National Affairs: Report on the I.P.R.

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¶ "Over a period of years, John Carter Vincent [former chief of the China desk in the U.S. State Department, now Minister to Tangier] was the principal fulcrum of I.P.R. pressures and influence in the State Department . . . The I.P.R. . . . through . . . influence in the White House, by reports from . . . the field . . . sought to bring pressure to bear to undermine the Chinese government, and to exalt the status of the Chinese Communist Party . . ." This effort had aimed at giving the Chinese Communists 1) the status of "a recognized force," 2) then a place in a "coalition" government, 3) finally, recognition as the legitimate government of all China.

False Testimony. In its probing, the committee believed it had come across two important cases of false testimony.

Johns Hopkins' Professor Owen Lattimore edited I.P.R.'s Pacific Affairs from 1934 to 1941. The report denounced him as a "conscious, articulate instrument of the Soviet conspiracy"; Lattimore denounced right back, calling the report "fantastic and inane." On "at least five separate matters," charged the committee, Lattimore had not told the whole truth. One example: "The evidence . . . shows conclusively that Lattimore knew Frederick V. Field to be a Communist; that he collaborated with Field after he possessed this knowledge; and that he did not tell the truth before the subcommittee about this association with Field . . ."

John P. Davies Jr., now political adviser to the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany, had long served as a top China expert in the State Department. From a former Central Intelligence Agency operator, the committee heard that Davies, in November 1949, had recommended that such proCommunists as Agnes Smedley and Anna Louise Strong be used for CIA "consultation and guidance." Davies, under oath, had denied doing so. The committee urged the Department of Justice to submit its evidence of perjury, by both Lattimore and Davies, to a federal grand jury.

The charges of perjury might not be easily proved in a court of law. Far more important was the fact that the McCarran committee has pulled together a strong case against the I.P.R. and has shown its influence on the U.S. Government to be a factor in U.S. policies that led to catastrophic losses in the Far East.