Extracts from a commentary from John J. Hearne to Frederick H. Boland (Dublin) on the Tydings Sub-Committee on charges of Communism in the United States Department of State

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These reports mark the end of a phase of the controversy concerning Communist influence in the Department of State. For the time being, they dispose of an enquiry which, in its bitterness and partisanship, must be unique in the annals of Parliamentary Enquiries. But they, by no means, settle the main issues referred to the Subcommittee.¹

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So long as Russia was the Ally of the United States and the collaborator in the creation of UNO no emphasis was publicly laid on Russia's imperialist ambitions, and but little attention was paid to the ideological war incessantly waged by the Communist Ally and collaborator all over the North American continent. There were, of course, public men and newspaper men who never went wrong on Russia; and the pursuit and persecution of subversive criminals was never relaxed. But, as stated at the commencement of this commentary, the continent was prodigiously indoctrinated in the years of the military alliance and of international co-operation for world peace. It was only when the Soviet spy ring was discovered and trusted officers of the public service were found to be amongst its agents that the danger to the security of the State became plain.

It will always be a blot on the purity of American public life that, in the face of that danger, the proceedings and report of a Senate Subcommittee directed to enquire into the question of disloyalty in the Department of State should have fallen, even in an election year, to the level of a shabby political party squabble. Few will condone the recklessness with which Senator McCarthy² flung his charges, right, left and centre. But none could defend the manner in which they were met in the Subcommittee itself and in its report. The disgraceful episode is now over, but the story of disloyalty in the Department of State is not ended. And the story of the extent of disloyalty in the country as a whole has yet to be told.

The reaction of the United States to Russian aggression in Korea shows one thing clearly. It shows that, for all the Communist infiltration, the Government and Congress and people of the United States are one in their determination to resist the Soviet Union when it resorts to force as an instrument of policy and strikes in any part of the world where vital American interests are involved.