Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 15:09, 1 May 2008

Gerard David Schine, better known as G. David Schine (September 11, 1927 – June 19, 1996), was a 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 Investigations.

Early years

He was born in Gloversville, New York to Junius Myer Schine and and Hildegarde Feldman. Junius was in the movie theater, hotel and real estate industries. Gerard attended Phillips Academy then graduated from Harvard University in 1949.

Anti-communism and Army-McCarthy

In 1952, at age 24, Schine published an anti-communism pamphlet called Definition of Communism, and had a copy placed in every room of his family's chain of hotels. Although the pamphlet contained many errors, it led to Schine being introduced to Roy Cohn through newspaper columnist George Sokolsky, and the two becoming friends. Cohn at that time was Senator Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel, and he brought Schine into McCarthy's staff as an unpaid "chief consultant". Among their other anti-communist activities, Schine and Cohn conducted a highly publicized and widely ridiculed tour of Europe in 1953, examining libraries of the United States Information Agency for books written by authors they deemed to be Communists or fellow travelers.

In November 1953, Schine was drafted into the United States Army as a private. Cohn immediately began a campaign to get special privileges for Schine. Cohn met with and made repeated phone calls to military officials from the Secretary of the Army down to Schine's company commander. He asked that Schine be given a commission, which the Army refused due to Schine's lack of qualifications, and that Schine be given light duties, extra leave and not be assigned overseas. At one point, Cohn was reported to have threatened to "wreck the Army" if his demands were not met. In the Army-McCarthy Hearings of 1954, the Army charged Cohn and McCarthy with using improper pressure to influence the Army, while McCarthy and Cohn counter-charged that the Army was holding Schine "hostage" in an attempt to squelch McCarthy's investigations into Communists in the Army. The hearings were broadcast live using the relatively new medium of television and were viewed by an estimated 20 million people. Just prior to the hearings, Schine and Cohn appeared on the cover of TIME magazine on March 22, 1954.

Schine and Cohn were rumored to have a sexual relationship, although there has never been any proof of this. More recently, some historians have concluded it was a friendship and that Schine was heterosexual. Schine was known to have a fondness for attractive women, and during this period, he was romantically linked with some starlets, including Rhonda Fleming and Piper Laurie. Roy Cohn's homosexuality would later become publicly known, and he died of AIDS in 1986.

The findings of the Army-McCarthy hearings cleared Senator McCarthy of any direct wrongdoing, placing the blame on Cohn alone. But the exposure of McCarthy and his methods before a television audience is considered by many as being key to his downfall from his former position of power and influence. Roy Cohn resigned from McCarthy's staff shortly after the hearings.

Later years

After the hearings, Schine left politics and declined to comment on the episode for the rest of his life. He remained active in the private sector as a businessman and an entrepreneur, working in the hotel, music, and film industries. In 1957, he married the Miss Universe of 1955, Hillevi Rombin of Sweden. They had six children, including Frederick Berndt Schine (1964-1996), and were married for nearly 40 years until their deaths in 1996. Also in 1957, Gerard was named head of Schine Enterprises, by his father Junius. In 1963 Junius resumed his position as head of the company.

Schine made a cameo appearance as himself on a 1968 episode of Batman. Schine was executive producer of the 1971 film The French Connection, which was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won five, including Best Picture. In 1977 he produced That's Action!. Shortly afterwards, Schine was involved with chart topping music that achieved Billboard gold and platinum and Cash Box #1, by The DeFranco Family. Schine's company, Schine Music, would also provide songs to Lou Rawls and Bobby Sherman, among others. A musician himself, Schine had music that he had composed published, and at one point, he guest-conducted the Boston Pops Orchestra for Arthur Fiedler. Schine's post production video house in Hollywood, Studio Television Services, handled clients such as HBO, Disney, Orion, and MGM/UA. His publicly traded research and development company, High Resolution Sciences, endeavored for years to bring high definition to broadcast television.

Death

Schine was killed in 1996, at the age of 68, in a private airplane accident in Burbank, California. His wife was with him on the plane, and his son, Berndt, was piloting the airplane. All three died from their injuries.

Publication

• Schine, Gerald David (1952). Definition of Communism. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

Legacy

Following Schine's death, Tony Kushner wrote a one act comedy play, G. David Schine in Hell. The play takes place on June 19, 1996 (the day Schine died), and portrays Schine as he arrives in hell, where he is reunited with Roy Cohn, Richard Nixon, Whittaker Chambers, and J. Edgar Hoover.

Schine appears as a character in the Novel Fellow Travelers by Thomas Mallon (Pantheon Books: 2007).

Notes

1. ^ "G. David Schine". The New York Times. June 5, 1977, Sunday. Retrieved 2008-04-01. At the start, the focus was on G. David Schine, an Army private who had been chief consultant to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
2. ^ Rovere, Richard H. (1959). Senator Joe McCarthy. University of California Press. pp. pg. 194. ISBN 0-520-20472-7. He hired Roy M. Cohn as Chief Counsel to the Subcommittee, and Cohn recruited G. David Schine as "Chief Consultant" ... confused Stalin with Trotsky, Marx with Lenin, Alexander Kerensky with Prince Lvov, and fifteenth-century utopianism with twentieth-century Communism. ... {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
3. Executive Sessions of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. United States Congress. G. David Schine, chief consultant {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
4. "J. M. Schine, Hotel Chain Founder, Dies". Los Angeles Times. May 9, 1971. Retrieved 2008-03-16. J. Myer Schine, 79, founder and chairman of Schine Enterprises, owners of the Los Angeles Ambassador and other hostelries throughout the nation, died Saturday... {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
5. ^ "Crash Kills G. David Schine, 69, McCarthy-Era Figure". New York Times. June 21, 1996. Retrieved 2008-03-11. G. David Schine, a catalytic figure in the fierce drama that brought to a climax the chapter in American history known as the McCarthy era, was killed on Wednesday when a single-engine plane piloted by his son Berndt crashed shortly after takeoff from Burbank, California. Mr. Schine, who was 69 and lived in Los Angeles, died with his wife, Hillevi, 64, and their son, 35. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
6. Schine, Gerald David (1952). Definition of Communism. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
7. Olson, James C. "Stuart Symington: A Life", via Google Books, p. 278.
8. "The Man in the Middle", Time (magazine), May 24, 1954. "It was Sokolsky, his friends say, who brought Cohn and Schine to the attention of McCarthy and got them their jobs with the subcommittee." Accessed April 24, 2008.
9. See for example: Cook, Fred J. (1971). The Nightmare Decade: The Life and Times of Senator Joe McCarthy. Random House. pp. pp. 411-413. ISBN 0-394-46270-X. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
10. Ward, Geoffrey C. (1988). "Roy Cohn". American Heritage Magazine. Retrieved 2008-03-12. His single stated regret was that he and his young fellow-counsel, G. David Schine, had ever undertaken their celebrated 1953 trip to Europe to purge United States Information Agency libraries of 'more than thirty thousand works by Communists, fellow-travelers and unwitting promoters of the Soviet cause.'
11. ^ "Plane Crash Kills McCarthy Aide; Aviation: G. David Schine, his wife and son die as single-engine craft goes down near freeway soon after takeoff from Burbank Airport". Los Angeles Times. June 20, 1996. Retrieved 2008-03-15. G. David Schine -- focus of the epic congressional hearings in the 1950s that led to the downfall of Sen. Joseph McCarthy -- Schine's wife and their son were killed Wednesday when their single-engine plane crashed moments after takeoff from Burbank airport, police said. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
12. "The Self-Inflated Target". Time (magazine). March 22, 1954. Retrieved 2008-03-11. ... the Army's sensational charge: Roy Cohn had threatened to "wreck the Army" in an attempt to get special treatment for one Private G. David Schine. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
13. "Cohen and Schine. The Army Got Its Orders". Time (magazine). March 22, 1954. Retrieved 2008-03-12. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
14. Miller, Neil (1995). "Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present". New York: Vintage Books. Ironically, it was the inordinate concern on the part of McCarthy and his chief counsel, Roy M. Cohn, regarding the military server of McCarthy committee aid G. David Schine — a concern that may or may not have had a homosexual element to it — that was to precipitate the Army-McCarthy hearings that finally brought down the Washington senator.
15. See for example:
    Wolfe, Tom (April 3, 1988). "Dangerous Obsessions". New York Times. But so far as Mr. Schine is concerned, there has never been the slightest evidence that he was anything but a good-looking kid who was having a helluva good time in a helluva good cause. In any event, the rumors were sizzling away ... {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help);
    Baxter, Randolph (November 13, 2006). "An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture". glbtq, Inc. Tall, rich, and suave, the Harvard-educated (and heterosexual) Schine contrasted starkly with the short, physically undistinguished, and caustic Cohn. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
    On the other hand, author Tom Wicker refers to Schine as "Cohn's boyfriend:" Wicker, Tom (1995). Shooting Star: The Brief Arc of Joe McCarthy. Harcourt. pp. pp. 127, 138 & 166. ISBN 015101082X. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
16. "Piper Laurie". Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen.
17. Hoffman, Nicholas Von (1988). Citizen Cohn: The Life and Times of Roy Cohn. Doubleday. pp. pp. 127, 183–190. ISBN 0245545050. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
18. See, for example:
    Oshinsky, David M. (2005). A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy. Oxford University Press. pp. pp 464-465. ISBN 0-19-515424-X. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help),
    Reeves, Thomas C. (1982). The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy: A Biography. Madison Books. pp. pp 639 et seq. ISBN 1-56833-101-0. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
19. ^ "G. David Schine Dies at 68. Key Figure in McCarthy Era". Washington Post. June 21, 1996. Retrieved 2008-03-15. Also killed in the crash were Mr. Schine's wife, Hillevi Schine, 62, and his son, F. Berndt Schine, 34. Mrs. Schine was Miss Universe in 1956. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
20. "G. David Schine Is Married". New York Times. October 23, 1957. Retrieved 2008-03-11. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
21. "A Towering Empire". Time (magazine). 1965. Retrieved 2008-03-15. In 1957, he turned over the title of president of Schine Enterprises to his elder son, G. (for Gerard) David Schine, who was once the most famous private in the U.S. Army. ... He has not been company president since 1963, when his father took the job back himself. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
22. "The Entrancing Dr. Cassandra". TV.com. March 7, 1968. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
23. Fisher, James. The theater of Tony Kushner: Living Past Hope. ISBN 0415942713. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

See also

• Point of Order! is a documentary film edited from the kinescope recordings of the televised Army-McCarthy hearings.
• List of famous Phillips Academy alumni
• List of Harvard University people

External links

• G. David Schine at Findagrave
• G. David Schine at IMDB

• 1927 births
• 1996 deaths
• McCarthyism
• American film producers
• American businesspeople
• Harvard University alumni
• Phillips Academy alumni