Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1948-08-09
Executive Iron Curtain

criticize President Trumans strange iron
curtain" attitude regarding administrative
handling of the Remington case. Whether
the battle provides campaign material or
not the chairman of the Senate 1nVestl-
eating Committee has rendered a pubic
service by clarifying the issues in this con-
troversy between the executive and leglS-
lative branches of the Government.
Too many persons have been under the
impression that the issue is whether the
President should divulge to Congress, with
risk of eventual publication, certain loyal
ty information obtained from confidential
sources by the Federal Bureau of 1nVestl-
CATION If that were the question under
lying the present impasse, the Presidents
stand would be a sound one. II he were to
release all the information contained IN
the loyalty files of suspected Government
employees, grave injustice might be done
innocent employees. For some of the accu-
sations made against civil servants have
proved, on careful investigation by the
FBI to be wholly false-sometimes mott
waited by spite. Moreover, the FBl Is
pledged to protect the identity and the
condolences of it's informants. To violate
this pledge would be to deprive the FB1 OF
some of it's most productive and valuable
leads in loyalty and espionage cases.
But Senator Ferguson, in his statement
of the case and in his letter to Attorney
General Clark requesting certain data
regarding William w. Remington, made it
plain that his committee was not asking
that such condolences be broken. What
the committee sought, he explained, was
not the secret material bearing on Rem
ington's associations with a self-confessed
former Communist spy, but administrative
information concerning the remarkable
ease with which he obtained appointments
and transfers while under FBI scrutiny.
In short the committee was seeking per-
fectly proper enlightenment from the ex-
ecutive branch as to the administrative
functioning-or malfunctioning-of the
loyalty program.
The committee informed the Attorney
General that it had ascertained that Mr..
Remington, while still under investigation
by the FBI, had been transferred to three
top confidential positions" in the Govern
ment The committee told Mr.. Clark it
wished to find out three things: First,
whether Federal officials authorizing the
transfers ndu DeeH ADVISED Ol MI.
tons clandestine meetings with Elizabeth
Bentley, admitted former Russian agent
second, now, when and to whom such
notifications were sent, and, third, what
action if any, was taken by Mr.. Reming-
tons Superiors on receipt of notification.
These are certainly pertinent and fair
questions for Congress to ask in It's legiti-
mate inquiries into governmental eff
cheney.
Yet the Attorney General-presumabl
on advice of the President-took refuge
behind the broad language of the loyalty
program executive order of March 49, 1948.
That order forbids Federal officials from
disclosing to unauthorized persons any
reports, records and files relative to the
loyalty of Government employees" This
provision was put in the order at the
instance of the FBI and the Civil Service
Commission-but for the sole purpose of
protecting confidential sources of informa-
ton. Neither the FBI nor the Civil Service
Commission asked that it be made broad
enouch to prevent disclosure of admins
trative inefficiency or irregularity 1t is
safe to assume that neither agency had
any idea it would be so construed
What the President, in effect, has done
Is to reSSurrect, in another form, the i'll
advised and short-lived proposal for pro-
tecting Government officials from admin
istrative embarrassment" That proposal
written into tentative security regula-
tions-waS withdrawn by the President
after The Star and other newspapers had
exposed its evil implications. Neither the
President nor any one else has the right to
draw such an iron curtain between the
executive establishment and Congress To
do so is to indulge in an unwarranted,
dictatorial exercise of executive authority
that is violative of democratic processes
and altogether intolerable. 1t is we'll that
this conflict over fundamental issue is
heading for a showdown.