Evening star., 1953-08-26
Mr.. Spinqurn Answers

Mr.. Spingurn Answers
My name was mentioned in The
Star on August 20 in excerpts from
the testimony of Harold CHASER before
the Senate Internal Security Subcom-
mittee.
At the time Of the CHASER hearings
I wrote Robert Morris, chief counsel
for the Senate committee, asking that
my letter be incorporated in the tran
script where reference was made to my
name. He replied this was against
policy. Therefore request that the
following portion of that letter be
printed by The Star:
Dear Mr.. Morris:
have today received your letter
Of April 16, 1853, tnclosing an excerpt
from the testimony of Harold CHASER
before the Internal Security Subcom-
mittee on Tuesday, April IA. 1858.
requested that you send me this
excerpt on April IA, after learning
from the press that my name had been
mentioned by you in the course of your
Interrogation of Harold CHASER (who
is former Treasury Department Of
ficiaD about Victor Perlo, former
subordinate of Harold Glasser's in the
Treasury Department. Both men left
the Treasury Department in 1947, at
which time I was Assistant General
Counsel of the Treasury. acting, among
other things, as legal counsel to the
United States Secret Service and the
other co-ordinated Treasury enforce
ment agencies. was also the legal
member of the Treasury's Loyalty
Board at that time, and in the latter
part of 1916 and the early part of 1947
had been alternate Treasury member
of the Presidents Temporary Com
mission on Employe Loyalty and a
member of the working committee of
that commission which drafted the
recommendations which became the
present Government loyalty program.
In 1949 I was transferred from the
Treasury to the White House staff,
and in 1850 became Administrative AS
sistant to the President of the United
States until october of that year when
I assumed my present post of Federal
Trade Commissioner.
In your questioning of Harold Glas-
ser on April IA (according to the ex-
cerpt which you have sent me), you
asked if he knew that Victor Perlo,
according to security report, of which
you had knowledge, was member OF
the Communist Party?"
You then asked him if he knew
whether or not after that informa-
ton was known, subsequent to con-
versation with one Stephen Spingarn,
at the White House, Victor Perlo's
Treasury record was cleared?"
Mr.. CHASER refused to answer both
questions on the grounds that it might
incriminate him.
The purpose of this letter is to state
that any intimations which the ques-
tions you addressed to Mr.. CHASER (or
his refusal to answer them) may con-
tain that the Treasury record Of Victor
Perlo was cleared after or as the result
of a conversation with me at the White
House Cor anywhere else) Is completely
untrue.
I was one of the Treasury officials
who participated in the handling of
Treasury loyalty matters during the last
three or four months of Victor ,Perlo' s
employment by the Treasury Depart
ment. The files of the Treasury Depart
ment contain a record OF the handling
of such matters. It is my understanding
that Government officers and employees
are prohibited by presidential directives
dating back to 1948 from disclosing de-
tails about Government loyalty cases to
congressional committees, that Presi-
dent Eisenhower has not rescinded these
directives. so that, therefore, they are
still in effect I would like to state,
however, that If President Eisenhower
should decide that the national interest
would not be prejudiced by making
available to your subcommittee the 10y
atty files Of the Treasury Department
bearing on the Victor Perlo matter and
by lifting the prohibition against
oral testimony on this matter by Gov
ernment officials, I would be available
to testify before your subcommittee
about my remembrance of the Treas
ury's handling of this matter which,
believe, was both sound and responsible
incidentally, in 1851 the Republican
chairman of the Central Loyalty Review
Board praised the Treasury Department
in the highest possible terms for its
past handling of loyalty matters.
Stephen J. Spingarn,
Commissioner, Federal Trade Com
mission.