Man in the Storm

[See Cover)

If anyone ever comes to any part of this Government . . . claiming some privilege . . . on the basis that he is part of my family or of my friends, that he has any connection with the White House, he is to be thrown out instantly . . . I can't believe that anybody on my staff would ever be guilty of an indiscretion. But if ever anything came to my attention of that kind, any part of this Government, that individual would be gone.

--Dwight D. Eisenhower, May 4, 1956

One day last week, two years and 55 days after he forcefully spelled out this rigid code at his press conference, the President of the U.S. stepped soberly before 257 newsmen with a sheaf of 5-in.-by-7-in. cards in his hands. On the cards was typed, in extra big size, a new statement. As he read, licking a finger now and then to dislodge the cards from the stack, the President boomed the words out in bass tones. "The intense publicity lately surrounding the name of Sherman Adams makes it desirable, even necessary, that I start this conference with an expression of my own views about the matter."

The President's voice rose. "The circumstances surrounding the innocent receipt by a public official of any gift are important, so that the public may clearly distinguish between innocent and guilty action . . . Anyone who knows Sherman Adams has never had any doubt of his personal integrity and honesty. No one has believed that he could be bought; but there is a feeling or belief that he was not sufficiently alert in making certain that the gifts, of which he was the recipient, could be so misinterpreted as to be considered as attempts to influence his political actions. To that extent he has been, as he stated yesterday, 'imprudent.'

"Now, the utmost prudence must necessarily be observed by everyone attached to the White House . . . Carelessness must be avoided. I believe that the presentation made by Governor Adams to the congressional committee yesterday truthfully represents the pertinent facts.

"I personally like Governor Adams. "I admire his abilities. "I respect him because of his personal and official integrity. "I need him.

"Admitting the lack of that careful prudence in this incident . . . I believe with my whole heart that he is an invaluable public servant doing a difficult job efficiently, honestly and tirelessly."

Armor & Rebellion. Thus Dwight Eisenhower talked into the swirling storm that had hit harder at the structure of his Administration and his party than any other big blow of his political career. For the first time the storm's eye centered on the White House and on wiry (5 ft. 8 in., 135 Ibs.) Presidential Assistant Sherman Adams, 59, ex-Governor of New Hampshire, presidential chief of staff and next to Ike the most powerful man in the Administration. Adams, by presidential assignment the guardian of the integrity that Ike had always promised, the man of stern incorruptibility who threw out Government appointees of high rank at the first whiff of scandal, was now himself in deep trouble for having tarnished the armor he had so ceaselessly polished.

The political scars that Adams had inflicted were plain to see. Across the nation, as Democratic politicians happily sat back to count their own unexpected blessings, Republican politicos were sullenly rebellious, and were demanding that Adams be fired. Officeholders and candidates--from county clerks to Governors and Senators--complained that they could not face campaign charges that the President's own dedicated assistant had accepted the generosities of a millionaire Boston name-dropper called Bernard Goldfine (see Investigations) and had interceded for Goldfine in Government administrative agencies.

Policy & Tolerance. If the political implications were deep, the moral implications were clearly set out in the difference between the President's 1956 pronouncement and his defense of Adams. Why did Ike sacrifice the principle for the man?

Viewed from inside the Administration, Presidential Right-Hand Sherman Adams is crisply capable, and as near to indispensable as a man can be. Explains a top White House staffer: "Adams has been with the President since 1952, and he knows how he thinks better than any other man. He has talked with the President about policy more than any other man. The Governor has got tucked away in his head all the policy decisions the President has ever made, all the policy questions that have been laid aside for the right time, all the questions that have been rejected. It would be impossible for any new man to operate like Adams operates. And the new man could never accumulate the knowledge that Adams has."

Faced with this realization, President Eisenhower excused in Sherman Adams an "imprudence" that he might not tolerate in anyone else.

The Decision. The admission by Sherman Adams that he had been "imprudent" was a concession that he made only after he saw that it was not enough to sit behind the White House gates and issue a statement attacking the "unwarranted and unfair insinuations" of his accusers. Before the House Special Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight came new charges that Adams received a vicuNa coat and an Oriental rug from Goldfine, and also that Goldfine had paid Adams' hotel bills at the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan as well as others in Boston (TIME, June 23). Adams conferred with Ike; he had not changed his mind about sticking to his job. Neither he nor the President discussed the question of whether Adams should resign, but both agreed that he should testify in person at the hearings.

Next day the usually punctual Adams appeared four minutes late at the door of the caucus room in the Old House Office Building. Thoughtfully, he surveyed the crammed chamber. Stepping aside, he let his wife Rachel pass before him. Then, pushing out his thin jaw, he breathed deeply, squared his shoulders, and in ramrod military cadence marched past the press tables and took his place at the witness table with Ike's personal counsel, Gerald Morgan. During Chairman Oren Harris' opening remarks, Adams popped a Luden's cough drop into his mouth, took a paper clip off a sheaf of notes and listened. He bent and unbent the paper clip, put it carefully on the table in front of him, picked it up again, finally stowed it thriftily in his pocket.

The Friendship. Then, in an even, quiet, almost confidential tone that rang with a New Hampshireman's twang, Adams began reading from a prepared statement. "I have tried, throughout my service in the Government of the United States, to treat everyone courteously and to perform any requests which have been made of me efficiently and in accordance with the rules which I believe pertain to my particular activity." His voice sharpened, and his wide-set blue eyes darted up and raked the faces of the seven subcommittee members: "Is there any member of this committee who has not made a phone call for a constituent? Any member of the committee or of the Congress . . . who has not made an appointment?"

Adams told of his long friendship with Bernard Goldfine, "an upright and honest citizen, trustworthy and reliable . . ."

As for the nearly $2,000 in hotel tabs paid by Goldfine. Adams testified that "particularly when driving, it was an accommodation to me to stop overnight on a trip from my home [in Lincoln, N.H.] to Washington and vice versa. Mr. Goldfine on one occasion said to me, 'If there is any time when you would like to stay in a suite which I have in a hotel in Boston, I hope you will occupy it, because it is there, paid for, and I would be glad to have you enjoy the accommodations.' This I did."

And the Waldorf-Astoria visits at Goldfine's expense? Adams and his wife once "were invited to stop at a meeting of Mr. Goldfine's business associates," stopped overnight again when "I happened to find myself in New York" on a trip between Washington and New Hampshire.

Have a Rug. As he spoke, Adams' cheery color, recently heightened by a brief New England fishing trip, slowly paled. His voice clipped on. "Early in the year 1954, Mr. Goldfine came to visit us, and he said to me, 'You ought to have a rug on that floor which is less shabby than the one that you have, and I would like to send you one. I'd like to get you one.' I said to him, 'I have no use for a rug of this size.' It is a rather large room. He said, 'All right, any time that you move from these premises or go back to New Hampshire, I will reclaim it.'

"Now, Mr. Chairman, in respect to a coat . . . Mr. Goldfine has always been proud of his [vicuna] product. He makes a good product . . . The cost at his mill was in the vicinity of $69. The garment he made up at a local tailor. Now, Mr. Chairman, that was not an unusual activity . . . You are concerned, and I think correctly so, as to how such a friendship could affect the conduct of myself, an official, Assistant to the President, in his relations with men within the Government."

The Answer Is No. Sherman Adams' voice changed again. A sharper emphasis flattened the odd musical, soothing quality, and his chin edged forward a fraction. "Did Bernard Goldfine benefit in any way in his relations with any branch of the Federal Government because he was a friend of Sherman Adams? Did Sherman Adams seek to secure any favor or benefits for Bernard Goldfine because of his friendship? The answer to both questions is no . . . I have never permitted any personal relationship to affect in any way any actions of mine in matters relating to the conduct of my office. If . . . I have in any way so conducted myself as to cast any semblance of doubt upon such conduct, I can only say that the error was one of judgment and certainly not of intent."

Nevertheless, it was Adams' intent that most interested the subcommittee. Subcommittee Counsel Robert Lishman reminded Adams that he had, in 1953, telephoned Federal Trade Commission Chairman Edward Howrey to find out why one of Goldfine's woolen mills had been cited by FTC for mislabeling fabrics. Back from Chairman Howrey to Adams went a personal memorandum that identified the source of the complaint to FTC, and added: If Goldfine's company would "give adequate assurances that all their labeling will be corrected, the case can be closed . . ." Adams had passed this inside information along to Goldfine.

Was Adams aware that disclosing this confidential information was a violation of FTC rules? Replied Adams crisply: "I was not."

A Good Question. In 1956 Adams got White House Counsel Morgan to ask why Goldfine's real estate company, the East Boston Co., was under investigation by the Securities & Exchange Commission. The reply from SEC: for noncompliance with SEC regulations on publishing financial reports. Had Adams passed this along to Goldfine? asked Counsel Lishman. Adams' answer: not to his recollection.

Had he discussed the case with Goldfine's good friends, Maine's Senator Frederick Payne and New Hampshire's Norris Cotton? "I think there was some discussion about that at one time, but so far as I am concerned, it was a casual discussion."

Did Adams know that an SEC man had brought the East Boston file down to the White House for examination? "I do not. I have no knowledge of such occasion."

As committee members took over the questioning, Sherman Adams fielded answers with a tired restraint, and, at times, a bland non sequitur.

Did he realize that a member of a regulatory body might attach a great deal more significance to a call from Adams than from, say, a Congressman? Adams: "That poses a very appropriate question."

Did he receive more than one rug? Adams: "I think there were a couple of small mats."

Furniture? Adams: "I did not."

Had he ever used Goldfine's airline credit cards? Adams: "No."

Who else at the White House got a vicuna coat? Adams: "Well, now, let's get the thing on the record. My superior officer at the White House never received a coat from this gentleman." (But Press Secretary Jim Hagerty stated that Ike did receive some vicuna cloth from Goldfine in 1956, gave it to a friend.)

It was Chairman Harris who put another dimension on Adams' calls to the regulatory agencies by getting Adams to admit that he had quite a bit to do with the selection of appointees; he had, for one thing, recommended Ed Howrey for the FTC. Adams clasped his hands, unclasped them, gripped them again as they trembled. He pressed his chin into his fists, dueled on.

"In view of these incidents," asked Harris, "do you think . . . that you overstepped the bounds of propriety?" Replied Adams, conceding a point: "That is a fair question."

Two years ago, Adams continued, he called his staff together to discuss "this point," and it was decided that "it was desirable for the staff of the President of the United States to refrain from doing anything which might possibly lead to any question such as you have posed. I have no excuses to offer. I did not come up here to make apology to you or this committee. If there were any errors, as I have already stated, they were errors, perhaps of inexperience . . . I will say this, that if I had the decisions now before me to make, I believe I would have acted a little more prudently."

His face drained of color, Sherman Adams strode from the committee room, when he was excused, with poise and bearing becoming to his office. That afternoon President Eisenhower studied wire-service reports of Adams' testimony, discussed it with Press Secretary Hagerty. Then he conferred with Sherman Adams. They decided that Adams' public appearance had done much to lift the pressure, that the storm would subside. Ike authorized Jim Hagerty to announce meaningfully that "the Governor . . . is back at his desk at work at White House business," i.e., Adams was staying.

Timber Line. Vermont-born Llewellyn Sherman Adams grew up in the stern standards of rural New England, and he is stubborn, frugal and contradictory as only a rural Yankee can be. His parents were divorced after they moved to Providence, when Sherm was a boy, and he lived mostly with his mother, but he spent his summers in Vermont under the tutelage of his grandfather. He scratched through four years at Dartmouth, studying economics, singing (basso) in the glee club, hiking the hills and mountains of the north country. For 18 years Adams worked for a lumber company in Lincoln, N.H. In the logging camps and offices, Sherm Adams was known as a rugged woodsman and boss who worked ceaselessly and kept his mouth shut. To Rachel White, the lively, attractive girl he married in 1923, Sherm was known fondly as "the Great Stone Face."

In 1940 the officials at Parker-Young Co., where Adams worked, decided that he ought to run for the state legislature. Republican Adams ran, served two terms, then got himself elected to Congress. Committed to politics, he returned to New Hampshire after his single term in Washington and struck out for the Governor's job. He lost by 157 votes in 1946, came back to win in 1948 and again in 1950. The following year, Governor Adams swung behind Dwight Eisenhower, although the two had never met, and turned a strong Taft tide in New Hampshire to help Ike win the presidential primary in 1952. Adams' knowing way with politics and his efficiency as Ike's floor manager at the Chicago convention brought him close to the man who was going to be his boss. Ike liked his snappy, almost wordless directorial abilities, made Adams his campaign manager. The chief of staff for the campaign became chief of staff at the White House.

Dangling Line. Sherman Adams set the new tone and pace of the White House and flavored it with his own brand of Yankee circumspection ("Sound as a dollar," as his 82-year-old father says. "Square as a brick"). Hard at work by 7:30 every morning, Adams takes due note of any of his staff who might come in a few minutes late ("Miss So-and-So," he snapped to a girl who was attending a presidential staff meeting, "you were late three mornings this week!"). Papers shoot into his office and out as fast as his bedeviled secretaries can scoot. "Nobody," says a staffer, "can polish a desk clean as he can."

His phone conversations are usually void of such time-wasting nonsense as "hello" and "goodbye," and he often hangs up when he has said his piece, leaving the fellow on the other end of the line dangling in midsentence. He can stare daggers at a visitor, or just as easily ignore him with supreme aplomb.

Postage Paid. Adams' White House financial habits are rigid, almost niggling. He pays for personal postage stamps that he uses at the office, insists on being billed for his personal phone calls. Until recently he still used stationery marked

"Sherman Adams, Governor of New Hampshire" (with an "ex" penned in next to the title).

At his desk, Sherman Adams is all business. His chief job is screening the endless flow of business that swamps the President's office and presenting Ike with the kind of direct information--such as a trimmed-down list of names for federal job appointments--on which the President can base a decision. "Whatever I have to do," explained the President at his press conference, "he has in some measure to do." Adams must also settle disputes among top-level officials. "The Governor," says a White House staffer, "is the only man around here with stature enough to say no and make it stick. Every time I say no to a Senator, he says the hell with it and goes to Adams. When Adams says no, it does not get appealed."

Prudence & Togetherness. At the very least, Adams' job requires political sagacity, and he has plenty of it. In his testimony to the House subcommittee, he referred to a 1956 White House staff meeting that he described as a get-together aimed at tightening general rules of personal conduct. It was far more than that. The meeting took place in the summer of 1956--the presidential election year--and Adams warned his senior staffers that some evidently improper requests had come to the White House from congressional sources. "We are all fair game," he announced. Adams feared that the Democrats might try to trap the White House by planting a scandal during the campaign. The watchword was handed out: prudence.

How, then, could Prudent Sherman Adams get himself under obligation to Bernard Goldfine? It was, as a close friend put it, "probably a matter of drifting." Adams was a member of the New Hampshire legislature when he and Goldfine first met; Lithuanian-born Bernard Goldfine was a personable and fast-rising businessman. Adams was fast-rising too, not in bank accounts but in status. To Goldfine, money alone did not bring status, but he spent freely, gave openly. Adams was flattered by the attention; his bedrock New England heart was moved by the warmth and yearnings of an "immigrant" who wanted friendship. The Adamses and the Goldfines drew together. When Goldfine's son Solomon drifted from his studies at Dartmouth, it was Dutch Uncle Sherman who sternly tugged him back to berth; at Solomon's wedding in Chicago, the Adamses were honored guests.

Through the years, as Bernard Goldfine gave, Adams received. Without seeming to recognize the implications of his relationship, Adams took advantage of Goldfine's offer of a rug, a few mats, a coat, some cloth that he had made into a suit. The hotel rooms were a great convenience, and so were the dining facilities at the hotels. These gifts were hard to refuse, partly because of friendship, partly because, as a careful man with his own dollar, Adams could not bring himself to refuse the lavish insistence of a big spender. And when Bernie Goldfine asked Adams to look into his troubles with federal agencies, Adams, a man of status, cheerfully obliged.

"Will They Talk to Me?" In the White House last week, the man in the eye of the storm sat weary and dispirited at his desk. The grudging spark of humor and the sudden flashes of gaiety that he sometimes permits himself were gone. Tom Stephens, the President's appointment secretary, who helped Adams win the Ike primary in New Hampshire, stepped into Adams' office. "You know how you like to kid me about helping you in New Hampshire?" said Stephens. "Well, I want to help you now, and in a few months I think you'll be able to kid about this, too." Adams looked up wordlessly as a smile brushed his face. Even his closest friends could not tell whether it was anger or chagrin or guilt--as well as a sense of having failed the Administration--that whipped his mind. "He is not the kind of guy that can sit down and bat it around," said a staffer. "Even with his close friends, he can't be personal."

One strong feeling did send lightning charges of worry through Adams. Aware that he must deal daily with Congress on his job, Adams asked a colleague: "Will Republican Congressmen want to talk to me? Can I work with them?" It was obvious that he expected no answer.

The Lockout. For his part, the President, convinced that nothing had changed in his chief of staff, was prepared to ride out the storm. But it is likely that both he and Adams have underestimated the storm's force, for across the U.S. a hurricane of criticism swept from the public, the newspapers, cartoonists, jokesters and GOPoliticians. The Democrats, lashed for Truman-era corruption* in the 1952 campaign, were confident that no Republican would dare use the corruption issue again.

An astonishing number of congressional Republicans were openly delighted to see Adams squirm. Some had been offended when he left them dangling at the other end of a dead telephone. Some resented the fact that he had pursued the President's dictum that the White House should work with Congress through the leadership; they felt that as a result, Adams had locked them out of the White House. Then there were the old-line Taft-men. "That sonofabitch," said one bitterly. "He was one of those who went down to Texas and planted that flag--'Thou Shalt Not Steal'--on Taft in the delegate vote fight in 1952. Now that he's got the same thing coming his way, nobody's going to defend him. He's got it coming to him."

Even more surprising was the number of rank-and-file party workers--already in real trouble fighting the Democratic tide, already aware that Ike is of little value in local elections--who are appalled at the thought of the Administration's being a deadweight. Only four G.O.P. Senators, Vermont's George Aiken and Ralph Flanders, New York's Jacob Javits, Kansas' Frank Carlson, supported the President's stand on Adams--and they are not candidates in 1958.

The Cauldron. The party's big names publicly stood firm against Adams. Bill Knowland, facing heavy Democratic odds in his California gubernatorial campaign, said that the President and Adams "should carefully weigh as to whether Adams has so hurt his usefulness that it might be harmful." New Jersey's Robert Kean, Arizona's Barry Goldwater and Michigan's Charles Potter pounded the same drum: dump Sherman. Utah's venerable (72) Senator Arthur Watkins was the strongest voice of all. "In the light of the record as measured by the high standards of ethics set by both the President and Mr. Adams," said he, "there seems to be no other possible conclusion than that Mr. Adams' usefulness is seriously impaired if not completely destroyed."

In a valiant try to crush the panic, Vice President Richard Nixon (who is indebted to Adams for having helped prevent the strong dump-Nixon move during the famed 1952 expense-account troubles that wound up in the Checkers speech) got up at a meeting of state Republican chairmen last week in Washington and warned: "The trouble with Republicans is that when they get into trouble they start acting like a bunch of cannibals." Still, the chairmen themselves were inclined to let Adams stew in the cauldron. Of the 42 attending the meeting, 13 thought that Adams ought to quit; twelve shakily supported Ike ("The coach has left him in. I'm a team player"); the remaining 17 were noncommittal.

Drenched. The total mood seemed best reflected by Oregon's Republican secretary of state Mark Hatfield, a candidate for Governor in a onetime Republican stronghold that the Democrats have thoroughly taken over. Hatfield wrote a stinging letter to the President, afterward announced the theme of his complaint. "I would not continue in office as assistant or member of an administration a person whose imprudence creates doubt as to the impartiality of his responsibilities. I am not concerned about political expediency. What I am interested in is the question of ethics involved. I have urged the President to make his decision on that basis alone."

Thus the storm lashed on. It tore through the editorial pages of newspapers all over the country, and it drenched not merely Sherman Adams for his imprudence--or notorious breach of good conduct--but President Eisenhower for his failure to stick to his own oft-proclaimed deep sense of public ethics. The editors, pundits and politicians knew much to admire about Sherman Adams--his efficiency, his devotion to the President, his importance to the working of the Government. But they could see and hear clearly that, to accommodate Sherman Adams and Bernard Goldfine, the Eisenhower Administration had compromised a basic standard.

*Yet the record of Truman Administration corruption, after six years, still hangs over the Democratic Party. Apart from instances of penny-ante skulduggery that resulted in resignations, a flock of damning charges turned into at least eight court convictions. Reconstruction Finance Corp. Loan Examiner E. Merl Young was convicted of perjury. Nailed, too, were Massachusetts Tax Collector Denis Delany (bribery), Missouri Collector James Finnegan (who collected legal retainers from firms doing business with the Government), former Commissioner of Internal Revenue Joseph Nunan Jr. (income tax evasion), California Deputy Collector Ernest M. Schino and Nevada's BIR Chief Field Deputy Patrick Mooney (conspiracy to defraud the Government). Two later catches, White House Appointments Secretary Matthew Connelly and Assistant Attorney General (in charge of tax prosecution) Theron Lamar Caudle, were convicted of tax fraud conspiracy, last week won an appeal for a hearing on their demand for a retrial.

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