This order is issued solely because of the present international situation, and will be withdrawn when the emergency is passed. In the manner of bureaucracy, the emergency lingered on. Clearly, the concept of loyalty predates the 20th century, but loyalty as a qualification determined by large organizations maintaining confidential records was new to American society. It is a distinctive, and seemingly universal characteristic of bureaucracy to conduct affairs by regulation uniformity being the principle organizational goal. Save for the survival and well-being of the organization itself.
Organizations are like that.
To this end, one form of bureaucratic regulation is secrecy. Bureaucratic administration always tends to be an administration of secret sessions in so far as it can, it hides its knowledge and action from criticism. The pure interest of the bureaucracy in power, however, is efficacious far beyond those areas where purely functional interests make for secrecy. The concept of the official secret is the specific invention of bureaucracy, and nothing is so fanatically defended by the bureaucracy as this attitude, which cannot be substantially justified beyond these specifically qualified areas. In facing a parliament, the bureaucracy, out of a sure power instinct, fights every attempt of the parliament to gain knowledge by means of its own experts or from interest groups.