He named four people, including Shapley, but neither Olsen nor McCulloch could tell what he was accusing them of. Were they Communists? Were they Communist sympathizers? Were they, in the rather broad phrase he was to use later that night, people who had furthered the purpose of Communism? His words were deliberately vague. (They were only the first among many to find out how hard it was to pin him down. “Talking to Joe was like putting your hands in a bowl of mush,” said George Reedy, who covered him for the United Press.) The number, McCulloch noticed, had gone from 205 to 57 to 4. Or had
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