Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1955-04-17
Loyalty Program Faces
Life or Death Court lest
BIZ ROBERT K. WALSH


A legal puzzler almost as per-
picking as the school integration
problem confronts the Supreme
Court this week in arguments on
the Governments method of FIR
ing an employe as loyalty risk.
Attorneys Thurman Arnold.
Abe Fortas and Paul A. Porter.
fighting the reasonable doubt"
disloyalty dismissal of DR.. John
P. Peters, plan to pin-point their
attack on constitutionality of the
hearing held when an employees
loyalty is at issue.
In oral arguments tentatively
to begin late Tuesday. they will
not strike at a Federal loyalty
security program as such. They
concede a Presidents right to
establish and operate it by ex-
ecutive order. They grant the
Governments authority to GUST
employees summarily for practic-
ally any other cause, with or
without hearings.
Aide to Surgeon General
But, in the case of DR.. Peters,
Yale University senior medical
professor dropped in 1858 as a
part-time consultant to the.
United States Surgeon General
after loyalty board proceedings
which began in 1949, his lawyers
hit this point:
1.-THE true issue is whether the
executive is acting arbitrarily
when it stigmatizes a citizen as
disloyal without affording him
an opportunity to confront and
cross-examine witnesses"
They hold that when it comes
to a Federal employees possible
dismissal on disloyalty grounds,
and when the employee gets a
board hearing under the Fed
eral loyalty program order. he
is entitled to due process Of law.
This means that once an en-
ploye is afforded a hearing on
complaints or suspicious about
his loyalty, his constitutional
rights are violated unless he has
a chance to know and question
witnesses against him. Moreover,
according to this view, the 10y
alty-security system is unconsti-
tutional if it is found to require
a hearing procedure that unduly
limits or prevents the kind Of
due process he would get in a
triad court.
Such a pin-pointing. the JUS
tice Department fears, would
sap the strength of the Govern
ment's effort to keep as free as
possible from subversive infec-
ton.
Governments Position
Assistant Attorney General
Warren E. Burger is prepared to
tell the Supreme Court that it
should not interfere with the
dismissal of DR.. Peters. He con-
tends that never yet in the his
tory of the United States has
the Judiciary stepped into the
field he says is constitutionally
reserved to the Executive in the
selection, dismissal or other
managerial" action concerning
administrative personnel.
Contrary to the Justice De-
partment's warning that a. SUI |
preme Court decision for DR..
Peters would Immediately scrap
the loyalty review board proce-
dure and ultimately weaken FBI
use of confidential informants,
his attorneys maintain it would
do no harm to FIJI operations
Nor would it break down effec-
tive hearings, they add.
Only in exceptional cases |
would undercover agents or paid |
tnformants have to be brought |
directly into a hearing. they be-
lieve. As things stand now, they
charge. the Government has
pressed to extremes the charac-
terization of confidential in
formant" by including gossip,
casual conversations and one