Fellow Travelers

by Thomas Mallon

The president’s decision to float above the battle, in a kind of military observation balloon, had been vindicated to his strategists. This afternoon, as Cohn retook the witness chair, Ike, the recipient of his Communist-hunting compliments, was at a Washington Senators game to benefit the Red Cross. “I would like,” said Senator Potter, who now resumed his questioning, “to have you comment on the extent of Communist influence in our government.” “Yes, sir,” said the still-modest Cohn. “It can only, of course, be a comment, because I don’t know all the facts.” “When did that ever stop him?” whispered Miss McGrory. “During the 1930s and 1940s,” said Cohn, “the Communist Party of the United States was, I would say, remarkably and unbelievably successful in placing Communists in a number of key spots in our government.” But sheer numbers, he explained, weren’t important. “One is too many. I think Stalin or Lenin, one of the top Communist theoreticians, once said something to the effect that it takes a thousand people to build a bridge; it takes one person to blow it up.”