Point of Order

The genial smile and beastly features of his face on the television remains a faint memory for many of us now twenty years old. For some of us it is a first recollection of political events. We remember only being told that the man who licked his lips and smiled--the man who kept repeating "point of order, Mr. Chairman,"--was the man daddy did not (or, hypothetically, did) like.

Later we learned by rote how Sen. Joseph McCarthy destroyed some people who had been leftists when they were young, and how the white knight Joseph Welch finally destroyed him. But few of us have any real sense of what the man was like. The stakes in the daily debates of the television spectacle that stretched through the early spring months of 1954, and the tension filling the Senate Caucus Room where the Army-McCarthy hearings transpired are, for us, forgotten.

"Point of Order" was spliced together from television kinescopes of the hearings. But it is more than a recreation of what happened. The producers cut miles of film showing procedural debates, and much that was relevant and exciting as well. What they saved were the fantastic scenes of a battle between the super-patriotism of a twisted, treacherous, almost convincing senator and the puritan New England decency of Joseph Welch, special counsel for the Army.

McCarthy and Welch were only the leaders of the battle: some of the most vivid scenes center around their allies, cohorts, and lieutenants. Ever present beside McCarthy, sitting close at his elbow and whispering constantly in his ear, is one of the strangest participants, Roy M. Cohn. In one scene Counsel Welch is cross-examining one of McCarthy's assistants about where a "doctored" photograph which McCarthy introduced as evidence came from. Welch inquires sarcastically if a "pixie" brought it in, and Cohn leans over to whisper something in McCarthy's ear.

McCarthy: Would Counsel, for my benefit, define, I think he might be an expert on this, the word "pixie?" Welch: "I should say, I should say, Mr. Senator, that a pixie is a close relative of a fairy, shall I proceed sir? Have I enlightened you?

McCarthy: As I said, as I said I think you might be an authority on what a pixie is ...

The film proceeds through skirmish after skirmish like this. Some of the figures are familiar: Robert Kennedy, tight-lipped, incessantly drumming a pencil on the table. Sen. John G. McClellan (D.-Ark.) observing with a dry Southern voice what a horrible person Sen. McCarthy was Sen. Stuart Symington (D.-Mo.) whom McCarthy refers to as "Sanctimonious Stu."

Symington: Very frankly, I resent that reference to my first name.

McCarthy: Mr. Chairman--Mr. Symington I think, and I'm glad we're on television, I think the viewing people can see how low that a man can sink. I repeat they can see how low an alleged man can sink.

Symington: Senator, let me tell you something. The American people have had a look at your for six weeks.

You're not fooling anyone either.

The highlight of the hearing, perhaps, is "The Accusation." McCarthy suddenly claims, apropos of almost nothing, that Fred Fisher--a young lawyer in Welch's law firm--was for a while a member of a Communist front organization.

As McCarthy begins his accusation, Cohn, who has been close to his side throughout the hearing, suddenly sits back. His face has a pained expression, and he shakes his head slowly in disbelief at what McCarthy is doing.

But McCarthy continues. "You may be serving the Communist cause, Mr. Welch, and I thought we should just call to your attention the fact that your Mr. Fisher, who is still with your law firm today ... was a member of that Communist organization."

Welch is shocked and in despair. He takes the floor. "Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Fred Fisher is a young man who went to Harvard Law School and came into my firm and is starting what looks to be a brilliant career with it... Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad... I like to think I'm gentle man, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me... Let us not assassinate this lad further Senator."

The "performances" in this film make it extraordinary theatre as well as in important historical record of a period many of us have never seen. For both reasons it is strongly recommended. The quotations can give only a taste of the gripping world "Point of Order" portrays. By all means go see it.