Carvings and the fixtures and the great chandeliers. And the history. There is even a plaque on the wall that lists the famous events that took place in this room. I was once asked by a radio correspondent to describe this room to a Radio Audience that could not see it. I said this room reminds me of grand opera because it is a magnificent setting. When theres an investigation, it usually has a large cast of characters and a convoluted plot, and everyone sits around waiting for the witness to sing. Television came along in 1947. The first televised hearing was general George Marshall testifying before the Foreign Relations committee to do with american foreignpolicy. He was secretary of state. The Marshall Plan was one of the big issues of the day. Europe is still emerging from the devastation of the most destructive war in history. Within its own resources, europe cannot achieve within a reasonable time economic stability. The solution would be much easier, of course, if all the nations of europe or cooperating but they are not. The real excitement of television covering hearings did not happen until 1950 when a freshman democratic senator from tennessee began a special investigation into organized crime, the mafia or crime in cities. And he started going around with a committee to the cities. Rather than having everybody come to washington the committee went to new orleans, st. Louis, kansas city, detroit, chicago new york and made the circuit. When it got to new orleans, the local tv station preempted howdy doody and put the hearings on. That got a lot of attention in new orleans. And people were glued to this, because this was senators and mobsters. It was a great combination and investigation. A lot of really shocking evidence was coming across. As the committee travel, local tv started picking up on this. By the time it got to new york, it was like a broadway show doing its try out and getting to the great white way. All the new Work Networks were broadcasting, and they were national it was not just local ones. Television anymore. One of the witnesses was Frank Costello who was a mobster in new york. Of course, they came to washington, and tv came to washington to cover this. Housewives were holding parties, inviting their friends over to watch this because it was the best daytime television ever. It turned keferver into an unlikely president ial candidate. He ran in the primary. Did not get the nomination, but in 1956, he ran for vice president. And so a lot of other senators obviously noted that television could really identify them as a major player and could elevate their stature and turn them into president ial candidates. And then in 1953, senator Joseph Mccarthy of wisconsin became the chairman of the old truman committee, the permit subcommittee on investigations. Mccarthy had been a senator since 1947. Hed gotten into the anticommunist business in 1950 when he went to wheeling, west virginia, to give a lincolns day talk and held up a piece of paper, and said, i hold in my hand a list of known communists in the state department that the secretary is not doing anything about. He had a specific number. At the time, mccarthy was really reading from notes rather than from a prepared speech. Even he cannot remember what he said. An Associated Press story came out and made headlines all over the country. And mccarthy suddenly became the nations number one red hunter. This is at a time when alger hiss case was going on. The rosenberg case was going on. Mccarthy had nothing to do with hiss or rosenberg, but he was making charges against all sorts of people, including secretary of state George Marshall and secretary of state dean acheson. And all sorts of people he was implicating. When he got to be chairman of the committee on the permanent subcommittee on investigation, the senate thought he would get off that issue because there already was in anticommunist subcommittee, the internal security subcommittee. And it had jurisdiction over communist issues. But mccarthy felt that his investigating committee had jurisdiction over everything and he could do what he wanted. He was looking around to hire a chief counsel. He had some senior people, some people who, some decent reputations, people like john who became a judge in watergate. He looked up Robert Kennedy. Instead he hired roy cohn, who had worked in the Justice Department. This was a big mistake, because mccarthy needed somebody to slow him down. He would sometimes lose control and he needed a mature person. Cohn was very young and a totally ruthless person person and egged because beyond. Totally ruthless person and and mccarthy on. I have done a lot of or history of the people who work here at the time, and mccarthy had a villainous image in the historybooks. Almost all the people who worked for him really liked joe mccarthy. He was a very nice guy. He was the only senator who gave one of the staff a christmas present, for instance. He was the kind of person who went out of his way to help people. He was always lending money to the capitol police. He was sort of hail fellow well met. But when he would get before the tv cameras, it was a dr. Jekyllmr. Hyde. A different side of his personality came out. It shocked people who like him. Im glad were on television. I think the millions of people can see how low a man can sink. I repeat, they can see how low an alleged man can sink. When the cameras were turned off, he can throw his arm around the person he just attacked on the floor. A very odd person in a lot of ways. He was totally inept as an investigator. He was not focused enough to be able to do the hard work. Cohn was also not a really great investigator in the long run. The records of the committee are a total mismatch for that time period. They called up hundreds of witnesses to come to talk in closed session. We have recently published those closed sessions. It is clear they were rehearsals. Mccarthy was looking for who to bring out before the cameras. If a person groveled or if a person stonewalled mccarthy, they were likely to be called to the public session. If a person said it is true in 1932, i was a member of the communist party, but after a while, i realize the party was ridiculous and i got out after they signed a pact with nazi germany in 1939, and i have been totally anticommunist ever since. In other words, if they offered a reasonable explanation of their behavior, they were much less likely to be called out in public. Mccarthy wanted people who were either going to humble themselves in front of him or look awful by stonewalling and taking the fifth amendment. We know now that, because of the intercepts, that there were communist spies in the government in the 1940s. We also know that presently know we also know that practically no one that mccarthy paid attention to was involved in spying. They werent in on venona. The house unamericans activity had a much better track record in terms of investigating than did mccarthy. Mccarthy floundered around. By the end of 1953, roy cohn has started an investigation of Fort Monmouth, the army single corps in new jersey. He convinced mccarthy they had found a link because Julius Rosenberg had once work there. He was sure there was a rosenberg spy ring at work. Eventually, the army let 32 engineers be suspended because of the investigation. As the investigation was going on, it turned out mccarthy did not have evidence of these people. Most, all of them were offered their jobs back. Some of whom refused to go back to work. It really wound up hurting our signal corps, which is our investigation. It was the one way we were able to track what was happening in the world and that was crippled by the mccarthy investigation. In the middle of all this, one of mccarthys staff, david shine, got drafted. This was the days of universal draft. He was a young man. He got brought into the army as a private. Mccarthy and roy cohn. Cohn had a crush on david shine. Cohn try to get shine an army commission, but he was not qualified. Then they began to bombard the army with requests for david shine to get weekends off. The committee was going to meet going to need him for things. And eventually the army tried to placate the mccarthy. After a while, they got to be too much. They started documenting all this. Finally, the army charged that mccarthy was continuing his Fort Monmouth investigation to blackmail them into special treatment for private shine. And mccarthy responded that the army was Holding Private shine hostage to stop his investigation. So now you have charge and counter charge. The senate had to investigate. And this is senator mccarthys own committee but he is one of the plaintiffs. So he had to step down as chairman and let another senator chair. And that became the army vs mccarthy. The president was a republican, dwight d eisenhower, who spent his entire adult life in the army. So the one institution that president eisenhower identify the most with and felt the warmest about was the institution that mccarthy was investigating. So now the entire Eisenhower Administration came down on the other side. And a lot of republicans who had been supporting mccarthy really realized they needed to support president eisenhower. So mccarthys support began to erode. The Army Mccarthy hearings were hot television. Abc, which was the third Television Network at the time, covered it gaveltogavel during the day. Abc had very little daytime programming. Cbs and nbc covered it at the beginning, but they went back to their soap operas pretty quickly, and then at night, they would do the highlights. They would do a special program in the evening. If you were at work during the day, you could catch up with armymccarthy at night. During the day, everybody was glued. I do oral histories and a lot of people said, i came home from school and my mother was watching television, she never did that, but she was caught up watching the Army Mccarthy hearings. Senator mccarthy was no longer chairman of the committee. And so, he could not control the committee. But he had a way of making sure that he was sort of the majordomo by interrupting with points of order. As soon as the first witness tried to speak, point of order, mr. Chairman. Senator mccarthy would badger and attack the witnesses and raise questions about the credibility. He implied they were all communists. [gavel pounds] gentlemen, do i have to floor . To determine whether or not senator mccarthy is speaking state the point of order and speak to it. May i suggest, i am getting sick of sitting down at the end of the table and having whoever wants to interrupt in the middle of a sentence. Even roy cohn said watching television that night he realize that mccarthy was coming across terribly, as of bullying, humorless person. Mpathetic figure. The army had the wisdom to hire a very talented lawyer from the boston, robert welch, who is an oldschool country lawyer type. But a very cagey, shrewd fellow. He badgered roy cohn and mccarthy with humor and really got under mccarthys skin. Eventually, mccarthy attacked, not welsh, but one of his one assistant attorneys who had been a member of the National Lawyers guild, which the Justice Department thought was a communist front. It did not mean that the people ,ho are in it were communist but that coming lists were using it. And therefore, implies that this attorney was secretly a communist. Welsh had worked out that there were certain things that cohn did not want to bring those up. Welsh said, we will not bring those in you will not bring those of either. When mccarthy cannot control himself and brought this up. Cohn try to stop him. That is when welsh said, at long last, sir, have you no sense of decency . And gave his famous speech about that. Let us not assassinate this lad youve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last . Have you left no sense of decency . I know this hurts you, mr. Welsh. Senator, i think it hurts you, too. There was some evidence that welsh expected mccarthy to do this and was not quite as shocked as he appeared on television at the time. But the Television Audience were shocked, and mccarthys personal standing eroded. Interestingly enough, hollywood hired robert welsh. If you see anatomy of a murder, he is the judge in that. So he had a certain theatrical side to him. But he really did show mccarthy for what he was. And that undermines mccarthys standing among the other senators. They began an investigation of mccarthy and his tactics. In december 1954, the senate voted to censure senator mccarthy for conduct unbecoming a senator. All of the democrats, except for john kennedy who was in the hospital and half of the republicans, including prescott bush, father and grandfather of two president s, wound up voting to censure. Senator mccarthy was never able to regain his National Standing after that. He went into a tailspin, and he died at the age of 48 few years later. When roy cohn stepped down as the council of that committee, the committee hired Robert Kennedy to replace him. You can go through the records of the National Archives pretty can tell the moment that cohn leaves and kennedy takes over. This mismatch of paperwork is suddenly replaced by nice, tight depositions. It was like a serious attorney is in charge. Kennedy brought together a very talented staff. And they began investigating, and continued some of the investigations that mccarthy allowed to drift off, including an investigation of General Electric. It had a union that was a communistdominated union. And General Electric as a result of this try to improve its Public Relations and hired an actor by the named of ronald regan to do the General Electric theater and be a spokesman. Good evening. Tonight John Forsythe source on the General Electric theater. And we will see product reports that show how things could lead to a better life for us all. At General Electric, progress is our most important products. Change for reagan and really making him less of a hollywood actor and more of a public spokesman, a public figure. Kennedy then, when the democrats came back into the majority, became the chief counsel of the committee an launched an investigation into racketeering. In the late 1950s, this is the room where Robert Kennedy interrogated jimmy hoffa and other labor leaders. On the committee serving with him was his brother john f. Kennedy and a republican senator barry goldwater. It was the first time that national Television Audiences got a chance to watch the two kennedy brothers and senator goldwater. It a big impact on all of their careers. And the only people you cannot tell us who you talk to besides you, mr. Hoffa, and the other gentleman. You ask him. Im asking you. Youre the one who made a report to the committee about what you found. Now we find there are no records. We talk to you and the other gentleman involved. That investigation went on until about 1960 when Robert Kennedy became the Campaign Manager for his brothers president campaign. John f. Kennedy declared his president ial candidacy in this room. Senator kennedy of massachusetts, democrat throws his hat into the president ial ring. I am today, announcing my for they or presidency of the united states. And a lot of the staff of the permanent subcommittee who during the day were investigating mccarthy, at night were in the back room with john f. Kennedys campaign. Pr salinger, obrien, a lot of people who became Major Players in the Kennedy Administration started out on the senate staff that was not the permanent subcommittee. That was a special committee that was created out of the Labor Committee and the permanent subcommittee. So that it was a hybrid committee. Robert f kennedy announced in 1968 he was running for president in this room. Senator Edward Kennedy had a very long career as chairman of the Judiciary Committee and other committees involved in things. When senator kennedy died in 2009, the senate named this room for the three kennedy brothers, all of whom had served in the senate john, robert, and edward. And all of them had some major event in their career, from hearings like the jimmy hoffa hearings to announcing their candidacies, to sharing other to chairing other investigations and other nominations that were held in here. So this room is now called the kennedy caucus room. In 1973, the watergate hearings opened in here. Watergate was a real turning point for the nation, for the nixon administration, but it was also a turning point for the investigation. General mccarthy had given a bad name to investigations. This is that the Supreme Court had to weighed in. It gave a stigma. There were a number of books that came out for people that were civil libertarians in the 1950s denouncing investigations in general and saying that they were not good for the nation. And congress was irresponsible. And then the watergate breakin happened in june, 1972. And while the Washington Post covered it for months, pretty much the rest of the press really let watergates story drop. They did not think it was a big issue. They followed the campaign, president nixon versus george mcgovern. In the end, nixon one and overwhelming victory over mcgovern in 1972, despite the Washington Posts investigation. A discovery that white house connection to the hush money that was paid to the burglars to keep them from spilling the beans. When they were being tried. And at that point, congress realized they needed to look into it. So the senate voted to hold an investigation. Mike mansfield was the chairman, the majority leader at the time. Usually when a resolution is submitted to hold a special investigation, the person that submits the resolution becomes chairman. Edward kennedy had been chair of the subcommittee of the judiciary that started looking into watergate. And he suggested the creation of a special committee. But people thought of Edward Kennedy as a president ial candidate. Mike mansfield realized they should not have anybody on this committee who could be seen as a president ial candidate. So he prevailed on sam irvin. Who was at the end of his long career as senator. A very conservative, constitutionally oriented lawyer and a judge from north carolina. And not a president ial person. And several other senators, like joseph montoya, dan iouye who were respected by the other senators but not seen as president ial candidates. The republicans picked howard baker as their Ranking Member on the committee. And some of the mix of members from their caucus as well. They began an investigation, closed door. Then they went to public hearings. Again, i was in graduate school and working in the library of congress. And because we were just fixed on watching the hearings, and pbs was broadcasting the hearings live. The other networks were doing the highlights. And i lived in a group house full of graduate students, and we watched loads of watergate. I actually came over and took a day off from working at the library, came over here, sat on the stairs for hours waiting to get my turn to come in here. I stood in the back of the room and watched john dean on the third of fourth day of his testimony. There are all the senators. The room was bright because of all of the tv lights. It was like watching a hollywood set. These were tv personalities. It was just a really electric time to be here for that hearing. I began by telling the president that there was a cancer growing on the presidency and if the cancer was not removed, the president himself would be killed by it. The senate actually got ready to hold an impeachment trial. One of the things they discovered was that theyd never had tv cameras in the senate chamber, and the public would look at this as a sort of star Chamber Event if they were not allowed to watch it. So, they actually installed the First Television cameras in the chamber in 1974. President nixon resigned before there was a trial. But they kept the cameras there until december. In which case, they turned them on just once and that was for rockefellers inauguration as vice president. And then they took them out. It was not until 1986 that the cameras were back in the senate chamber. So help me, god. [applause] watergate was 1973 and 1974. Then in the late 1970s, you have Senator Frank Church investigating irregularities in the cia and the fbi. This is in 1975 and 1976. There are some major hearings held in here. That leads to the creation of the Senate Intelligence because there is a charge that , part of the executive branch is operating without congressional oversight. Mostly what the Intelligence Committee does is behind closed doors because it is classified. So we do not see it as dramatically as we saw with the church committee. After that, in 1983, the Hart Building opens up, the third of the Senate Office buildings, because the growth of the staff is happening at a very rapid pace. As late as the mid 1960s, there were less than 1000 employees on the senate staff. They were paid in cash twice a month. They stood in line to get an envelope full of cash. By the early 1970s because of vietnam and watergate, the legislative branch to not feel that the legislative branch felt it could not trust the executive branch as much. Before that, they had been relying on executive agencies to do a lot of the legwork for them. Now they needed their own staff, they needed independent staff to evaluate what was happening. They increased the size of the senate house staff considerably. And the senate staff went from about 1000 to maybe close to 7000. Eventually, they built the Hart Building, which is designed for modern senate operations. About half of the senators operate over there. There is a large room called the central hearing which is designed for modern television. This room was designed before there was television. And so there isto build in any televised lights. Everything had to be brought in temporarily for investigations. Since then, most of the big investigations have switched over to the Hart Building central hearing room. A few of the senior senators, like ted kennedy and others like d this room. They remember this. This is where the irancontra hearings were held in the 1980s. So even then, irancontra was was chaired by senator inouye. He liked this room. You get some major hearings over here. And also because sometimes the other room is booked. This is the room where the robert bork nomination hearings were. I never advised the white house how to meet, how to deal with the Watergate Special prosecution force. And Clarence Thomass nomination, a very controversial nomination. Thomas was narrowly approved. The hearings were very important for both of those nominations. This room added to the setting. We can hear the echoes. You can hear point of order, mr. Chairman. You can hear the gavel. I can remember sam irvin sitting up there. It brings back memories. It certainly is filled with the echoes of history. Coming up next on American History tv, a Panel Discusses minority activism leading up to the 1968 election. It is part of dr. Martin luther king jr. s poor peoples campaign, africanamerican into and chicano activist came to washington, d. C. But it is largely remembered as an africanamerican movement. This event is part of the American Folklife Center at the library of congress to Mark National hispanic heritage month. I should say that my name is steve winick, a writer at the American Folklife Center. We are presenting this symposium entitled organizing across the boundaries, strategies and coalitions in the struggle for civil rights and social justice