When Wechsler testified before McCarthy’s Senate committee, the senator’s deep paranoia was on prominent display. He suggested that Wechsler’s well-documented hostility to Stalin was an elaborate ruse. As his quarry shifted in his chair, McCarthy speculated that Post editorials critical of his committee were planted by the Manchurian editor: 'Perhaps the most effective way of for communism would be to claim that we deserted the party and, if we got in control of the paper, use that paper to attack and smear anybody who actually was fighting Communism.'