the national citibank. now he immediately subpoenaed all records he could from the national citibank. went with his staff and went through records carefully the way a prosecutor should. then he came back and brought in charles mitchell, a tall, distinguished looking banker. he had been advisor to harding, coolidge and hoover. he came with a revenue of bank officials. he was very confident he was going to come out of this with no trouble at all. he began to lay out what his bank had done including selling short its own stock including the fact mitchell hadn't paid income taxes for years. he had written off losses in the process even though he was fabulously wealthy man. a whole bunch of irregularities. in those days, stockbroker companies were part of the banks. basically when the bank had a bad asset it turned over to its stockbroker which sold it to unsuspecting investors. they were unloading bad stocks

along the way. they documented all this. one by one, the revenue around mitchell disappeared. they fired him. there was a huge headlines and newspapers and big shock along the way. this really showed that there was some substance to charges about irregularities on wall street. stock exchange was like a private club whether than public entity. the democrats had just won the election 1932 and were coming into power in march. the incoming chairman of the committee duncan fletcher said we want you to stay and continue this investigation. he wrote a memoir and gave a long oral history about his experiences. he talked about the time of

franklin roosevelt's inauguration. looking at the window and seeing charles mitchell walking by himself with his suitcase to union station. there were hotels all around the plaza here. here's this man that showed up with all this revenue of bank officials and everything else all by himself leaving in the process. that led to him carrying on an extremely ex tensive and careful investigation of wall street banks and brokerages. he was not a senator. he was the chief council. often this is called the pecora investigation or committee. it's the only investigation known for staff person rather than for the chairman of the

committee. it's misidentified sometimes as the pecora commission. there was no commission. it was a committee, banking committee of the senate. that was very important because the senators were also participating in the questioning and listening to witnesses. that led to most significant financial legislation that the congress a has ever passed. it really helped to not only get out of the depression but also to sure up the american economy and the financial system for the next 60 years. major legislation stayed on the books including the glass bank act, including the securities act, securities act, public holdings act. all this came out of the productive investigation. he was a good investor and always got the can dirt on people he was looking into. he always did the homework. he would spring it on them.

he would start by asking questions and then get people sort of sucked into that and then come up with his -- here is the document. can you explain this situation? he had the most famous bankers and brokers of the era here to testify which of course drew in a lot of press, news reel cameras and all the rest. jpmorgan jr. testified in this room. he was a very private banker. no banker had gone into the morgan bank at that point.

of course it was on the front page of pretty much every newspaper the next day. it was a symbolic picture of bankers being humbled by what was going on in congress. he had nothing to do with the circus midget, but it showed the attention that was being given to his committee and the effectiveness that his committee investigation was having. opened in 1909, the russell senate office building caucus room has witnessed many notable senate investigations. in this second of a two part

program, senate historian don richie tells us of hearings held from the 1940s to present day including the 1954 mccarthy hearings and water gate investigation. >> people come into this room all the time now. it's used for lunches, receptions, used for lectures, meetings, award ceremonies, announcements, all sorts of things happen here. it's a grand room. it's just a wonderful setting. immediately people are impressed by the dimensions of the room, wonderful carvings and fixtures here, great chandeliers and history. there's 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 couldn't see it. i said this room always reminds me of grand opera. it's a magnificent setting.

it usually has a large cast of characters and plot. everyone sits around waiting for the witness to sing. television came along in 1847. the first hearing was george marshal testifying before the foreign relations committee. this had to do with american foreign policy. he was secretary of state at the time. this was one of the big issues of the day. >> europe is emerges from the devastation of the most destructive war in history. within its own resources, europe cannot achieve been a reasonable time economic stability. the solution would be much easier of course if all nations of europe were cooperating, but they are not.

>> the real excitement of television covering hearings didn't happen until 1950 when a freshman democratic senator from tennessee named estes keefover began an investigation of organized crime, mafia in the cities of the country. he started going around with the committee to cities rather than having everybody come to washington. the committee went to new orleans, st. louis, kansas city, detroit, chicago, new york and and made the circuit. when it got to new orleans, the local television station preempted howdy dowdi the kid's television show. people were glued to this. it was senators and mobsters. a great combination. as keefover's committee traveled, the local tv started picking up on this.

it was like a broadway with show doing tryouts and getting to the great white way across the new york networks all broadcasted they were national networks. it wasn't local television anymore. one of the witnesses was frank costello a mobster in new york. they came to washington and tv came into this room to cover this. housewives were holding parties inviting their friends over to watch. it was the best television to watch at this point. it turned keefover into an unlikely president candidate. he ran and didn't get the nomination. in 1956 he ran for vice president. a lot of other senators obviously noted that television could turn them into

presidential candidates. then in 1953, joseph mccarthy of wisconsin became the chairman of the old committee, subcommittee on investigations. mccarthy had been a senator since 1947. he'd gotten into the anticommunist building in 1950 when he went to west virginia to give a lincoln's day talk. he said i can't give all names but i hold in my name 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 reading from notes rather than a prepared speech. he couldn't remember exactly what he said. an associated press story came out and made huge headlines from around the country. mccarthy became the nation's

number one red hunter. this is when the rosenberg case was going on. he had nothing to do with rosenberg. he was making charges against people including george marshal and secretary of state deen a achison and others. when he got to be chairman of the committee of investigation, the senate sort of thought he would get off that issue because there was an anticommunist committee. mccarthy felt his investigation committee had jurisdiction over everything and could do what he wanted. he was looking to hire a chief council. he had senior people who had decent reputations. people like john who later

became a judge in the water gate case. he looked at robert kennedy. instead he hired roy cohen a prosecutor from new york who worked in the justice d. this was a big mistake. mccarthy needed somebody to slow him down. he would sometimes lose control and needed a mature force. he was a young and ruthless person. he brought out his worst. it was interesting. i've done oral histories with people that worked here at the time. mccarthy has a villainous image in the history books. everybody that worked for him thought he was a very nice guy. he was the only senator that gave one of the staff a christmas present. he went out of his way to help people. he was always lending money to the capital police. he was a fellow well met.

when he would get before the tv cameras he was dr. jeckyl mr. hyde. when cameras were turned off, he could walk out the door and throw his arm around the person he attacked on the floor. he was an odd person in a lot of ways. he was an inept investigator. he was not focussed to do the hard work. cohen was also not a great investigator in the long run. there are records of committee that are a total mismatch of that time period. they called up hundreds of witnesses to come to talk in closed session. we recently published closed sessions. it's clear there were rehearsals. mccarthy was looking to who to bring out before the tv cameras.

if a person gravelled in front of mccarthy or if a person tone walled mccarthy, they were likely to be called to the public session. if on the other hand a person said it's true in 1932 i was a member of the communist party, thought the economy was collapsing, but after a while i realized the party was ridiculous and got out after they signed a pact with nazi germany 1939. i've been totally anticommunist every sense, this and that. if they offered reasonable explanation of the behavior, they were less likely to be called in and out public. mccarthy wanted people either going to humble themselves in front of him or look awful by stone walling and taking the fifth amendment in investigations. we know now that because of the intercepts there were communist spies in the government in the

1940s. we also know that practically no one mccarthy paid a great amount of attention to was involved in spying. he missed the boat. the house of american activities committee had a much better track record in terms of investigating than did mccarthy. he floundered around. by the end of 1953 however, roy cohen started an investigation of fort mommoth, army signature core in new jersey. he convinced mccarthy they had finally found a link. julius rosenberg once work there had. he was sure there was still a spy ring at work. eventually the army let like 32 engineers be suspended because of the investigation. as the investigation was going on, it turned out mccarthy didn't have evidence on this easy people. most all of them were offered

their jobs back, some refused to go back the to work. it wound up hurting our signal core, our investigation. it's one way the army was able to track what was happening in the word. that was crippled by the mccarthy investigation. in the middle of this, one of mccarthy's staff member, unpaid consultant david shrine got drafted. this was days of the universal draft. he was a young man. he got brought into the army as a private. mccarthy and roy cohen clearly had a crush on david shine. cohen tried to get shine an army commission. he wasn't qualified for commission. he went in as a private. they went in to bombard the army with requests to david shine to

get weekends off. the committee was going to need him for things and all the rest of it. eventually the army tried to placate mccarthy. they didn't want to make him mad. they started documented all this. the army charge mccarthy was continuing the investigation to sort of blackmail them into special treatment for private shine. mccarthy responded that the army was holding private shine hostage to stop his investigation. you have charge and counter charge. the senate had to investigate. this is senator mccarthy's own committee. he's one of the plaintiffs essentially. he had to step down as chairman and let another senator chair and then it became the army versus mccarthy hearings. the president of the united states at this time was a republican president, dwight d. eisenhower who spent his adult life in the army. the one institution that eisenhower identified the most with was the institution mccarthy was investigating.

now the entire administration came down on the other side. a lot of republicans supporting mccarthy realized they needed to support eisenhower. mccarthy's support began to erode at this point. the mccarthy televised meetings were hot television. it was covered gavel to gavel. abc had little daytime programming and was not losing revenue. they covered in the beginning and then went back to soap operas. they would do special hearings at night. if you worked during the day, you could catch mccarthy at night. during the day, everybody was glued to this. again, i do oral histories. people say i came home from school, my mother was sitting down watching television. she was caught up watching the hearings. mccarthy was no longer chairman of the committee. he couldn't control the committee. he had a way of making sure he was the major dome by interrupting points of order.

as soon as the first witness with tried to speak, it was point of order. senator mccarthy would badger and attack the witnesses, raise questions about their credibility, imply they were all communist in the process. >> may i suggest -- i am getting sick of sitting at the end of the table and having whoever wants to interrupt this the middle of a sentence -- >> even roy cohen said watching television that night he realized mccarthy was coming across as a bullying humorless

person, unsympathetic figure. the army hired a talented lawyer from boston, robert welsh who is the old school, just a country lawyer, type. a very cagey construed fella. he badgered mccarthy with humor through the program and really got under his skin. eventually mccarthy attacked not welsh but one of his young assistant attorneys who had been a member of the national lawyer's guild which was the justice department that was a communist front. didn't mean the people in it were communist but somehow they were using this as a front organization. therefore it implies this attorney was secretly a communist. welsh worked out a deal with cohen for certain things he didn't want brought out. he said okay, we won't bring that out. when mccarthy couldn't control himself and brought this up, cohen tried to stop him. welsh said at long last sir,

have you no sense of decency. >> have you no stance of decency sir at long last? have you left no sense of peace? >> i know this hurts you are mr. welsh. couldn't control himself. that's when welch said have you no sense of decency and gave a speech about that. >> let us not advance to make this land further. you have done enough. have you no sense of decency, sir, at lodge last? have you left no sense of decency? >> i know this hurts you, mr. welch, but -- >> i'll say. >> mr. chairman, a point of personal privilege. i'd like to finish this. >> senator, i think it hurts you, too, sir. >> there's some evidence that welch expected mccarthy to do this and, in fact, was prepared to do this and wasn't quite as shocked as he appeared on television at the time. but the television audience was shocked and mccarthy's personal standing really eroded as a result of all this.

interestingly enough, hollywood hired robert welch later on. if you've seen the movie anotmy of a murder, he is the judge in that. but he really did show mccarthy for what he was. and that undermined mccarthy appears standing among the other senators and they began an investigation of mccarthy and his tactics and in december of 19 4, a few months after the hearings, the senate voted to sen temperature senator mccarthy for conduct unbecoming a senator. and all the republicans, including prescott bush, who was a father and grandfather of two presidents ended up to censure senator mccarthy. 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 just a few years later.

when roy cohen stepped down as the council of that committee, the committee hired robert kennedy to replace him. you can go through the records at the national archives. you can tell at the moment cohen leaves and kennedy takes over. . this mishmash of paper is by definition and it looks like a serious attorney is in charge at this point. kennedy brought together a very talented staff and they began investigating. they continued some of the investigations that mccarthy allowed to twist up, including an a investigation of general electric and it's -- it had a union that was a communist dominated union. and general electric, as a result of this, tried to improve its public relations and hired an actor by the name of ronald reagan to do the general electric theater and be a spokesman. >> good evening. tonight, john forsythe stars on the theater and you will see product reports that show how in the things that lead to a better

life for us all, at general electric, progress can start. >> making him let me tell less of a hollywood actor and more of a public spokesman and a public figure. kennedy, then, when the democrats came back and said chief council of the committee and launched an investigation into a labor racket earring, in the late 1950s, this is the room where robert kennedy investigated jimmy hoffa and other labor leaders. on the committee was his brother, john f. kennedy and barry goldwater. it was the first time that national television audiences got a chance to watch the two kennedy brothers and goadwater. it had a big impact on all of their careers. >> and they said you can't tell us who you talked to besides you, mr. hoffa -- >> senator. >> you're accountant. i'm asking you. you're the one who made the report to the committee about

what your accountant found. now we find there are no records and he merely talked to you and the other gentleman involved. and the whole transaction was in cash. >> that investigation went on through 1960 when robert kennedy became the campaign manager for his brother's presidential campaign. in fact, john f. kennedy declared his presidential candidacy in this room in january of 1960. >> senator john kennedy of massachusetts, democrat, throws his hat in the presidential ring at a washington press conference. >> i am, today, announcing my candidacy for the presidency of the united states. >> and a lot of the staff of the permanent subcommittee investigation who during the day were investigating mccarthy at night were in the back rooms planning john f. kennedy's campaign. a lot of the major players in the kennedy administration started out on the senate staff with that permanent subcommittee and investigation. actually, that was not the permanent subcommittee.

that was a special committee that was created out of the labor committee and the permanent subcommittee. so it was a hybrid type of community that was created. robert f. kennedy announced in 1968 that he was running for president in this room. when senator kennedy died, the senate named this room for all three kennedy brothers, john, robert and edward and all had some major event in their career and some hearings, like the jimmy hoffa hearings, to announcing their candidacies to chairing other investigations, to have the nominations that were held in here. so this room is now called the kennedy caucus room.

1973, the watergate hearings opened. it was a turning point for the investigation. john mccarthy had given a bad name to investigations. it gave a certain stigma to the investigation. they investigated. and then the watergate break-ins happened. and while "the washington post" recovered it, pretty much the rest of the press let the watergate story drop.

in t in the end, nixon won an enormous victory. and they discovered a white house connection that had been paid for the burglar to keep them from spilling the beans when they were being tried. and at that point, congress realized that they needed to look into it. so the senate voted to hold an investigation. mansfield was the majority leader at the time. usually when a resolution is submitted to hold an investigation, the person who submit the resolution bams chairman. and edward kennedy had been chair of the subcommission judiciary that started looking into watergate. and he suggested the creation of a special committee. but people thought of edward kennedy as a presidential candidate. he realized they should not have

anybody on this committee a very conservative lawyer from new mexico and not a presidential person by any means. joseph montoya and who respected by the senators, but not seen as presidential candidates. the republicans picked howard baker at their ranking member on the committee. and talk about members of their caucus, as well. and they began an investigation. then they went to public hearings. again, i was in graduate school and the library of congress because we were just fixed on watching the hearings and pbs was broadcasting the hearings

live because the other companies were doing the highlights. i actually came over here, took a take off from working at the library, came over here, sat on the stairs for hours waiting to get my turn in here and i stood over there by that column in the very back of the room and watched john dean on maybe the third day of his testimony. the room was bright light especially up in the front because of all the tv lights that were there. these were tv personalities. and it was just a -- an electric time to be here for that hearing. >> i began by telling the president that there was a cancer growing on the president. >> the senate got ready to hold an impeachment trial, looked

into it. one of the things they the star chamber event if they weren't allowed to watch it. and so they snaulted the first television cameras in the chamber in 1974. president nixon resigned and they kept the cameras there and they turned them on just once. >> so help me god. >> so help me god. >> watergate was 1974 and '74. then in the late '70