Editorial Note
On March 20, 1950, the Department of State dispatched an unnumbered circular telegram to 34 Embassies, 6 Legations, 3 Consulates, the Office of the High Commissioner for Germany, and the Political Adviser at Tokyo asking for a prompt summary of press and public reaction to the current Congressional loyalty investigations. (113/3–2050)
Chargé Holmes at London reported in telegram 1555, dated March 22, that initial amusement over the investigations had begun to turn into concern as to whether the authority and prestige of the highest officials of the Department of State would be affected and why no one of prominence in the government or within the Republican Party had come to Secretary Acheson’s defense. (113/3–2050) Chargé Bonbright at Paris in telegram 1378, dated March 24, summarized French press reaction which generally took the line that Ambassador Jessup, the “very man commissioned with studying ways of stemming Communism in Far East should be questioned on his own anti-Communist record.” The Communist press in France, Bonbright noted, contented itself with observing that recently 900 professors at the University of California had refused to take a loyalty oath. (113/3–2450)
[Page 1389]The Chargé at Moscow, Walworth Barbour, reported in telegram 962, dated March 26, that Izvestia had devoted one and one-half columns to the Congressional loyalty investigations which it characterized as “something between group performance of clowns, circus arena and amateur evening madhouse.” (113/3–2650)
Additional telegrams from other Embassies, Legations, and Consulates are in file 113.