Case Name: Walter BRIEHL, Appellant, v. John Foster DULLES, Secretary of State, Appellee
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1957-06-27
Citations: 248 F.2d 561
Docket Number: No. 13317
Parties: Walter BRIEHL, Appellant, v. John Foster DULLES, Secretary of State, Appellee.
Judges: 
Reporter: Federal Reporter 2d Series
Volume: 248
Pages: 561–599

Head Matter:
Walter BRIEHL, Appellant, v. John Foster DULLES, Secretary of State, Appellee.
No. 13317.
United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.
Argued Jan. 29, 1957.
Decided June 27, 1957.
Edgerton, Bazelon, and Fahy, Circuit Judges, dissented.
Mr. Leonard B. Boudin, New York City, with whom David Rein, and Joseph Forer, Washington, D. C., were on the brief, for appellant.
Mr. B. Jenkins Middleton, Attorney, Department of Justice, with whom Asst. Atty. Gen. Doub, Mr. Oliver Gasch, U. S. Atty., and Mr. Paul A. Sweeney, Attorney, Department of Justice, were on the brief, for appellee. Mr. Lewis Carroll, Asst. U. S. Atty., also entered an appearance for appellee.
Before Edgerton, Chief Judge, and Prettyman, Wilbur K. Miller, Bazelon, Fahy, Washington, Danaher and Bastían, Circuit Judges, sitting en banc.

Opinion:
EDGERTON, Chief Judge,
announced the judgment and division of the court as follows:
The judgment of the District Court, granting the Secretary's motion for summary judgment, is affirmed. Judges Prettyman, Miller, Washington, Danaher and Bastían vote to affirm. Judges Ed gerton and Bazelon vote to reverse. Judge Fahy votes to remand to the District Court with instructions to remand to the Secretary. Judge Burger took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Judge Prettyman files an opinion in which Judges Miller, Danaher and Bastían concur. Judge Washington files an opinion concurring in the result reached by Judges Prettyman, Miller, Danaher and Bastian. 101 U.S.App.D.C. -, 248 F.2d 576. Judge Bazelon files a dissenting opinion in which Judge Edgerton concurs. 101 U.S.App.D.C. -, 248 F.2d 579. Judge Edgerton also files a separate dissent. 101 U.S.App.D.C. -, 248 F.2d 596. Judge Fahy files a dissenting opinion. 101 U.S.App.D.C. -, 248 F.2d 597.
PRETTYMAN, Circuit Judge, with whom WILBUR K. MILLER, DANA-HER and BASTIAN, Circuit Judges, concur: Appellant, Dr. Walter Briehl, applied in April, 1955, to the Department of State for renewal of a passport, stating his desire to attend an international psychoanalytic congress in Geneva and a World Mental Health Organization Congress in Istanbul. He was and is engaged in the practice of medicine, specializing in psychiatry. In prior years he had attended international meetings in this field. The Director of the Passport Office wrote him that "it would be helpful to the Department if you would furnish an affidavit setting forth whether you are now or ever have been a Communist, and explain your connections with" certain named organizations. Dr. Briehl's attorney replied, saying in part:
"My clients refuse to submit the affidavits your letters request. Your demands and the vague and formless standards of the passport regulations under which you purport to act are palpable violations of their Constitutional rights, including, but not limited to, the First, Fifth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments."
The attorney described Dr. and Mrs. Briehl's professional interests and concluded by saying: "Demand is hereby made that passports as applied for by them be issued forthwith."
Thereupon the Director of the Passport Office wrote Dr. Briehl, saying in part:
"I regret to inform you that after careful consideration of your application for the renewal of passport facilities, the Department of State is obliged to disapprove your request tentatively on the ground that the granting of such further passport facilities is precluded under the provisions of Section 51.135 of Title 22 of the Code of Federal Regulations. A copy of the pertinent Regulations is enclosed for your information.
"In cases coming within the purview of the Regulations above referred to, it is the practice of the Department to inform the applicant of the reasons for the disapproval of his request for passport facilities insofar as the security regulations will permit. In your case it has been alleged that you were a Communist."
Dr. Briehl's attorney replied in part:
"[My clients] wish you to be advised that they do not choose to offer any evidence in support of their applications for passports unless and until they are confronted with the informers your letter states have furnished you with proof that they have been, are, or intend to engage in acts contrary to the national interests of this country."
Thereafter the attorney wrote several times demanding the issuance of the passports and "an evidentiary hearing". An "informal" hearing was arranged. Dr. Briehl, his attorney, and two representatives of the State Department attended. The attorney made an extended statement, in the course of which he recounted the correspondence, described Dr. Briehl's purposes in seeking to go abroad, and made three points as follows:
"Our first point, therefore is that medicine has nothing to do with politics and you may not introduce and confuse the issue of his right to practice medicine and his right to study, and his right to participate in conferences by injecting this issue of politics in connection with his travel abroad. When a physician has a legitimate purpose in going abroad as was stated here, all issues of political affiliations, past or present, definite or indefinite, good or bad, are irrelevant. That will be our first point. My second point is that everyone has the right to travel regardless of political considerations. Now we turn to the third point. that you confront us with the evidence against Dr. Briehl. It is up to the Department to support those allegations by evidence and witnesses which we can examine and confront. [W]e have a right to what the courts have now called a quasi judicial hearing, and it is the Department's job to prove not only the facts with respect to each of these allegations but it is the Department's job to prove wherein each of these activities was wrong and wherein the activities were in violation of the laws of the United States."
The attorney later said:
" Dr. Briehl will not execute an affidavit of the kind you requested. He will not execute an affidavit with respect to past membership; he will not execute an affidavit with respect to present membership ; he will not execute an affidavit with respect to future membership. And that does not apply only to the Communist Party situation, it applies to any political activities or associations or- beliefs because those are things which we think are irrelevant to the right of travel and particularly irrelevant, in fact, incredibly so, to the right of a physician to travel for the purposes indicated in the application for the passport renewal."
In response to a letter from Dr. Briehl's attorney, counsel for the Board of Passport Appeals replied:
"It is understood that you appeared with your client, Dr. Briehl, at a hearing in the Passport Office on August 30, 1955. It is further understood that Dr. Briehl refused to execute an affidavit as to present or past membership in the Communist Party, having been requested to do so by the Passport Office. The Board has not been advised of any further processing of this case under Section 51.137 of the Passport Regulations.
"In these circumstances, the Board could not entertain an appeal from Dr. Briehl at this time. Your attention is invited to Sections 51.138 and 51.142 (22 CFR) of the Passport Regulations, and Sections 51.156(2) and 51.147 (22 CFR) of the Rules of the Board."
And a few days later the Passport Office wrote:
"You will recall that during the recent informal hearing in which you represented Dr. Briehl, he refused to explain or deny the allegations concerning him. He also refused to submit an affidavit setting forth whether he was or ever had been a member of the Communist Party.
"In view of the above, the Department knows of no further action which it can appropriately take in the case of Dr. Briehl."
Dr. Briehl filed a civil action in the District Court, naming the Secretary of State as defendant. He prayed for a judgment decreeing that he is entitled to a passport under the statutes, that the passport regulations of the Secretary of State are invalid and illegal, and that the refusal to renew the passport was in violation of his (Briehl's) rights under the Passport Act of 1926, the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations; enjoining the Secretary from continuing to deny the passport; and directing him to renew the passport.
The Secretary answered, and a motion .and a cross motion for summary judgment were made, with supporting affidavits and exhibits. The court rendered .a brief opinion, denied the plaintiff's motion, and granted the motion of the Secretary.
In this court Dr. Briehl divides his argument into four main points:
1. Appellant's constitutional right to travel could not be conditioned upon his execution of a non-Communist affidavit or compliance with any other political test.
2. Appellee's regulations deprive appellant of procedural due process and the quasi-judicial hearing to which he is entitled under the recent decisions of this Court.
3. The regulations are not authorized by statute, they conflict with the will of Congress and were invalidly promulgated.
4. The Secretary has not made out a ease against appellant, even under the Regulations.
The arguments thus advanced involve consideration of six basic subjects.
I
The nature of the Communist movement. Dr. Briehl's underlying premise, as shown by the statements we have quoted, is that Communist membership or affiliation is a matter of politics, an issue of political affiliation, a political consideration, a political test, and thus is subject to the same rules which apply to political beliefs generally. But it is not so. The Communist organization and program have long since passed beyond the area of mere politics and political opinion. All three branches of the Federal Government — the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary — have declared unequivocally that the Communist movement today is an international conspiracy aimed at world domination and a threat to the internal security of this country. The foreign policy and a large part of the fiscal policy of the Government are based upon that proposition.
The Congress declared in 1950:
"There exists a world Communist movement which, in its origins, its development, and its present practice, is a world-wide revolutionary movement whose purpose it is, by treachery, deceit, infiltration into other groups (governmental and otherwise), espionage, sabotage, terrorism, and any other means deemed necessary, to establish a Communist totalitarian dictatorship in the countries throughout the world through the medium of a world-wide Communist organization."
President Truman declared in 1950:
"WHEREAS world conquest by communist imperialism is the goal of the forces of aggression that have been loosed upon the world; and
"WHEREAS, if the goal of communist imperialism were to be achieved the people of this country would no longer enjoy the full and rich life they have with God's help built for themselves and their children; they would no longer enjoy the blessings of the freedom of worshipping as they severally choose, the freedom of reading and listening to what they choose, the right of free speech including the right to criticize their Government, the right to choose those who conduct their Government, the right to engage freely in collective bargaining, the right to engage freely in their own business enterprises, and the many other freedoms and rights which are a part of our way of life;
In his Inaugural Address of January, 1957, President Eisenhower said:
"The divisive force is international communism and the power that it controls.
"The designs of that power, dark in purpose, are clear in practice. It strives to seal forever the fate of those it has enslaved. It strives to break the ties that unite the free. And it strives to capture — to exploit for its own greater power — all forces of change in the world, especially the needs of the hungry and the hopes of the oppressed."
In his State of the Union speech on January 10, 1957, the President had said: "The existence of a strongly armed imperialistic dictatorship poses a continuing threat to the free world's and thus to our own Nation's security and peace." He referred to "Communist persecution" and to "Soviet aggression".
The Supreme Court has held valid and sufficient the findings of Congress and the findings of a jury to the same import as the foregoing declarations. In Galvan v. Press the Court quoted the above-quoted congressional finding and said: "Certainly, we cannot say that this classification by Congress is so baseless as to be violative of due process and therefore beyond the power of Congress." In American Communications Ass'n v. Douds the Court, balancing the interest of the public against a partial abridgement of speech, upheld the statutory requirement that a person must swear he is not a member of the Communist Party before he can avail himself or his organization of the processes of the Labor Board.
There exists in some quarters a dogged insistence that the Communist movement be treated as any other political organization. It is as though one argued that, since opiates and aspirin both possess medicinal properties, they must be subjected to the same permissions and restrictions. The fact is that opiates are to be and are regulated because of their own peculiar characteristics. And so is the Communist movement and its affiliates. It would be inexcusably naive for any court to declare in the present state of the world that adherence to the Communist cause is a mere matter of politics or political opinion. We shall treat the Communist movement according to what the Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court have declared it to be.
II
The power of government in foreign affairs. Whatever may be the dispute— and it has been extended and intense— as to the division of this power as between the President and the Congress, it seems settled beyond dispute that those two branches between them possess the totality of the power. In a long line of cases, beginning perhaps with Foster v. Neilson and extending down to United States v. Curtiss-Wright Corp., United States v. Belmont, Chicago &. Southern Air Lines v. Waterman Corp, and Ludecke v. Watkins, the Supreme Court has laid down the rule that foreign .affairs and decisions upon foreign policy •are political matters entrusted by the 'Constitution to the political departments <of the Government, and that the judiciary has no part in them. Mr. Justice Jackson, writing for the Court in the Chicago & Southern Air Lines case, stated the proposition in succinct, quotable terms. He wrote:
"The President, both as Commander-in-Chief and as the Nation's organ for foreign affairs, has available intelligence services whose reports are not and ought not to be published to the world. It would be intolerable that courts, without the relevant information, should review .and perhaps nullify actions of the Executive taken on information properly held secret. Nor can courts sit in camera in order to be taken into executive confidences. But even if courts could require full disclosure, the very nature of executive decisions as to foreign policy is political, not judicial. Such decisions are wholly confided by our Constitution to the political departments of the government, Executive and Legislative. They are delicate, complex, and involve large elements of prophecy. They are and should be undertaken only by those directly responsible to the people whose welfare they advance or imperil. They are decisions of a kind for which the Judiciary has neither aptitude, facilities nor responsibility and which has long been held to belong in the domain of political power not subject to judicial intrusion or inquiry."
The range of permissible judicial action in the case at bar is narrowed also by the fact that the Secretary is acting in the context of a national emergency. Only the President may declare an emergency; he has done so. The existence of an emergency indisputably enhances both executive and legislative power. The Secretary has acted pursuant to two acts of Congress, which not only recognize the administrative function of the executive in this area but also delegate to the executive any rule-making power it may have lacked. Thus the Secretary's acts are buttressed by the sovereign power to defend the nation.
There are of course in any government formed upon a constitution residual areas within which the judicial branch may act in respect to a power even so unfettered as is the executive power in foreign affairs. If the President were in gross defiance of constitutional limitations, or perhaps even of congressional prohibitions, the judiciary might act. The Supreme Court has also held that, where the Secretary refused to issue a passport solely upon an erroneous finding of mixed law and fact (in that case citizenship), a decree precluding his denial on that ground could issue.
It must be kept in mind that the power of the judiciary to inquire is vastly different from its power to act. A court often has jurisdiction to determine whether it has jurisdiction. The books are full of cases in which the courts have examined with meticulous care complaints alleging invalidity of executive action in foreign affairs. But seldom if ever have the courts found grounds to impose upon such executive action their own ideas of propriety or wisdom. So in the case at bar it is not suggested that the court could not entertain a complaint against the Secretary of State alleging the illegality of his action. The point is that having examined the allegations the court is without power to act save in a narrow and limited class of extraordinary circumstances.
The inquiry in the case before us is whether the Secretary has so far violated constitutional prescriptions or specific congressional limitations as to cast his action outside the exceedingly broad boundaries within which he is free to act without judicial review.
Ill
The nature of a passport. In Urtetiqui v. D'Arbel the Supreme Court said in 1835:
"It is a document, which, from its nature and object, is addressed to foreign powers; purporting only to be a request, that the bearer of it may pass safely and freely; and is to be considered rather in the character of a political document, by which the bearer is recognized, in foreign countries, as an American citizen; and which, by usage and the law of nations, is received as evidence of the fact."
But, whatever may have been its nature in the past, the pertinent characteristic of a passport in the present controversy is that it is a requisite for going abroad. And thus it has become a tool with which the Department of State can prevent the presence of any American citizen in a foreign country.
A statute, alluded to by the Supreme Court in Johnson v. Eisentrager, provides that, whenever the President learns that a citizen of the United States has been deprived of his liberty by any foreign government, he must demand the reasons and, if it appears the imprisonment is wrongful, demand release and use such means not amounting to war as are necessary to effectuate the release. So, while a passport as such does not bestow rights of protection which a citizen does not otherwise have, it does, as a permit to travel abroad, allow him to put himself in a position where he may invoke the protective power of this government. So one of the questions here is whether the Secretary may prevent an American with Communist affiliations from being in a place where political indiscretion might involve the United States Government in international complications.
IV
The right to travel. The present dispute over passport denials is less than a decade old, but its antecedents are to be found deep in the history of Anglo-American law. The English sovereign had for many centuries a recognized right to prevent foreign travel and to recall subjects from abroad. Late in the Eleventh Century Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, was forbidden by William Rufus, son of William the Conqueror, to go to Rome to receive the pallium from Pope Urban II. The Magna Carta, as signed by John Lackland at Runnymede in 1215, deprived the King of the right to prevent foreign travel. However John died shortly afterward, and William Marshall, regent of Henry III, republished the Charter without the guaran tees of freedom of travel. In the following centuries the kings frequently exercised their prerogative, usually through the issuance of a writ Ne Exeat Regnum Parliament also exercised the prerogative by passing statutes which forbade foreign travel to certain classes or which recognized the right •of the King to limit travel. However the writ has gradually fallen into disuse. It is most unlikely that a writ Ne Exeat Regnum would issue in modern England, except in time of war. This does not mean that an Englishman has an enforceable right to a passport.
The Articles of Confederation and the Constitution of the United States clearly recognized the right of citizens to travel among the various states. But whether the liberty mentioned in the Fifth Amendment included liberty to leave this country and circulate among foreign nations was not so clear. A three-judge federal District Court recognized in 1952 that a citizen has at least a limited right to international travel. This court has since recognized that right. However the existence of this limited right does not preclude the existence in the sovereign of a right to limit travel. The Supreme Court has established the power of the Government to recall a person from abroad to appear in a lawsuit, an exercise of the same sort of control over movement available to the English sovereign through Ne Exeat Regnum. In Blaekmer v. United States the Court made the broad statement:
"What in England was the prerogative of the sovereign in this respect, pertains under our constitutional system to the national authority which may be exercised by the Congress by virtue of the legislative power to prescribe the duties of the citizens of the United States."
While Blaekmer refers to the power to limit foreign travel as being exercised by the Congress, the power is not solely congressional. In matters pertaining to war and emergency or to the foreign policy, the power may reside in the executive or in both branches jointly. Whatever the theoretical residence of such power, the power to limit travel has in fact been exercised through the cooperative efforts of Congress and the President. During the War of 1812 Congress forbade citizens to travel into enemy countries without passports. During the Civil War passports were required of all persons entering or leaving the country. In 1861 Secretary of State Seward ordered that "Until further notice, no person will be allowed to go abroad from a port of the United States without a passport either from this Department or countersigned by the Secretary of State". This action was taken by the executive branch on its own initiative, without the sanction of Congress.
In 1856 Congress had granted the Secretary of State sole authority to issue passports. The Secretary was authorized to issue them "under such rules as the President shall designate and pre scribe". In 1918 Congress, leaving intact the broad discretion inherent in the words just quoted, gave the President power to make it unlawful to leave the country in time of war without a passport. The President exercised this power by an appropriate proclamation. The period between the two World Wars saw Congress reaffirm in the executive the broad discretion declared in the 1856 act, the new language being "may grant". This was in a 1926 act which remains today the underpinning of congressionally-granted executive power in the field. That period also witnessed the codification in 1938 of State Department passport regulations and their affirmation by executive order.
The machinery which today enables the State Department to regulate travel through passport control began to take shape in June of 1941, when Congress amended the act of 1918 to enable the President to make it a crime to leave the country without a passport, not only in time of war but also during the existence of the national emergency proclaimed by the President on May 27, 1941. On November 14, 1941, President Roosevelt exercised the authority over entry and exit vested in him by the amendment. President Truman declared the termination of that state of emergency on April 28, 1952. But the termination of the World War II emergency did not affect the Korean emergency, declared by President Truman on December 16, 1950. Consequently our nation has been in a continuing state of emergency since May of 1941.
By act of June 27, 1952, Congress declared:
"Sec. 215. (a) When the United States is at war or during the existence of any national emergency proclaimed by the President, and the President shall find that the interests of the United States require that restrictions and prohibitions in addition to those provided otherwise than by this section be imposed upon the departure of persons from and their entry into the United States, and shall make public proclamation thereof,
"(b) and while such proclamation is in force, it shall, except as otherwise provided by the President, and subject to such limitations and exceptions as the President may authorize and prescribe, be unlawful for any citizen of the United States to depart from or enter, or attempt to depart from or enter, the United States unless he bears a valid passport."
This statute applies to any national emergency. It would appear that the Korean emergency, existing when the statute became law, made the section above quoted immediately operative. Any doubt on this score was removed by President Truman's proclamation of January 17, 1953, specifically invoking the 1952 act.
Two conclusions emerge from this complex series of laws, proclamations and orders. First, it is forbidden to leave this country without a passport. This rule was specifically provided by the Congress in the 1952 act, by the Presi dent in Proclamation No. 3004, and by the Secretary in Section 53.1 of his Regulations. Second, it is within the power of the Secretary of State to refuse to issue a passport. This power is lodged in him by the act of 1926, as implemented in Section 124 of Executive Order No. 7856 ; is both claimed by the Secretary in Sections 53.1-53.9 of the Regulations and exercised by him thereunder; and is reaffirmed by the President in Proclamation No. 3004. The restrictions of the 1952 act upon travel without a passport can be read intelligibly only in the light of the Secretary's long-recognized power to refuse a passport.
Shortly after the passage of the 1952 act the Secretary issued additional regulations to govern the issuance of passports. This was done pursuant to Executive Order No. 7856, supra, which specifically provided that the Secretary may make rules additional to the rules contained therein, so long as they are not inconsistent therewith.
V
The regulations of the Department. The regulations which the Secretary promulgated provide in substance that, in order that persons who support the world Communist movement may not through the use of United States passports further the purposes of that movement, no passport shall be issued to persons who are members of the Communist Party or to certain others who are believed to engage in activities which will advance that movement; that a person whose application is tentatively denied under the foregoing will be notified in writing, including notice of the reasons as specifically as security considerations permit; that such person will be entitled to present his case informally to the Passport Division and to appear before a hearing officer with counsel; and that if the decision is adverse it shall be in writing with reasons and the applicant shall be entitled to appeal to the Board of Passport Appeals, where he will be accorded a hearing with counsel. The regulations provide:
"Oath or affirmation by applicant as to membership in Communist Party. At any stage of the proceedings in the Passport Division or before the Board, if it is deemed necessary, the applicant may be required, as a part of his application, to subscribe, under oath or affirmation, to a statement with respect to present or past membership in the Communist Party. If applicant states that he is a Communist, refusal of a passport in his case will be without further proceedings."
The substantive part of the regulations provides that no passport shall be issued to certain described classes of persons. Roughly paraphrased those classes are (1) members of the Communist Party, (2) persons who have recently terminated Party membership under certain circumstances, (3) persons who support the Communist movement under certain circumstances, and (4) persons as to whom there is reason to believe they are going abroad for the purpose knowingly of advancing the Communist movement. We do not know from the record presently before us whether the Secretary would finally refuse a passport to Dr. Briehl if the matter were to progress to final decision, and we do not know in what proscribed class the Secretary might find Dr. Briehl upon the evidence before him if that evidence caused a refusal of the passport. And so we intimate no opinion upon the merits of Dr. Briehl's application; we have no opinion upon that subject. But, since we must determine the validity of the procedural provisions of the regulations, we face the validity of the underlying substantive provisions. We think those regulations are valid as regulations.
The regulations in no way attempt to implement an unlimited discretion in the Secretary. They provide for peremptory denial of a passport under only one circumstance, admitted present membership in the Communist Party (Sec. 51.142). Standards for denials upon other grounds are set up. That section of the regulations (51.135) obviously contemplates findings upon facts. It uses such terms as "under such circumstances as to warrant the conclusion", "not otherwise rebutted by the evidence",; and "on the balance of all the evidence". Thus the regulations clearly require facts — revealed or unrevealed — and an evaluation of information. They do not provide for an unfettered discretion. Such provisions are the normal content of statutes or regulations which establish criteria for administrative action. Moreover, as we read the regulations, they refer to knowing associations with Communism.
As we have pointed out, the Communist movement is, in the view of this Government, an aggressive conspiracy potentially dangerous to this country. Travel abroad by members of or adherents to the Communist movement is obviously an easy method of communication between such persons or organizations in this country and the prime sources of Communist policy and program in the Soviet Union and its satellites. Once a person with a passport is out of this country, this Government has no control over where he goes. His travel is controlled entirely by whatever countries he thereafter wishes to leave and to enter. The Department of State has authority to refuse to facilitate that communication.
In the second place, unless all the major foreign and fiscal policies of this. Government, under two administrations, of opposing political parties, have been a gigantic fraud, it is the unequivocal duty of the Department of State to prevent international incidents which might arouse hostile activities on the part of the Soviet Union or its satellites. To-that end the Secretary may refuse to permit an adherent of the Communist movement, clothed with American citizenship, from being present in places where he may readily create incidents or may assert statutory rights to activity on the part of this Government in his behalf. The Secretary may preclude potential matches from the international tinderbox.
As is recognized throughout this opinion, consistently with the other opinions of this court in this field, the restrictions imposed by these regulations and the underlying statutes upon the right to travel are impingements upon that phase of liberty and indirectly upon the exercise of First Amendment rights. And so the problem in the case is once more the familiar problem of balancing private right against public requirement. Our conclusion is reached by such a balancing. In the international situation of the present, the reasonable requirements of national security and interest and the delicate characteristics of foreign relations outweigh the needs or desires of an individual to travel, when the Secretary finds the facts to be such as to preclude grant of a passport under the regulation.
We therefore conclude that persons properly found to come within Section 51.135 of the Regulations are not illegally denied any constitutional right if they are refused passports.
It is suggested to us that, since the Internal Security Act of 1950 made certain provisions pertaining to passports to members of registered Communist organizations, it preempted the field and rendered null all other statutes and regulations relating to Communists and passports. Such a conclusion would have to be an inference; we find no specific provision to that effect. We think the inference is not supportable. The 1950 act made it unlawful for a member of a registered Communist organization to apply for a passport or to use one, and made it unlawful for any officer or employee of the United States to issue a passport to such a member. It prescribed penalties up to $10,000 fine and five years' imprisonment for violation. So the 1950 act relating to passports is a criminal statute. It applies to only a portion of the people to whom the Secretary's regulations apply, as is easily seen by reference to Section 51.135. Moreover the 1952 statute, making it a crime-for any person to leave the country without a passport during an emergency, was passed after the 1950 act. The 1952 act continued in effect the system of travel control by passport denial employed since-1941. That fact compels the conclusion that the criminal sanctions of the 1950 act are in addition to, not to the exclusion of, that control. Passport regulations under the later act are not prohibited by the former. We think the-1950 act did not preempt the field in respect to passports and adherents to the Communist movement.
VI
The requirement for an affidavit. In the case at bar Dr. Briehl was advised in writing that it had been alleged he was a Communist. He was required to admit or deny that allegation-, under oath before the proceeding on his application went further. Dr. Briehl urges, as we have seen, that he is entitled to be confronted with witnesses and evidence sustaining the Secretary's suggestions of Communist affiliations. He says he is entitled to that revelation without first filing an affidavit in response to the-suggestions. He says this is a requisite of due process. But our judicial process knows no such requirement. Our judicial process is that a party must plead before he is entitled to trial. There is-nothing new or novel about that. Dr. Briehl says he is entitled to know his opponent's evidence before he pleads. Under the rules of civil procedure, if a defendant party does not plead, a default, judgment is entered against him. We- know of no reason why Dr.. Briehl should not be required to admit or deny the Secretary's allegations before he gets an evidentiary hearing.
It is said that if Dr. Briehl should admit being a member of the Communist Party • his application would thereupon promptly be denied, and therefore, it is said, no administrative remedy is really afforded him. But precisely the same thing happens to any party to a lawsuit. If he admits his opponent's allegations of fact he gets no evidentiary hearing; he gets an oral argument and perhaps a summary judgment against him. We know of no rule or doctrine that, if a party to a controversy admits adversary allegations of fact, the proceeding is void if no evidentiary hearing is thereafter afforded him. It is elementary that a party must raise an issue of fact in order to get a hearing on the facts.
In National Council of American-Soviet Friendship v. Brownell, we held, citing several eases, that a party to an administrative proceeding could not default and still continue to litigate.
Moreover Dr. Briehl is an applicant. There is nothing new or novel about requiring an applicant for a permit or a license to supply pertinent information under oath. Applicants for radio licenses and air route certificates must do so, and applicants for marriage licenses, voting privileges, and business permits must also. And, failing to supply the required data, the applicant cannot exercise his right. We know of no reason why an application for a passport .should not be treated by the usual rules pertaining to applications. If Communist Party affiliations are pertinent to the Secretary's decision upon the possible consequences or complications of an applicant's presence in foreign countries or his roving about foreign areas in present world conditions, we see no reason why Communist affiliations should not be part of the data required by the application.
Dr. Briehl complains that the evidence in respect to the allegations asserted in the Secretary's advices to him may be in part confidential, and he argues that such possibility effectively nullifies the due process of the procedure. He seeks to bring the situation within the doctrine followed by the Ninth Circuit in Parker v. Lester, that, if it be established in advance that a proffered administrative remedy will not afford due process, the remedy need not be pursued. It is true that a passport denial may be based upon confidential information. But due process of law is a term of variable content. The necessity for secrecy in the conduct of foreign affairs has been asserted, seemingly without question, ever since President Washington refused to submit to the House of Representatives the documents relating to the Jay Treaty. The Supreme Court said in the CurtissWright case:
"The marked difference between foreign affairs and domestic affairs in this respect is recognized by both houses of Congress in the very form of their requisitions for information from the executive departments. In the case of every department except the Department of State, the resolution directs the official to furnish the information. In the case of the State Department, dealing with foreign affairs, the President is requested to furnish the information 'if not incompatible with the public interest.' A statement that to furnish the information is not compatible with the public interest rarely, if ever, is questioned."
And recognition of the necessity for secrecy in foreign affairs, coupled with a strong admonition to the judiciary against any attempts on its part to peer into or to unveil such confidential material, is contained in the Court's opinion in the Chicago & Southern Air Lines case, from which we have quoted. That case concerned the right of an American company to do business abroad. That was a right of the applicant if he could meet the appropriate specifications. But the Supreme Court specifically and emphatically pointed out that the President could deny the application for secret and confidential reasons. We know of no reason why an individual's right to travel abroad is to be treated by different constitutional standards than is his right to do business abroad. And we know of no reason why treatment of alleged Communist affiliation is to be put upon a preferred basis as compared with ordinary commercial infirmities or adverse suggestions.
Further justification for secrecy in a case of this type is supplied by the fact that the nation is in a state of national emergency, caused by the infiltration program of the Communist movement. During such an emergency cabinet officers may be forced to act on the basis of information the publication of which is inconsistent with national security. When the Secretary of State avows that in the interest of national security he cannot spread certain information on an open record, and explains with as much particularity as possible the reasons why he cannot do so, courts must rely upon his integrity and accept his statement.
We held in Boudin v. Dulles that, where a passport has been denied by the Secretary on the authority of a specific regulation, he (the Secretary) must make findings in writing responsive to the requirements of that regulation, and in such a case must state whether the findings are based on evidence openly produced or on secret information and, if the latter, "should explain with such particularity as in his judgment the circumstances permit the nature of the reasons why such information may not be disclosed." We adhere to that ruling. We are of the view that due process in passport proceedings does not prevent the use of confidential information when foreign affairs or the national security is involved.
In summary on this point we are of opinion that, if a person falls within one of the classes described in the regulations, the Secretary may refuse him a passport; and it follows that, if it be alleged he is in one of those classes and he refuses to admit or deny the allegation, the passport may be refused.
From the foregoing basic considerations some conclusions are easily reached. We summarize. In the deliberate judgment of this Government the Communist movement is today a conspiracy for world domination sufficiently threatening to the security of this nation to justify the expenditure of billions of dollars every year to thwart its ambitions. Limitations and prohibitions upon leaving one's country and traveling abroad have been enforced in periods of stress since time immemorial. It would be idle, if not ridiculous, in view of the absorption of the whole world in the problem of the Communist program and of the extent of the attention and activity of our own Government in that respect, for any court to say the present is not a period of stress in international affairs. The present limitations upon travel effectuated by passport control are authorized by statute and by presidential proclamation. They are, as we said in Shachtman v. Dulles, an impingement upon a natural right of a citizen to travel. But no right, even the right to life, is absolute, and so the inquiry must be whether the impingement is valid. Executive action in the field of foreign affairs has been clothed in secrecy since the foundation of the Republic, and the Supreme Court has invariably protected that secrecy and repeatedly warned the judiciary not to invade that realm of executive prerogative. The rule, has been applied by the Court even where the matter involved was transportation over international routes. Requirements that one admit or deny an adversary's allegations of fact before the right to an evidentiary hearing arises are elementary in judicial process; a fortiori in quasi-judicial process. And requirements that an applicant for a permit submit prescribed pertinent data as a prerequisite to consideration of his application are usual and valid in administrative procedure.
Analyzed to its underlying elements the critical problem in the case before us is simply whether the Secretary of State may decline to issue a passport to a person who refuses to admit or deny that he is a member of the Communist Party. We think he may. Or to state the problem in different terms, it is whether membership in or adherence to the Communist Party is a valid subject of inquiry prerequisite to the issuance of a passport under world conditions. We think it is.
We are of opinion that the disputed regulations of the Secretary are valid and that Dr. Briehl did not qualify himself for a passport under them. The judgment of the District Court, granting the Secretary's motion for summary judgment is
Affirmed.
. 64 Stat. 987, 50 U.S.C.A. § 781(1).
. Proc. No. 2914, 64 Stat. A454, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix note preceding section 1.
. 103 Cong.Rec. 729 (daily ed. Jan. 21, 1957).
. 103 Cong.Rec. 389 (daily ed. Jan. 10, 1957).
. Id. at 390.
. Galvan v. Press, 347 U.S. 522, 74 S.Ct. 737, 98 L.Ed. 911 (1954).
. Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494, 71 S.Ct. 857, 95 L.Ed. 1137 (1951).
. Supra note 6, 347 U.S. at page 529, 74 S.Ct. 737.
. 339 U.S. 382, 70 S.Ct. 674, 94 L.Ed. 925 (1950).
. And see the opinion of Mr. Justice Jackson in American Communications Ass'n v. Douds, id., 339 U.S. at page 424 et seq., 70 S.Ct. 674, with its accumulation of underlying data.
. 2 Pet. 253, 27 U.S. 253, 7 L.Ed. 415. (1829).
. 299 U.S. 304, 57 S.Ct. 216, 81 L.Ed. 255 (1936).
. 301 U.S. 324, 57 S.Ct. 758, 81 L.Ed. 1134 (1937). Belmont is discussed at length and with approval in United States v. Pink, 315 U.S. 203, 62 S.Ct. 552, 86 L.Ed. 796 (1942).
. 333 U.S. 103, 68 S.Ct. 431, 92 L.Ed. 568 (1948).
. 335 U.S. 160, 68 S.Ct. 1429, 92 L.Ed. 1881 (1948).
. Supra, 333 U.S. at page 111, 68 S.Ct. 431. Extensive discussions of the doctrines underlying the powers of the President are in the opinions in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 72 S.Ct. 863, 96 L.Ed. 1153 (1952).
. Proc. No. 2914, supra note 2.
. Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81, 63 S.Ct. 1375, 87 L.Ed. 1774 (1943).
. 44 Stat. 887 (1926), 22 U.S.C.A. § 211a; 66 Stat. 190 (1952), 8 U.S.C.A. § 1185.
. Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. 325, 349, 59 S.Ct. 884, 83 L.Ed. 1320 (1939).
. See Carrington, Political Questions: The Judicial Check on the Executive, 42 Va.L.Rev. 175 (1956).
. 9 Pet. 692, 34 U.S. 692, 699, 9 L.Ed. 276.
. See 3 Hackworth, Digest of International Law § 259 (1942).
. 15 Stat. 224 (1868), 8 U.S.C. § 903b [now 22 U.S.C.A. § 1732].
. 339 U.S. 763, 770, 70 S.Ct. 936, 94 L.Ed. 1255 (1950).
. 1 Bl.Comm. * 265; 3 Co.Inst. * 178; 1 Holdsworth, History of English Law 230 (6th ed. 1938); Taswell-Langmead, English Constitutional Law 128-130 (4th ed. 1890).
. 2 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Anselm (1945); Beames, Ne Exeat Regno 1-2 (2d ed. 1824).
. See Note, Passports and Freedom of Travel: The Conflict of a Right and a Privilege, 41 Geo.L.J. 63 (1952), for a detailed account of the history of the Magna Carta and the status of the common law in this regard.
. 3 Co.Inst. * 179.
. Id. at * 178-179.
. 5 Richard II, c. 2, § 6, 7 (1381), 2 Stat. at L. 236 (Pick.1762).
. See Note, 41 Geo.L.J., supra note 28, at 70; Diplock, Passports and Protection in International Law, 32 Grotius Soc. 42, 44 (1947).
. Diplock, supra note 32, at 53.
. Art. IV.
. Art. IV, § 2. See Hess v. Pawloski, 274 U.S. 352, 47 S.Ct. 632, 71 L.Ed. 1091 (1927) ; Williams v. Fears, 179 U.S. 270, 21 S.Ct. 128, 45 L.Ed. 186 (1900).
. Bauer v. Acheson, D.C.D.C., 106 F.Supp. 445.
. Shachtman v. Dulles, 96 U.S.App.D.C. 287, 225 F.2d 938 (1955).
. 284 U.S. 421, 437-438, 52 S.Ct. 252, 76 L.Ed. 375 (1932).
. 3 Stat. 199 (1815).
. Dep't of State, The American Passport — History and Digest 50 (G.P.O. 1898).
. 11 Stat. 6.
. 40 Stat. 559, 22 U.S.C.A. § 223-226b.
. 40 Stat. 1829 (1918).
. 44 Stat. 887 (1926), 22 U.S.C.A. § 211a.
. Exec.Order No. 7856, 3 Fed.Reg. 681, 22 C.F.R. § 51.1-51.77 (1949).
. 55 Stat. 252, 22 U.S.C.A. § 223.
. Supra note 42.
. Proc. No. 2487, 55 Stat. 1647, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, note preceding section 1.
. Proc. No. 2523, 55 Stat. 1696, U.S.Code Cong.Service 1941, p. 883.
. Proc. No. 2974, 66 Stat. C31, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix note preceding section 1.
. Proc. No. 2914, supra note 2.
. 66 Stat. 190, 8 U.S.C.A. § 1185.
. Proc. No. 3004, 67 Stat. C31, U.S.Code Cong. and Adm.News 1953, p. 915.
. Ibid.
. 22 C.F.R. § 53.1 (1949).
. Supra note 44.
. Supra note 45.
. 17 Fed.Reg. 8013 (1952), 22 C.F.R. § 51.135-51.143 (Supp.1952).
. Ibid.
. 22 C.F.R. § 51.142 (Supp.1955).
. Id. § 51.135, reading in full text as follows:
"Limitations on issuance of passports to persons supporting Communist movement. In order to promote the national interest by assuring that persons who support the world Communist movement of which the Communist Party is an integral unit may not, through use of United States passports, further the purposes of that movement, no passport, except one limited for direct and immediate return to the United States, shall be issued to:
"(a) Persons who are members of the Communist Party or who have recently terminated such membership under such circumstances as to warrant the conclusion — not otherwise rebutted by the evidence — that they continue to act in furtherance of the interests and under the discipline of the Communist Party;
"(b) Persons, regardless of the formal state of their affiliation with the Communist Party, who engage in activities which support the Communist movement under such circumstances as to warrant the conclusion — not otherwise rebutted by the evidence — that they have engaged in such activities as a result of direction, domination, or control exercised over them by the Communist movement.
"(c) Persons, regardless of the formal state of their affiliation with the Communist Party, as to whom there is reason to believe, on the balance of all the evidence, that they are going abroad to engage in activities which will advance the Communist movement for the purpose, knowingly and wilfully of advancing that movement."
. Ibid.
. Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U.S. 183, 73 S.Ct. 215, 97 L.Ed. 216 (1952).
. E. g., Shachtman v. Dulles, supra note 37; Boudin v. Dulles, infra; Robeson v. Dulles, 98 U.S.App.D.C. 313, 235 F.2d 810 (1956), certiorari denied 352 U.S. 895, 77 S.Ct. 131, 1 L.Ed.2d 86 (1956); Dulles v. Nathan, 96 U.S.App.D.C. 190, 225 F.2d 29 (1955).
. See American Communications Ass'n v. Douds, supra.
. Sec. 6, 64 Stat. 993, 50 U.S.C.A. § 785.
. Sec. 15, 64 Stat. 1002, 50 U.S.C.A. § 794.
. 1957, 100 U.S.App.D.C. 116, 243 F.2d 222.
. 1955, 227 F.2d 708.
. Moyer v. Peabody, 212 U.S. 78, 84, 29 S.Ct. 235, 53 L.Ed. 410 (1909); Federal Communications Comm. v. WJR, 337 U.S. 265, 275, 69 S.Ct. 1097, 93 L.Ed. 1353 (1949).
. See United States v. Curtiss-Wright Corp., supra, 299 U.S. at page 320, 57 S.Ct. at page 221.
. Id., 299 U.S. at page 321, 57 S.Ct. at page 221.
. 98 U.S.App.D.C. 305, 235 F.2d 532 (1950).
. Supra vote 37.