Opinion ID: 105930
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the president and the congress have granted sufficient authority to the cabinet officers.

Text: Since 1941 the industrial security program has been in operation under express directives from the President. Within a week after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt issued Exec. Order No. 8972, 6 Fed. Reg. 6420, Dec. 12, 1941, which authorized both the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy to establish and maintain military guards and patrols, and to take other appropriate measures, to protect from injury and destruction national-defense material, national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities, . . . (Emphasis added.) In 1942, under the authority of that Executive Order, the Secretary of War undertook the formulation and execution of a program of industrial security. [6] The procedures in operation from 1942 and 1943 are outlined in a 1946 publication of the Department of War entitled Suspension of Subversives from Privately Operated Facilities of Importance to the Security of the Nation's Army and Navy Programs. [7] Interestingly enough, the instructions were issued in time of peace, did not give the suspect a hearing, and were signed by the then Chief of Staff now PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower. In 1947, the National Security Act, 61 Stat. 495, effected a reorganization of the military departments and placed the Secretary of Defense at the head of the National Military Establishment. Section 305 (a) of the Act transferred to the new organization [a]ll laws, orders, regulations, and other actions applicable with respect to any function . . . transferred under this Act . . . . Section 213 created a Munitions Board within the military establishment and under the supervision of the Secretary of Defense. Among its functions were (1) to coordinate the appropriate activities within the National Military Establishment with regard to industrial matters, including procurement . . . plans . . . ; (2) to plan for the military aspects of industrial mobilization; . . . and (10) to perform such other duties as the Secretary of Defense may direct. [8] In his first report to the President in 1948, Secretary of Defense Forrestal reported that: . . . the Munitions Board is responsible for necessary action to coordinate internal security within the National Military Establishment with regard to industrial matters. This work is being planned and in some phases carried forward by the following programs: .....  c. Development of plans and directives to protect classified armed forces information in the hands of industry from potential enemies;  d. Establishment of uniform methods of handling of personnel clearances and secrecy agreements . . . . First Report of the Secretary of Defense (1948) 102-103. The forerunner of the exact program now in effect was put in operation in 1948 under the supervision of that Board. And, in the Annual Report to the President, in 1949, the Secretary, then Louis Johnson, reported that  Industrial Security. A program to coordinate and develop uniform practices to protect classified military information placed in the hands of industry under procurement and research contracts was continued by the Munitions Board. Criteria were developed for the granting or denial of personnel and facility clearances in the performance of classified contracts. Work was started to establish a central security clearance register to centralize clearance data for ready reference by all departments and to prevent duplication in making clearance investigations. A joint Personnel Security Board administers this program, and the Industrial Employment Review Board hears appeals from security clearance denials. Second Report of the Secretary of Defense, for the Fiscal Year 1949 (1950), 85. Transmitted with that report to the President was the Annual Report of the Secretary of the Army, where the number of security cases processed by the Army-Navy-Air Force Personnel Board, and the number of appeals handled by the Industrial Employment Review Board were detailed. [9] Again in 1950 the Secretary of Defense informed the President, in a report required by law, of the status of the industrial security program. In the past 6 months, the Munitions Board activated the Industrial Employment Review Board, established procedures under which the latter will operate, and developed a set of uniform criteria stipulating the circumstances under which security clearances will be denied. The Munitions Board also established a Central Index Security Clearance File to serve as a clearing house for all individual and facility clearances and denials, [and] developed a standard security requirements check list . . . . Uniform standards for security investigations of facility and contractors' personnel are being developed. . . . A standard military security agreement is being coordinated to bind potential suppliers to security regulations before a classified contract is awarded, and a manual to give security guidance to industry is being prepared. Semiannual Report of the Secretary of Defense, July 1 to Dec. 31, 1949 (1950), 97. The President, in 1953, in Reorganization Plan No. 6, 67 Stat. 638, transferred all of the functions of the Munitions Board to the Secretary of Defense and dissolved that Board. Since then the program has been in operation under the authority of the Secretary. Also in 1953, the President issued Exec. Order No. 10450, Apr. 27, 1953, 18 Fed. Reg. 2489, 3 CFR (1949-1953 Comp.), p. 936. That order dealt with the criteria and procedures to be used in the Federal Loyalty Security Program, which had been instituted under Exec. Order No. 9835, 12 Fed. Reg. 1935, 3 CFR (1943-1948 Comp.), p. 630, Mar. 21, 1947. The latter order made clear that federal employees suspected of disloyalty had no right of confrontation. [10] And the regulations promulgated under the order provided no such right. See 13 Fed. Reg. 9365, 5 CFR (1949), § 210, Dec. 31, 1948. These procedures were revised under Exec. Order No. 10450, supra, although again, confrontation and cross-examination were not provided. See 19 Fed. Reg. 1503, 32 CFR, p. 288, Mar. 19, 1954. Thus, it was clear that the President had not contemplated that there would be a right of confrontation in the Federal Loyalty Security Program. And the report of the Secretary of the Armytransmitted to the President by the Secretary of Defensemade clear that the criteria of Exec. Order No. 10450 were being utilized not only where the loyalty of a government employee was in doubt, but also in carrying out the industrial security program. Semiannual Report of the Secretary of the Army, Jan. 1, 1954, to June 30, 1954, 135-136. Thus we see that the program has for 18 years been carried on under the express authority of the President, and has been regularly reported to him by his highest Cabinet officers. How the Court can say, despite these facts, that the President has not sufficiently authorized the program is beyond me, unless the Court means that it is necessary for the President to write out the Industrial Security Manual in his own hand. Furthermore, I think Congress has sufficiently authorized the program, as it has been kept fully aware of its development and has appropriated money to support it. During the formative period of the program, 1949-1951, the Congress, through appropriation hearings, was kept fully informed as to the activity. In 1949 D. F. Carpenter, Chairman of the Munitions Board, appeared before a Subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations to testify concerning the requested appropriation for the Board. While the report indicates much of the testimony was off the record, it does contain specific references to the program here under attack. [11] Significantly the appropriation bill for 1950 included an item of $11,300,000 for the maintenance, inter alia, of the Board. Again, in 1950 General Timberlake, a member of the Board, testified: Then we are going to intensify the industrial mobilization planning within the Department of Defense, with particular emphasis on industrial security . . . . House of Representatives, Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations on the Supplemental Appropriation for 1951, 81st Cong., 2d Sess. 264. While, again, some of the testimony was off the record it was sufficiently urgent and detailed for the Congress to appropriate additional funds for the Board for 1951. [12] By the 1953 Reorganization Plan, the functions of the Munitions Board were transferred to various Assistant Secretaries of Defense. The industrial security program was put under the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower, Personnel, and Reserve Forces. Of course, this office received an appropriation each year. These hearings, to cite but two, certainly indicate an awareness on the part of Congress of the existence of the industrial security program, and the continued appropriations hardly bespeak an unwillingness on the part of Congress that it be carried on. In 1955, the Eighty-fourth Congress, on the motion of Senator Wiley for unanimous consent, caused to be printed the so-called Internal Security Manual, S. Doc. No. 40, 84th Cong., 1st Sess. It is a compilation of all laws, regulations, and congressional committees relating to the national security. Contained in the volume is the Industrial Personnel security Review Regulation. i. e., a verbatim copy of the regulations set up by the Secretary of Defense on February 2, 1955. This Manual outlined in detail the hearing procedures which are here condemned by the Court. And it is important to note that the final denial of Greene's clearance was by a Board acting under these very regulations. Still not one voice was raised either within or without the Halls of Congress that the Defense Department had exceeded its authority or that contractor employees were being denied their constitutional rights. In other cases we have held that the inaction of the Congress, in circumstances much less specific than here, was a clear ratification of a program as it was then being carried out by the Executive. Why, I ask, do we not do that here where it is so vital? We should not be that blind Court . . . that does not see what `[a]ll others can see and understand . . . .'  United States v. Rumely, 345 U. S. 41, 44 (1953). While it certainly is not clear to me, I suppose that the present fastidiousness of the Court can be satisfied by the President's incorporating the present industrial security program into a specific Executive Order or the Congress' placing it on the statute books. To me this seems entirely superfluous in light of the clear authorization presently existing in the Cabinet officers. It also subjects the Government to multitudinous actionsand perhaps large damagesby reason of discharges made pursuant to the present procedures. And I might add a nota bene. Even if the Cabinet officers are given this specific direction, the opinion today, by dealing so copiously with the constitutional issues, puts a cloud over both the Employee Loyalty Program and the one here under attack. Neither requires that hearings afford confrontation or cross-examination. While the Court disclaims deciding this constitutional question, no one reading the opinion will doubt that the explicit language of its broad sweep speaks in prophecy. Let us hope that the winds may change. If they do not the present temporary debacle will turn into a rout of our internal security.