INVESTIGATIONS: I Guess I Am a Softy

Hell hath no fury like a reformer caught in a saloon, even if he is only having a short beer. As President Truman's cleanup man, New York's dressy, blue-blooded Republican Newbold Morris has been having a terrible time with a similar embarrassment—a connection (TIME, March 17) with the Chinese tanker scandal. But when he sat down last week to be questioned by Senate investigators, he seemed determined to keep cool, smile, smile, smile, let superior reason (his) prevail, and thus sweep all before him. Result: he alternated between anger, self-pity, exaggerated politeness and flippancy.

At his wife's behest, he brought in a small sign which reminded him to "Keep Your Shirt On," and placed it on the table before him. Relaxed, nibbling on his tortoise-shell spectacles, at times almost hammily polite, he did not argue the fact that his law firm had represented United Tanker Corp.—a Chinese-financed firm which had bought surplus U.S. ships and shipped cargoes to Communist ports in 1949 and 1950. He was equally calm in the face of another fact: he is president of a philanthropic organization, China International Foundation, which control s United's stock.

How to Hurt the Reds. Morris' defense is that the shipments were not contrary to official U.S. policy at the time, and that he, busy with running for mayor of New York, didn't know about the shipments until shortly before they stopped. Morris further maintained that he did not get a penny, personally, from the tanker deal. But South Dakota's stubborn Republican Senator Karl Mundt wanted to know: "What was your share of [the Morris law firm's] $158,000 in fees?" To keep his temper, Morris counted slowly, "One . . . two . . . three . . ." and then said he did not know. Mundt estimated $30,000. With a put-upon air, Morris did not deny it.

The going got rougher. At one point, Morris complained that his questioner of the moment—Wisconsin's Joe McCarthy —"is a terrier. He likes to shake the animal."

Said McCarthy: "Let us assume . . . without admitting it, that your purpose was simon-pure. I am asking whether you and I agree that your tankers did help the Communist cause in China . . . By giving them scarce oil?"

Of all the replies Morris might have made, he chose one best calculated to annoy the committee and cast doubts on his own judgment. Said Morris: "Well, if you want to look at it from another point of view, think what a dreadful thing they did to the Communist economy. They deprived them of dollars . . . They helped to draw dollars out of Russia. Was that not good?"

The questioning continued:

McCarthy: "Now that you are aware that your tanker [a United Tanker Corp. ship] moved roughly 250,000 gallons of aviation lubricating oil to a Communist port . . . about a month before the Korean war started . . . is it too farfetched to assume that aviation oil did result in the deaths of American men up in Korea?"

Morris: "Well, 250,000 gallons wouldn't take care of the taxicabs in Washington in one day. . . How do I know it was for the war machine of China? You said it was. How do I know?"