G. David Schine

Gerard David Schine, better known as G. David Schine or David Schine (September 11, 1927 – June 19, 1996), was the wealthy heir to a hotel chain fortune who 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.^[1][2][3]

David Schine
Schine at the Army-McCarthy hearings, 1954
Born	Gerard David Schine (1927-09-11)September 11, 1927 Gloversville, New York, U.S.
Died	June 19, 1996(1996-06-19) (aged 68) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Resting place	Westwood Village Cemetery
Education	Harvard University (BA)
Known for	Army–McCarthy hearings
Spouse	Hillevi Rombin ​ (m. 1957)​
Children	6
Relatives	Junius Myer Schine (father) Lester Crown (brother-in-law)

Early life

Schine was born in Gloversville, New York, to Jewish parents, hotel magnate Junius Myer Schine and Hildegarde Feldman.^[4][5] He attended Phillips Academy and graduated from Harvard University in 1949.^[1] He had entered Harvard in the summer of 1945, taken a leave of absence in the spring of 1946, and returned in the fall of 1947 after a year working as an assistant purser for the Army Transport Service. Though this was a civilian position, he wrote on his application for re-admission to Harvard that he was a "lieutenant in the Army," and other students resented his calling himself a veteran. Said one, "We were all veterans and his pretending to be one went over like a lead balloon."^[6]

At Harvard he lived, according to a later Harvard Crimson portrait, "in a style which went out here with the era of the Gold Coast," the years before World War I when wealthy Harvard students lived apart from their classmates in private accommodations.^[7] College administrators denied his requests to use his dormitory room as an office and to allow a female secretary to visit outside of regular visiting hours.^[6] He did, however, conduct the university band and also served as its drum major.^[8]

Anti-communism and Army–McCarthy hearings

In 1952 Schine published a six-page anti-communist pamphlet called "Definition of Communism"^[9] and had a copy placed in every room of his family's chain of hotels.^[10] Although the pamphlet contained many errors, Time called it "remarkably succinct."^[11][12] The pamphlet introduced Schine to Roy Cohn through newspaper columnist George Sokolsky, and the two became friends.^[13] Cohn at that time was Senator Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel, and he brought Schine onto McCarthy's staff as an unpaid "chief consultant".

McCarthy-era opponents of Communism sought to stamp out material they viewed as pro-Communist. Schine and Cohn conducted a much-criticized 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.^[14][15] Die Welt of Hamburg called them Schnüffler or snoops.^[16] Theodore Kaghan, Deputy Director of the Public Affairs Division in the Office of the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany and a target of the subcommittee, called them "junketeering gumshoes."^[17]

In November 1953, Schine was drafted into the United States Army as a private.^[18] Cohn immediately began a campaign to obtain special privileges for Schine. Cohn met with and made repeated telephone 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) as well as light duties, extra leave, and no overseas assignments. At one point, Cohn was reported to have threatened to "wreck the Army" if his demands were not met.^[12] During 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 on March 22, 1954, under the banner "McCarthy and His Men".^[19]

The Army–McCarthy hearings absolved McCarthy of any direct wrongdoing, blaming Cohn alone. The exposure of McCarthy and his methods before a television audience, however, is widely considered to have heralded the beginning of the end of his career.^[20][21] Cohn resigned from McCarthy's staff shortly after the hearings.^[22]

Later years

After the hearings, Schine left politics and refused to comment on the episode for the rest of his life, so his view of his relationship with Cohn remains unknown. He remained active in the private sector as a businessman and an entrepreneur, working in the hotel, music, and film industries. He was for a time a member of the Young Presidents' Organization.^[23] On October 22, 1957, he married Miss Universe of 1955, Hillevi Rombin of Sweden.^[24][25] They had six children and were married for nearly 40 years.^[24] Also in 1957, Schine's father named him head of Schine Enterprises, though in 1963 Schine's father resumed his position as head of the company.^[26] In 1977, Schine described himself as "retired."^[2]

Schine made a cameo appearance as himself on a 1968 episode of Batman.^[27] Schine was executive producer of the 1971 film The French Connection, which was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won five, including Best Picture.^[1][2] In 1977 he produced That's Action!^[2] Shortly afterwards, Schine was involved with music by The DeFranco Family that achieved Billboard gold and platinum and Cash Box No. 1. Schine's company, Schine Music, also provided songs to Lou Rawls and Bobby Sherman, among others. A musician himself, Schine had music he composed published. He once conducted the Boston Pops Orchestra in place of Arthur Fiedler at a concert celebrating his Harvard University 25th reunion in a performance of Sibelius' Karelia Suite. Some of the musicians refused to play for him and one commented later: "That man ruined my father's life. No way I was going to play for him."^[28] 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 died on June 19, 1996, at the age of 68, in a private airplane accident in Burbank, California. Also killed in the crash were his wife, Hillevi, and their 34-year-old son, Berndt, who was piloting the plane.^[1][18][24] They were buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Legacy

• A documentary film, Point of Order! (1964), was edited by Emile de Antonio from the kinescope recordings of the Army-McCarthy hearings.^[29]
• In the 1992 HBO film Citizen Cohn, Schine is portrayed by Jeffrey Nordling.^[30]
• Following Schine's death, playwright Tony Kushner, who previously wrote the Pulitzer-prize winning Angels in America, wrote a one-act play titled G. David Schine in Hell. The play takes place on the day Schine died and portrays Schine as he arrives in hell and is reunited with Roy Cohn, Richard Nixon, Whittaker Chambers, and J. Edgar Hoover.^[31]
• Where's My Roy Cohn? (2019)
• Schine appears in the first five episodes of the 2023 Showtime miniseries Fellow Travelers, portrayed by Matt Visser.

Notes

1. Lawrence Van Gelder (June 21, 1996). "Crash Kills G. David Schine, 69 [sic], McCarthy-Era Figure". The New York Times. Retrieved October 1, 2023. 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, Calif
2. "G. David Schine". The New York Times. June 5, 1977. Retrieved April 1, 2008. G. David Schine, an Army private who had been chief consultant to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which Senator Joseph R. McCarthy headed. ...
3. Executive Sessions of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. United States Congress. 2003. ISBN 9780160710148. G. David Schine, chief consultant
4. "J. Myer Schine, 78, Hotel Man, Dead". The New York Times. May 10, 1971. Retrieved March 16, 2008.
5. "J. M. Schine, Hotel Chain Founder, Dies". Los Angeles Times. May 9, 1971. Archived from the original on July 17, 2012. Retrieved October 1, 2023.
6. "Schine at Harvard: Boy With the Baton". Harvard Crimson. May 7, 1954. Retrieved March 25, 2015.
7. Samuel Eliot Morison, Three Centuries of Harvard: 1636–1936 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936), 419–21; Jerome Karabel, The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), 44, 51
8. "University Band Revamped". Harvard Crimson. October 19, 1945. Retrieved March 25, 2015.
9. Schine, Gerald David (1952). Definition of Communism.
10. Olson, James C. Stuart Symington: A Life, via Google Books, p. 278
11. Richard Halworth Rovere (1959). Senator Joe McCarthy. University of California Press. p. 194. ISBN 0-520-20472-7. [Schine] confused Stalin with Trotsky, Marx with Lenin, Alexander Kerensky with Prince Lvov, and fifteenth-century utopianism with twentieth-century Communism. ...
12. . Time. March 22, 1954. Archived from the original on December 2, 2008. Retrieved March 25, 2015.
13. . Time. May 24, 1954. Archived from the original on March 21, 2009. Retrieved March 25, 2015.
14. Fred J. Cook (1971). The Nightmare Decade: The Life and Times of Senator Joe McCarthy. Random House. pp. 411–413. ISBN 0-394-46270-X.
15. Geoffrey C. Ward (1988). . American Heritage Magazine. Archived from the original on November 15, 2007. Retrieved March 12, 2008.
16. . Time. April 20, 1953. Archived from the original on December 22, 2008. Retrieved March 25, 2015.
17. . Time. June 22, 1953. Archived from the original on December 22, 2008. Retrieved March 25, 2015.
18. José Cardenas, Doug Smith (June 20, 1996). "Plane Crash Kills McCarthy Aide". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 1, 2023.
19. . Time. March 22, 1954. Archived from the original on April 11, 2005. Retrieved March 12, 2008.
20. Oshinsky, David (2005). A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. pp. 464–465. ISBN 0-19-515424-X.
21. Reeves, Thomas C. (1982). The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy: A Biography. Seattle, Washington: Madison Books. pp. 639 et seq. ISBN 1-56833-101-0.
22. "Mr. Cohn Resigns". The New York Times. New York City. July 21, 1954. Retrieved October 19, 2012. The only valid explanation of Roy Cohn's resignation as chief counsel of the McCarthy committee is that he wished to beat the gun to avoid a certain dismissal. ...
23. Aline B. Saarinen (June 6, 1954). "Business and Art". The New York Times. Retrieved March 8, 2011.
24. Bart Barnes (June 21, 1996). "G. David Schine Dies at 68. Key Figure in McCarthy Era". The Washington Post. Retrieved October 1, 2023.
25. "G. David Schine Is Married". The New York Times. October 23, 1957. Retrieved March 11, 2008.
26. . Time magazine. July 30, 1965. Archived from the original on March 7, 2008. Retrieved March 15, 2008.
27. "The Entrancing Dr. Cassandra". TV.com. March 7, 1968. Archived from the original on September 17, 2012.
28. Thomas Urquhart, For the Beauty of the Earth: Birding, Opera, and Other Journeys (Shoemaker & Hoard2004), p. 76n
29. Internet Movie Database: Point of Order (1964). Retrieved June 12, 2011
30. Internet Movie database: Citizen Cohn (1992) (TV). Retrieved June 12, 2011
31. Fisher, James (2002). The Theater of Tony Kushner: Living Past Hope. Routledge. p. 185. ISBN 0-415-94271-3.. An excerpt is available: New York Times: Tony Kushner, "A Backstage Pass to Hell," December 29, 1996. Retrieved March 8, 2011. For the full text: Tony Kushner, Death & Taxes: Hydriotaphia & Other Plays (Theater Communications Group, 1998)

External links

• G. David Schine at Find a Grave
• G. David Schine at IMDb