Slandering a Conservative: Sen. Louis Crosby Wyman (R-NH), 1917-2002

The congressman's mistakes overshadow his merits. In the end, despite many years as a fine lawyer and judge, it seems that five-term New Hampshire Congressman Louis Wyman, who died Sunday at his Florida home at age 85, is famous largely for finding himself on the wrong side of history.

Some people in New Hampshire no doubt know that he was the man credited with preventing the closure of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard during the 1960s. More, we suspect, know that he voted against the 1963 Civil Rights Act, a vote he came to regret.

More yet, perhaps, know him as the loser in the closest U.S. Senate race in history. In a bitter contest, the dapper conservative and Washington veteran lost to John Durkin, a populist former insurance commissioner and political neophyte. The election was so close it took 10 months before Durkin was seated in the Senate.

Wyman was first declared the winner by 355 votes, but a recount gave Durkin the election by 10 votes. The Republican-dominated state Ballot Law Commission did a count of its own and gave the election back to Wyman by two votes. The U.S. Senate, then in Democratic hands, declined to recognize that decision. It argued for months before deciding that a new election should be held, which Durkin won with 53 percent of the vote.

Wyman played another role in history, one Hugo DeGregory, now 88, hopes will not be forgotten.

"The state of New Hampshire went after me for 12 years seeking to get from me names they believed I knew of people who were active in the Communist Party. Wyman was the initiator of that probe," said DeGregory, who now lives in St. Petersburg, Fla.

The attorney general's 1955 "Report on Subversive Activities in New Hampshire" contains information on DeGregory, who worked at a dairy at the time. He lost his job the day his refusal to name names became public. Many others targeted for investigation met similar fates.

Wyman's report also offers a chapter on Willard Uphaus, the 69-year-old Methodist minister who ran the World Fellowship Center, a summer camp used by liberals and radicals. Uphaus refused to provide Wyman with the names of the alleged subversives at the camp because he knew what effect that would have on innocent lives. He was jailed for a year. This was the aftermath of World War II, the escalation of the Cold War.

Students, visitors and faculty at Dartmouth College and the University of New Hampshire were particularly suspect. Each school has a chapter of its own in Wyman's report.

Politicians like Wyman may truly have believed there was a commie under every rock waiting to jump out and throw a Molotov cocktail at someone, but DeGregory believes they were really only playing upon people's fears for political gain. History, we think, would agree.

DeGregory had been a communist for a time during the Depression, but he said he did not even know if New Hampshire had a Communist Party at the time he was arrested. His battle to clear himself did not end until the U.S. Supreme Court vindicated him in 1967.

Like Wyman, most of the commie hunters of the McCarthy era are gone now. But the politics of fear is not. DeGregory believes government is again unnecessarily restraining personal liberty and fostering fear out of proportion to the dangers the nation faces.

Here is how he put it: "We are placing all kinds of restrictions on our lives and looking askance at our neighbors. You worry about who is living on the next street or the next block and everybody becomes a vigilante and there's no need for it. We are living according to our fears, not our realities."

Disgusting editorial slandering the recently deceased Louis C. Wyman. Wyman was the actual victor of the infamous 1974 New Hampshire U.S. Senate contest, where he served for 2 days before liberal Democrats sought to overturn the results, eventually giving the office to the loser, ultraliberal John Durkin. Wyman, one of the biggest victims of political fraud in the past 40 years, was treated to this cheap-shot editorial. Apparently this paper feels that his courageous actions in legitimately going after Stalinist terrorists was a reason to smear his good name. I suggest we all email or phone this Stalinist rag and give them our regards for their hate and slander of a fine American. Rest in peace, Senator Wyman. We know who was truly on the right side.

It is a cheap shot editorial. Because Wyman, and other conservatives like him, was correct to go after communists. They had infiltrated the FDR administration, some even in very senior posts. We now know that thanks to the collapse of the Soviet Union and access to KGB files.

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