn't hire anyone Joe Kennedy wouldn't tell him to hire-and, with the exception of Jim Landis [a former dean of the Harvard Law School and Kennedy family lawyer], Joe Kennedy hasn't hired a non-Catholic in fifty years!” But Jack needed a stronger liberal voice in his circle than his own if he were to advance his political career, and Sorensen was the sort of cerebral, realistic liberal Jack felt comfortable with. Sorensen saw himself as someone moved more by ”intellectual than emotional persuasion. I am personally convinced,” he said, ”that the liberal who is rationally committed is more reliable than the liberal who is emotionally committed.” When Joe Kennedy first met Sorensen eight or nine months after Jack hired him, Joe told him, ”You couldn't write speeches for me. You're too much of a liberal. But writing for Jack is different.”
Despite agreeing to work for Kennedy, Sorensen had doubts about the senator's willingness to fight the good fight. He wrote later that he immediately liked Kennedy, ”impressed by his 'ordinary' demeanor. He spoke easily but almost shyly, without the customary verbosity and pomposity. The tailor-made suit that clothed a tall, lean frame was quietly stylish. A thatch of chestnut hair was not as bushy as cartoonists had portrayed it. He did not try to impress me, as officeholders so often do on first meetings, with the strength of his handshake, or with the importance of his office, or with the sound of his voice. Except for the Palm Beach tan on a handsome, youthful face, I saw few signs of glamour and glitter in the Senator-elect that winter.” But Sorensen felt that if he ”were going to throw in with him, there were certain things [I] wanted to know. I didn't want us to be too far apart on basic policy and so I asked the questions-about his father, Joe McCarthy, the Catholic Church.” Jack was self-effacing and ready to tell Sorensen what he wanted to hear. Blessed with the instincts of the politician who can read an audience or intuit how to put himself in line with a listener's concerns, Kennedy described himself as more liberal than his House record suggested. ”You've got to remember,” he said, ”that I entered Congress just out of my father's house,” that is, still partly under his conservative influence.
Lincoln, Reardon, and Sorensen set to work in room 362, a four-room suite, in the Old Senate Office Building. In time, the middle room, where the door was always open during work hours, became a hive of activity, crowded with desks, filing cabinets, ringing telephones, clattering typewriters, and a constant stream of visitors. Mrs. Lincoln presided over this domain, while two small offices to the left housed Reardon and Sorensen, who in time were joined by several other aides providing expertise on domestic and foreign issues. To the right was Jack's s.p.a.cious inner office with a large gla.s.s-faced bookcase topped by models of World War II s.h.i.+ps and a stuffed nine-foot sailfish Jack caught off Acapulco in 1953. The wall in the far right corner of the room displayed old prints and inscribed framed photos of political friends. The senator sat at a large desk set in the center of the room before a green marble fireplace. Books, reports, and souvenirs, including the coconut sh.e.l.l Kennedy had used to arrange the rescue of his PT 109 PT 109 crew, covered his desk. ”An air of intense informality hung over the office,” making it, at times, seem ”like a five-ring circus, as Kennedy simultaneously performed as senator, committee member, Ma.s.sachusetts politician, author, and presidential candidate.” Sorensen in particular unstintingly put his exceptional talent as an a.n.a.lyst and writer in the service of his new boss: He was ”devoted, loyal, and dedicated to the Senator in every way possible,” Evelyn Lincoln would say later. ”Time meant nothing to him-he gave it all to the Senator.” crew, covered his desk. ”An air of intense informality hung over the office,” making it, at times, seem ”like a five-ring circus, as Kennedy simultaneously performed as senator, committee member, Ma.s.sachusetts politician, author, and presidential candidate.” Sorensen in particular unstintingly put his exceptional talent as an a.n.a.lyst and writer in the service of his new boss: He was ”devoted, loyal, and dedicated to the Senator in every way possible,” Evelyn Lincoln would say later. ”Time meant nothing to him-he gave it all to the Senator.”
The first task Jack set himself and the staff was fulfilling the promise of his campaign to do more for Ma.s.sachusetts than his predecessor. Asked on Meet the Press Meet the Press shortly after his election what accounted for his victory over Lodge, Jack pointed to the decline of the state's economy ”in the last six years with its compet.i.tion with the South and its loss of industry. The feeling of the people of the state was that our interests had been neglected.” shortly after his election what accounted for his victory over Lodge, Jack pointed to the decline of the state's economy ”in the last six years with its compet.i.tion with the South and its loss of industry. The feeling of the people of the state was that our interests had been neglected.”
Sorensen, Harvard economist Seymour Harris, and three members of Joe's New York staff developed forty proposals for New England economic expansion. Jack described them in three carefully crafted Senate speeches in the spring of 1953. ”The Economic Problems of New England-A Program for Congressional Action” argued that what was good for New England was good for America. ”This Nation's challenge to meet the needs of defense mobilization and to achieve national and international economic stability and development,” Jack a.s.serted, ”cannot be fully met if any part of the country is unproductive and unstable economically.” The program urged help for various Ma.s.sachusetts industries, including fis.h.i.+ng, textiles, and s.h.i.+pbuilding, as well as for the Boston seaport. Kennedy's suggestions for stimulating the region's economy appealed to Democrats and Republicans alike by offering benefits to business and labor and promising to serve the national defense. The Congress would eventually enact most of the program, though slowly and with little fanfare.
Congress's tortoiselike pace meant that, as Ted Reardon told a supporter, ”no great fireworks ... resulted” from Jack's initiative. Since the object of the exercise was not only to help New England but also to publicize Jack's fulfillment of 1952 campaign promises, the office blitzed the media with publicity. Reardon distributed 30,000 copies of the program to special interest groups throughout New England, and Jack and Sorensen collaborated on articles about it in American Magazine, American Magazine, the the Atlantic Monthly, Atlantic Monthly, the the New Republic, New Republic, and the and the New York Times Magazine New York Times Magazine.
The aggressive promotion of Jack's achievements and reputation included blunting attacks on him in the state. When Elmer C. Nelson, the chairman of the Republican State Committee, ”made some slurring remarks about Jack,” describing him as a ”young Democratic fellow with a whirlygig in his hair” who went around serving tea to ladies to get elected, Jack sent word that if Nelson continued to refer to him that way, he would ”take actions which he thinks are called for.” Nelson did not test Jack's resolve.
THE POSSIBILITY OF BECOMING the first Catholic president intrigued Jack from the start of his political career. To advance his national visibility, he staked out a controversial position on the St. Lawrence Seaway, a proposed river transit system between northern Canada and the Great Lakes. Although advocates of the project argued its value to the national economy in general and the Midwest in particular, concerns that it would crimp the economic life of Boston's port had kept Ma.s.sachusetts senators and representatives from casting a single vote for the project on the six occasions over the twenty years it had been before Congress. Jack wrestled with the issue for months before deciding to speak for the bill's pa.s.sage in January 1954. the first Catholic president intrigued Jack from the start of his political career. To advance his national visibility, he staked out a controversial position on the St. Lawrence Seaway, a proposed river transit system between northern Canada and the Great Lakes. Although advocates of the project argued its value to the national economy in general and the Midwest in particular, concerns that it would crimp the economic life of Boston's port had kept Ma.s.sachusetts senators and representatives from casting a single vote for the project on the six occasions over the twenty years it had been before Congress. Jack wrestled with the issue for months before deciding to speak for the bill's pa.s.sage in January 1954.
Few issues had troubled him as much during his years in Congress, he declared at the start of his speech. But several considerations had persuaded him to break with prevailing opinion in his state and support U.S. partic.i.p.ation in building and managing the Seaway. First, if necessary, Canada would build the waterway without the United States. Second, a joint effort would give America part owners.h.i.+p and control of a vital strategic international artery, which would facilitate the s.h.i.+pment of high-grade iron ore the United States might need for national defense. Third, he believed there would ultimately be little, if any, damage to Boston's port, where 75 percent of traffic was ”coastwise, intraport and local, which no one has claimed would be affected by the Seaway.” Fourth, though he saw no reason to think that the city and state would benefit directly from the project, he believed that it would provide indirect economic gains. Finally, to oppose the Seaway would be to take ”a narrow view of my functions as a U.S. Senator.” Quoting Daniel Webster, Kennedy concluded, ”Our aim should not be 'States dissevered, discordant [or] belligerent'; but 'one country, one const.i.tution, one destiny.'”
Although the Boston Post Boston Post a.s.serted that he was ”ruining New England,” Jack won more than he lost from what some described as a courageous stand for the national interest. At least one Ma.s.sachusetts newspaper came to his defense and two members of the state's congressional delegation, persuaded by Jack's arguments, voted with him for the Seaway. More important from Jack's perspective, his outspoken backing of the St. Lawrence project won him attention. In February 1954, when he appeared on NBC's a.s.serted that he was ”ruining New England,” Jack won more than he lost from what some described as a courageous stand for the national interest. At least one Ma.s.sachusetts newspaper came to his defense and two members of the state's congressional delegation, persuaded by Jack's arguments, voted with him for the Seaway. More important from Jack's perspective, his outspoken backing of the St. Lawrence project won him attention. In February 1954, when he appeared on NBC's Meet the Press, Meet the Press, the host described him as only the third Democrat in Ma.s.sachusetts history to win a U.S. Senate seat. ”His sensational victory [had] created international interest. He is in the news again because of his position on the St. Lawrence Seaway.” His stand on the St. Lawrence project, Ted Sorensen said later, ”certainly had the effect of making him a national figure.” the host described him as only the third Democrat in Ma.s.sachusetts history to win a U.S. Senate seat. ”His sensational victory [had] created international interest. He is in the news again because of his position on the St. Lawrence Seaway.” His stand on the St. Lawrence project, Ted Sorensen said later, ”certainly had the effect of making him a national figure.”
So did his p.r.o.nouncements on defense and foreign policy. Even after Eisenhower arranged a Korean truce in July, three of the four most worrisome issues to people were ousting communists from government, preventing another war, and formulating a clear foreign policy. In April 1954, 56 percent of Americans remained primarily concerned about threats of war, communist subversion, and national defense. By June, despite strong confidence in Eisenhower's leaders.h.i.+p, the number of citizens troubled by these issues had risen to 67 percent. When asked directly about the possibility of a war in the next five years, between 40 and 64 percent of Americans saw a conflict as likely. A majority of the country expected atomic and hydrogen bombs to be used against the United States.
Kennedy's readiness to speak out on such questions was partly a case of cynical s...o...b..ating. He understood that, as a journalist friend told him, his p.r.o.nouncements on foreign affairs put his ”eager boyish puss and ingratiating tones ... all over the place.” If he was going to run for president, establis.h.i.+ng himself as a Senate leader on foreign affairs seemed like an essential prerequisite. But foreign policy was also his long-standing area of expertise, and joining a debate on vital matters of national security appealed to him as the highest duty of a senator.
It was, of course, rather courageous of a retired navy lieutenant and junior senator to take on a popular president whose credentials as a successful World War II and NATO military chief had carried him to the White House. But Jack believed that the Eisenhower-Dulles policy of reduced defense spending to balance the federal budget and reliance on ma.s.sive retaliation or nuclear weapons rather than more conventional ones was an inadequate response to the communist menace. His recollections of misguided naval actions initiated by high-ranking officers in World War II encouraged his outspokenness.
In a Jefferson Jackson Day speech in May 1953, Kennedy said that it may be that Moscow will continue to rely ”on the weapons of subversion, economic disintegration and guerilla warfare to accomplish our destruction, rather than upon the direct a.s.sault of an all-out war. But we cannot count on it.” The Soviets and their satellites were devoting a large percentage of their national production to war preparations. Their large land armies supported by air and sea forces exceeding those in the West put America's national security in peril, especially when one considered the military budget cuts proposed for 1954 by the Eisenhower administration. Kennedy could ”not see how the Western Alliance with a productive potential substantially larger than that of the Communist bloc, can be satisfied with anything less than a maximum effort, one that has some relation to the unrelenting efforts of the Soviets to build irresistible military strength.” This was not an issue ”on which the Democrats can win elections, for only disaster can prove us correct.” Rather, it was a matter of serving the cause of peace and national well-being, or so he believed.
Kennedy had little impact on the Eisenhower defense budgets, and his fears of an all-out war were a misreading of Soviet intentions. As George Kennan, the architect of containment, understood at the time, the Soviets viewed their buildup as defensive, a response to Western plans for the destruction of communism. Their goal was to defeat the West not with a full-scale war, which they saw themselves losing, but by political subversion. Kennedy's defense proposals, however, were an improvement on Eisenhower's policy of ma.s.sive retaliation, which provided ”more bang for the buck,” as the administration advertised, while reducing America's capability to fight a limited or non-nuclear war. Nevertheless, the increased defense spending Kennedy favored threatened to expand the arms race and bring the two sides closer to an all-out conflict. Kennedy's proposals were less an imaginative way to ease tensions with Moscow than a variation on what Kennan described as ”the militarization of the Cold War.”
KENNEDY'S EFFORTS to alter the American response to France's struggle in Indochina were wiser than his p.r.o.nouncements on defense budgets. As France's hold on the region became increasingly tenuous, Jack's concern to find an effective means of addressing the crisis was amplified. He asked Priscilla Johnson, a foreign-policy specialist on his staff, to calculate the extent of French spending on Indochina's economic welfare and to suggest reforms that would spur the anticommunist war effort. Johnson replied that the proportion of French spending on welfare was very small compared with military aid. She added that the French had given limited control of affairs to citizens of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam-the three a.s.sociated States, as they were called; it was difficult to suggest reforms, Johnson reported, ”since the problem is not that of changing existing inst.i.tutions, which are being maladministered, but of introducing inst.i.tutions which so far do not exist at all.” to alter the American response to France's struggle in Indochina were wiser than his p.r.o.nouncements on defense budgets. As France's hold on the region became increasingly tenuous, Jack's concern to find an effective means of addressing the crisis was amplified. He asked Priscilla Johnson, a foreign-policy specialist on his staff, to calculate the extent of French spending on Indochina's economic welfare and to suggest reforms that would spur the anticommunist war effort. Johnson replied that the proportion of French spending on welfare was very small compared with military aid. She added that the French had given limited control of affairs to citizens of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam-the three a.s.sociated States, as they were called; it was difficult to suggest reforms, Johnson reported, ”since the problem is not that of changing existing inst.i.tutions, which are being maladministered, but of introducing inst.i.tutions which so far do not exist at all.”
In May 1953, Jack privately told Secretary of State John Foster Dulles that increasing aid would give the United States the right to insist on changes that would give ”the native populations ... the feeling that they have not been given the shadow of independence but its substance. The American people want in exchange for their a.s.sistance the establishment of conditions that will make success a prospect and not defeat inevitable.” The State Department agreed that a transfer of authority to the a.s.sociated States was desirable but saw no way to make this more than a ”gradual” process.
In response, Kennedy put his case before the Congress and the public. In the summer of 1953, he urged the Senate to make U.S. aid to the French in Indochina contingent on policies promoting freedom and independence for Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. He believed that French resistance to reform was r.e.t.a.r.ding the war effort. Jack acknowledged that these were ”harsh words to say about an ancient friend and ally,” but he spoke them in the belief that America's financial share of the fighting, which was at 40 percent and rising, ent.i.tled the United States to recommend changes that held out greater hope of success than the stumbling French policy followed since 1946. He was reluctant, however, to give the French an ultimatum, as Arizona's Republican senator Barry Goldwater urged; withholding aid unless France initiated democratic reforms in the a.s.sociated States seemed likely to force Paris to abandon the war in Indochina and open all of Southeast Asia to communism. Jack proposed instead that American aid ”be administered in such a way as to encourage through all available means the freedom and independence desired by the peoples of the a.s.sociated States.”
As French military failure grew more likely in the winter of 1953-54, Jack pressed the case for a French commitment to end its colonial rule. He also asked the White House to explain how ma.s.sive retaliation could save Indochina and the rest of Southeast Asia from communist control. He wondered ”how the new Dulles policy and its dependence upon the threat of atomic retaliation will fare in these areas of guerilla warfare... . Of what value would atomic retaliation be in opposing Communist advance which rested not upon military invasion but upon local insurrection and political deterioration?”
On Meet the Press Meet the Press in February 1954, Kennedy was asked if he was suggesting that the United States replace France in Indochina. No, he answered, because without commitments to independence for these French colonies, the United States would be facing a hopeless task. Since he was on record as saying that to lose Indochina was to lose all of Asia, didn't he believe it essential for the United States to fight? No, he said, because he saw no prospect of victory, ”and therefore it would be a mistake for us to go in.” However, he still had hope that the French could alter matters by promising independence and bringing educated local leaders and enough manpower to their side to reverse the tide of battle. But U.S. military involvement without this promise would be doomed to failure: ”No amount of American military a.s.sistance in Indochina,” he told the Senate, ”can conquer an enemy which is everywhere and at the same time nowhere, 'an enemy of the people' which has the sympathy and covert support of the people.” The only path to victory was through the creation of a ”native army” that expected sacrifices in blood and treasure to bring self-determination. in February 1954, Kennedy was asked if he was suggesting that the United States replace France in Indochina. No, he answered, because without commitments to independence for these French colonies, the United States would be facing a hopeless task. Since he was on record as saying that to lose Indochina was to lose all of Asia, didn't he believe it essential for the United States to fight? No, he said, because he saw no prospect of victory, ”and therefore it would be a mistake for us to go in.” However, he still had hope that the French could alter matters by promising independence and bringing educated local leaders and enough manpower to their side to reverse the tide of battle. But U.S. military involvement without this promise would be doomed to failure: ”No amount of American military a.s.sistance in Indochina,” he told the Senate, ”can conquer an enemy which is everywhere and at the same time nowhere, 'an enemy of the people' which has the sympathy and covert support of the people.” The only path to victory was through the creation of a ”native army” that expected sacrifices in blood and treasure to bring self-determination.
Kennedy's a.s.sessment of French policy received strong support in the United States. But it meant nothing to the outcome in Southeast Asia, where French resistance collapsed in May 1954 with the defeat at the fortress of Dien Bien Phu in the Vietnamese highlands. As agreed to by China, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union at a Geneva conference later that year, the country was split in two at the Seventeenth Parallel-a North Vietnam under a communist government in Hanoi led by Ho Chi Minh and a South Vietnam under a pro-Western regime in Saigon led by Ngo Dinh Diem, a Catholic backed by promises of U.S. economic and military aid. Determined to supplant French influence in the south, Was.h.i.+ngton engineered Diem's replacement of Bao Dai, the ruling emperor, who had been a figurehead chief beholden to French power.
Kennedy was now more emphatic than ever that U.S. military involvement would be a mistake. In a TV appearance in May, he emphasized the pointlessness of committing U.S. forces, which echoed what the White House was saying. He feared that Indochina ”is lost, and I don't think there is much we can do about it... . There is no outright military intervention that the United States could take in Indo-China which I believe would be successful.” Indeed, U.S. intervention seemed certain to provoke a Chinese reaction, and ”we'd find ourselves in a much worse situation than we found ourselves in Korea.”
Kennedy's response to the crisis won him substantial attention and considerable praise in the press for sensible realism. His disagreements with earlier predictions by Eisenhower officials that ”the French are going to win” moved commentators to describe Kennedy as an astute foreign policy a.n.a.lyst with a bright political future. No one noted, however, that Kennedy had exaggerated hopes for what could be expected of a so-called autonomous Vietnam-a country that would be dependent on American money and supplies in any further struggle against communist insurgents. This imperfect judgment would become apparent to Kennedy himself and others only in time.
KENNEDY'S POLITICAL FUTURE partly depended on finding ways to avoid alienating antagonistic factions debating McCarthy's anticommunist crusade. Because McCarthy had little proof to back up his charges and kept changing the number of subversive government officials, opponents labeled him a reckless demagogue. Yet others saw the loss of China, the Soviet detonation of an atomic bomb, and the convictions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for atomic spying and of Alger Hiss, a once respected State Department official, for falsely denying that he had pa.s.sed secrets to the Soviet Union as giving the ring of truth to McCarthy's accusations. partly depended on finding ways to avoid alienating antagonistic factions debating McCarthy's anticommunist crusade. Because McCarthy had little proof to back up his charges and kept changing the number of subversive government officials, opponents labeled him a reckless demagogue. Yet others saw the loss of China, the Soviet detonation of an atomic bomb, and the convictions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for atomic spying and of Alger Hiss, a once respected State Department official, for falsely denying that he had pa.s.sed secrets to the Soviet Union as giving the ring of truth to McCarthy's accusations.
In spite of increasing doubts about McCarthy's reliability, in November 1953, 46 percent of those surveyed said it was a good idea for the Republicans to raise fresh questions about communists in government during the FDR-Truman years. The following month, the public listed getting rid of communists in government as the country's number one problem, and 50 percent approved of McCarthy's commitment to do so.
But they did not like his methods. In the first months of 1954, 47 percent of Americans disapproved of his behavior, and when he launched an investigation of subversion in the U.S. Army in the spring, it further undermined confidence in his tactics. In May, 87 percent of Americans knew about the McCarthy hearings, but a majority thought they would do more harm than good. By the summer, 51 percent of those with an opinion were opposed to McCarthy.
His intemperateness had largely contributed to his decline. He had called President Truman ”a son of a b.i.t.c.h” counseled by men drunk on ”bourbon and Benedictine,” and he had attacked General George C. Marshall, a World War II hero, as the architect of ”a conspiracy so immense and an infamy so black as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man.” When he also accused Protestant clergymen and U.S. Army officers of, respectively, supporting and s.h.i.+elding communists, it increased public doubts about his rational good sense.
Democrats, led by Senate majority leader Lyndon B. Johnson, now saw an opportunity to break his hold on the country. McCarthy is ”the sorriest senator up here,” LBJ had told Senate secretary Bobby Baker. ”Can't tie his G.o.dd.a.m.n shoes. But he's riding high now, he's got people scared to death some Communist will strangle 'em in their sleep, and anybody who takes him on before the fevers cool-well, you don't get in a p.i.s.sin' contest with a polecat.” Understanding how daily exposure would go far to defeat him, Johnson arranged to have McCarthy's army hearings televised. Thirty-six days of TV coverage between April and June 1954 allowed people, in Johnson's words, to ”see what the b.a.s.t.a.r.d was up to.” McCarthy's physical features-his unshaved appearance and nasal monotone-joined with evidence of his casualness about the truth to ruin him. In September, after nine days of hearings orchestrated by LBJ, a special Senate committee recommended that McCarthy be ”condemned” for breaking Senate rules and abusing an army general. In December, after the congressional elections, the Senate voted condemnation by a count of 67 to 22.