Early years

Kaghan was born in Boston and graduated from the University of Michigan

University of Michigan

The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...

.

At the University of Michigan he won several annual prizes given for undergraduate dramatic writing, including the top award in 1935 for a play called Unfinished Picture, later read but not performed by the Group Theatre, identified in 1948 as a Communist front organization by the House Un-American Activities Committee

House Un-American Activities Committee

The House Committee on Un-American Activities or House Un-American Activities Committee was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to "House Committee on Internal Security"...

. He wrote a one-act play called Hello, Franco that was stage in New York City in January 1938. It depicted a multi-ethnic group of Americans in the Lincoln Brigade. They pretend to use their broken field telephone to talk with friends and family back home as well as with Francisco Franco

Francisco Franco

Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...

.

Kaghan worked on the foreign news desk of the New York Herald Tribune

New York Herald Tribune

The New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald.Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly , and the Whig Party's Log Cabin.The paper was home to...

beginning in 1939 and moved to the Office of War Information

United States Office of War Information

The United States Office of War Information was a U.S. government agency created during World War II to consolidate government information services. It operated from June 1942 until September 1945...

 in 1942.

In 1946, he served as editor-in-chief of the Wiener Kurier

Kurier

The Kurier is an Austrian newspaper based in Vienna....

, Vienna's official anti-Communist publication. From 1945 to 1950 he was Director of American Publications for the U.S. Army forces then occupying Austria.

Kaghan served from 1950 to 1953 as Deputy Director of Public Affairs for the United States High Commission in Germany

Allied High Commission

The Allied High Commission was established by the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and France after the 1948 breakdown of the Allied Control Council to regulate and supervise the development of the newly established Federal Republic of Germany The Allied High Commission (also known...

, with indirect responsibility for all of the Commission's newspapers and radios stations in Germany. When Roy Cohn

Roy Cohn

Roy Marcus Cohn was an American attorney who became famous during Senator Joseph McCarthy's investigations into Communist activity in the United States during the Second Red Scare. Cohn gained special prominence during the Army–McCarthy hearings. He was also an important member of the U.S...

 and David Schine

G. David Schine

Gerard David Schine, better known as G. David Schine or David Schine, was the wealthy heir to a hotel chain fortune who received national attention when he became a central figure in the Army-McCarthy Hearings of 1954 in his role as the chief consultant to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on...

, two investigators for Senator Joseph McCarthy

Joseph McCarthy

Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957...

's Senate Permanent Investigations Subcommittee, toured Europe early in 1953, Kaghan called them "junketeering gumshoes." When Cohn called him a security risk, Kaghan said he would welcome a chance to testify before McCarty's committee. He also said that when the two "have made half the record I have in the field of psychological warfare against communism, then perhaps the money this trip of theirs is costing the American taxpayer might begin to pay off." And he offered to show McCarthy his record fighting communism "here in Europe, where the threat is an everyday reality rather than an excuse for creating political confusion."

Resignation

In April 1953, he was called home to testify before the subcommittee. He admitted that in the 1930s he had held radical views and did not recognize the threat Communism posed to the United States, but said that his views had long since changed. The Senators questioned him about plays he wrote around 1930, a possible Communist he shared an apartment with between 1935 and 1940, and other issues. McCarthy read passages from his plays and Kaghan called some of the passages "long-winded" and "corny." He denied Communist Party membership at any time, but supposed he had attended social gatherings organized by his roommate without realizing the political nature of the events. When McCarthy asked for the names of those who visited the apartment, Kaghan said he thought it "un-American" to provide them based on so little grounds for suspecting them of wrongdoing. Kaghan described his conversion to anti-Communism, beginning with suspicions in 1939 and ending with firm belief in 1945 when he took up his State Department assignment in Vienna.

To support his testimony, Kaghan offered the committee a letter from Leopold Figl

Leopold Figl

Leopold Figl was an Austrian politician of the Austrian People's Party and the first Federal Chancellor after World War II...

, a prominent anti-Communist politician and first Federal Chancellor

Chancellor of Austria

The Federal Chancellor is the head of government in Austria. Its deputy is the Vice-Chancellor. Before 1918, the equivalent office was the Minister-President of Austria. The Federal Chancellor is considered to be the most powerful political position in Austrian politics.-Appointment:The...

 of Austria after the Second World War. During the hearing, another cable arrived in support from Ernst Reuter

Ernst Reuter

Ernst Rudolf Johannes Reuter was the German mayor of West Berlin from 1948 to 1953, during the time of the Cold War.- Early years :...

, the Mayor of Berlin

Governing Mayor of Berlin

The Governing Mayor of Berlin is the head of government in the city-state of Berlin, one of the States of Germany. It is the equivalent of the Ministers-President of the other German states except the two other city-states of Hamburg and Bremen, where the heads of government are called "First...

. At one point in the hearing, when Senator McCarthy was unable to remember how Kaghan had characterized Cohn and Schine, Kaghan supplied the answer: "'junketeering gumshoes', sir." He explained why he took an interest in their visit: "It is my duty to uphold the positions and conduct of the American Government. These investigators had cast reflections on the American Senate. There was a raft of cartoons and dispatches in the German press that were hurting American prestige. I felt that it was time I became interested in it."

Following Kaghan's testimony, Robert L. Johnson, the new head of the International Information Administration

Voice of America

Voice of America is the official external broadcast institution of the United States federal government. It is one of five civilian U.S. international broadcasters working under the umbrella of the Broadcasting Board of Governors . VOA provides a wide range of programming for broadcast on radio...

 (IIA), commonly known as the Voice of America, launched a review of the security clearances of several dozen officials in his department, including Kaghan. After discussions with the State Department, Kaghan resigned from his post on May 11, 1953. Friends reported he was pressured to resign. Newspapers described it as a "forced resignation."

Kaghan returned to Bonn and there described the State Department's role in his resignation. He said the Department had asked him to resign before he completed his subcommittee testimony and that its security investigator Scott McLeod

R. W. Scott McLeod

Robert Walter Scott McLeod was United States Assistant Secretary of State for Security and Consular Affairs from 1953 to 1957 and United States Ambassador to Ireland from 1957 to 1961.-Biography:...

 gave personnel orders to the IIA. Expecting to be dismissed, he resigned in order to be able to return to Bonn to bring his wife and children home. He described his Washington experience as "disillusioning," and explained: "When you cross swords openly with Senator McCarthy, you cannot expect to remain in the State Department, even though you have, as I do, loyalty and security clearance and an anti-Communist record reaching from Vienna to Berlin." A week later Raymond Swing resigned his position as senior analyst for the Voice of America to protest what he called the State Department's "spineless failure...to stand by its own staff."

On May 29, more than 200 members of the U.S. High Commission, including Commissioner James B. Conant and Deputy Commissioner Samuel Reber

Samuel Reber

Samuel Reber was a diplomat who spent 27 years in the Foreign Service of the United States, including several years with the Allied High Commission for Germany. Threats by Senator Joseph McCarthy to reveal a homosexual incident in his past forced him to resign quietly from the State Department in...

, attended a farewell party for Kaghan in Bonn, where Kaghan gave a speech that was "constantly interrupted by applause."

Later years

In October 1954, Kaghan congratulated Time

Time (magazine)

Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

magazine when it reported that McCarthy's investigations had "hurt his country's chances to rally the peoples of Europe against Communism." He referred to his State Department superiors as "the schizoid psychological warriors of Foggy Bottom."

The State Department later cleared him of the allegations.

He joined the New York Post

New York Post

The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...

as United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 correspondent and then as a foreign affairs columnist. From January 1967 to September 1973, he was Director of Public Information in Rome for the Food and Agriculture Organization

Food and Agriculture Organization

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is a specialised agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Serving both developed and developing countries, FAO acts as a neutral forum where all nations meet as equals to negotiate agreements and...

 of the United Nations. He worked for a Manhattan public relations firm until retiring in 1975.

Kaghan died of heart failure on August 9, 1989 at Memorial Hospital

Brattleboro Memorial Hospital

Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, the Hospital in Brattleboro, Vermont.Brattleboro Memorial Hospital is a community hospital which has been serving greater Brattleboro and the tri-state area since 1904. The BMH Medical Staff claims to employ more than 100 board-certified physicians, active in both...

 in Brattleboro, Vermont

Brattleboro, Vermont

Brattleboro, originally Brattleborough, is a town in Windham County, Vermont, United States, located in the southeast corner of the state, along the state line with New Hampshire. The population was 12,046 at the 2010 census...

, survived by his wife Nancy, a son Benjamin, and a daughter Susan.

Sources

• Theodore Kaghan, "The McCarthyization of Theodore Kaghan," The Reporter, no. 9 (July 21, 1963), 17–25

External links

• Theodore Kaghan, Public Testimony before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, April 28, 1953