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23 chapters
CHAPTER I Secrecy Solves No Problems
CHAPTER I Secrecy Solves No Problems
No single factor is more important to the strength of our democracy than the free flow of accurate information about the government’s operations. The citizen in a democracy must know what his government is doing, or he will lack the soundest basis for judging the candidates and the platforms of our political parties. Our elected officials are given only a temporary grant of power, and only a temporary custody of government property and government records. Neither the President nor those he appoi
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CHAPTER II The First Century
CHAPTER II The First Century
An Indian uprising along the Indiana-Ohio border in 1791 set the stage for the first investigation by Congress of decisions in the executive branch. President Washington, then in his first term, sent Major General Arthur St. Clair into the wilderness to put a stop to the raids. General St. Clair and his fourteen hundred American soldiers were camped along the headwaters of the Wabash River on November 3 when they were surprised by the attack of a strong force led by Little Turtle, chief of the M
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CHAPTER III Teapot Dome to the Tax Scandals
CHAPTER III Teapot Dome to the Tax Scandals
Before Congress completed its investigations of the Harding administration scandals, cabinet officers had been found to be involved in the maladministration or corruption. Secretary of Navy Edwin Denby resigned from office under a barrage of criticism. Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty, involved in several questionable financial transactions, was indicted on a charge of having accepted a $200,000 payoff in connection with handling of Alien Property Custodian affairs. Daugherty was acquitted of
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CHAPTER IV Army-McCarthy—A Claim of Secrecy Unlimited
CHAPTER IV Army-McCarthy—A Claim of Secrecy Unlimited
On the morning of May 17, 1954, the klieg-lighted Senate Caucus Room was jammed with spectators. Near the end of the huge table at the front of the room, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy hunched over a microphone, reviling the Eisenhower administration. He claimed that high officials of the Eisenhower administration were arbitrarily silencing witnesses from the executive branch, and in doing so were preventing him from defending himself. It was the eighteenth day of the already famous Army-McCarthy he
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CHAPTER V Another Blow at Senator Joe
CHAPTER V Another Blow at Senator Joe
When the Eisenhower administration took office in January 1953, I had had high hopes that arbitrary government secrecy would be ended. As a candidate, the President had talked much of his interest in open government and had pledged to make all but national security information available to the public. So had the Vice President, Richard M. Nixon. As late as November 6, 1953, Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Jr., was continuing to stress the Republican party’s interest in eliminating secrecy pol
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CHAPTER VI Secrecy Fix on Dixon and Yates
CHAPTER VI Secrecy Fix on Dixon and Yates
Not until the summer of 1955 did it become apparent that the May 17, 1954, Eisenhower letter would be used on matters unrelated to Senator Joseph R. McCarthy. Throughout the fall and winter of 1954, I spoke and wrote about the potential danger of “executive privilege” as it had been applied in the Army-McCarthy hearings and in the McCarthy censure hearings. A few persons saw it my way. But the general tendency to believe that the letter was written solely to deal with Senator McCarthy held fast,
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CHAPTER VII Congress Becomes Concerned
CHAPTER VII Congress Becomes Concerned
In late 1954 and early 1955, secrecy obscured the facts in a major controversy over administration of the government loyalty-security program. The Republicans had campaigned in 1952 on a charge that the Truman administration was “soft” on Communists and contended that an administration headed by Adlai Stevenson could be expected to be composed of many Communist “coddlers.” In the 1954 congressional election campaigns the Republicans used statistics compiled by the Eisenhower administration to co
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CHAPTER VIII Secrecy Hides the Security Bunglers
CHAPTER VIII Secrecy Hides the Security Bunglers
By the spring of 1955, enough executive agencies were refusing records to Congress that Representative William Dawson, the Illinois Democrat who served as chairman of the House Government Operations Committee, had become concerned. On June 9, 1955, Representative Dawson wrote to Representative John E. Moss, the young California Democrat, formally establishing a Government Information Subcommittee and asking that Moss be chairman. Congressman Moss was only in his second term in Congress, and norm
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CHAPTER IX Secrecy Curtain on Iron Curtain Deals
CHAPTER IX Secrecy Curtain on Iron Curtain Deals
While the Moss investigations continued, the Senate Permanent Investigating Subcommittee was accumulating evidence that showed how a relaxation of government controls over shipments of vital and strategic materials had resulted in a sharply increased flow of these materials to the Soviet-bloc countries. In February 1956, Chairman John L. McClellan, the Arkansas Democrat, opened public hearings on the relaxation of controls over East-West trade. McClellan announced that his staff—headed by Chief
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CHAPTER X Pressing a Point with Ike
CHAPTER X Pressing a Point with Ike
The final reports from the four congressional investigations—a House Government Operations Committee, the Senate Dixon-Yates investigating subcommittee, the McClellan subcommittee on East-West trade, and the Wolf Ladejinsky probe—were all released during the summer of 1956. Each assailed the excessive arbitrary secrecy that had hampered the investigations. So, once again, at a press conference on September 27, 1956, I raised the problem of arbitrary executive secrecy with President Eisenhower. “
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CHAPTER XI Keeping the Professor in the Dark
CHAPTER XI Keeping the Professor in the Dark
The Justice Department, Commerce Department, Agriculture Department, Defense Department, and State Department had all used the arbitrary secrecy of “executive privilege” without causing a public uproar. Not only had they succeeded in avoiding major press criticism, but they had secured statements from President Eisenhower to give a noble and patriotic coloring to their deceptions. With such encouragement at the top it was inevitable that the policy of secrecy would spread. In August 1957, the ne
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CHAPTER XII Ike’s Lawyer and the Law
CHAPTER XII Ike’s Lawyer and the Law
William Pierce Rogers was nominated to be United States Attorney General in the fall of 1957. He had served as Deputy Attorney General under Herbert Brownell from the time the Eisenhower administration came to power in January 1953. When he was nominated for the top post, he was forty-five years old and had been included by President Eisenhower on a select list of bright young Republicans qualified as presidential or vice presidential timber for 1960. He was regarded as the closest friend of Vic
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CHAPTER XIII Muzzling the Public’s Watchdog
CHAPTER XIII Muzzling the Public’s Watchdog
Joseph Campbell had been treasurer and vice president of Columbia University while General Dwight D. Eisenhower was president of that institution. A pleasant and friendly relationship developed between the two men, and General Eisenhower was attracted by Campbell’s competency in accounting and finance. After General Eisenhower was elected President, he named Campbell a member of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1953. A year later President Eisenhower named Joseph Campbell Comptroller General of t
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CHAPTER XIV Hiding the Laos Mess
CHAPTER XIV Hiding the Laos Mess
By the summer of 1959, Representative Porter Hardy was fed up with arbitrary executive secrecy. The lanky Virginia Democrat was getting a double dose of “executive privilege” and had nearly reached the end of his patience. He was a member of the Armed Services subcommittee headed by Chairman Edward Hebert, and therefore had firsthand knowledge of how the Defense Department was hampering investigations of military waste. Representative Hardy was also chairman of his own Foreign Operations and Mon
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CHAPTER XV Defiance to the End, Above the Law
CHAPTER XV Defiance to the End, Above the Law
From the investigation of the aid program in Laos, Representative Porter Hardy and his subcommittee staff moved on to the aid programs in Latin America. The subcommittee had examined some Latin-American aid programs as early as 1955 and unearthed several deficiencies. But the Eisenhower administration had claimed that the shortcomings were due largely to the newness of the programs and suggested that the subcommittee examine them again five years later. The five years had now elapsed, and on Apr
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CHAPTER XVI Kennedy Makes a Wobbly Start
CHAPTER XVI Kennedy Makes a Wobbly Start
President John F. Kennedy had been in office only ten days when he gave his “State of the Union” address on January 30, 1961. His comments on making information available to Congress were general in nature and seemingly consistent with his campaign pledges. President Kennedy said: “Our Constitution wisely assigns both joint and separate roles to each branch of the Government; and a President and a Congress who hold each other in mutual respect will neither permit nor attempt any trespass. For my
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CHAPTER XVII A Pending Problem for JFK
CHAPTER XVII A Pending Problem for JFK
In its first year, the Kennedy administration had tackled the problem of secrecy with noble thoughts and brave deeds. President Kennedy could not have spoken more clearly on the need for open government in a democratic society. Moreover, he had followed up his words with stringent action by overruling Secretary of State Dean Rusk on the one occasion when the State Department had tried to hide records behind a claim of “executive privilege.” Chairman Edward Hebert said that his Armed Services sub
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CHAPTER XVIII A Solution
CHAPTER XVIII A Solution
History establishes that any administration may be afflicted with laxity, incompetence, and even outright fraud. History has also taught that any administration can harbor men who want to hide mistakes and corruption. It is true that no President has been directly involved in fraudulent activity, and it seems unlikely that any ever will be. Holding such a high office would inspire almost any man to rise above the desire for personal enrichment, particularly if the cost might be damaging to his p
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APPENDIX A Letter from President Eisenhower to the Secretary of Defense
APPENDIX A Letter from President Eisenhower to the Secretary of Defense
THE WHITE HOUSE , May 17, 1954 The Honorable the Secretary of Defense , Washington, D. C. Dear Mr. Secretary : It has long been recognized that to assist the Congress in achieving its legislative purposes every Executive Department or Agency must, upon the request of a Congressional Committee, expeditiously furnish information relating to any matter within the jurisdiction of the Committee, with certain historical exceptions—some of which are pointed out in the attached memorandum from the Attor
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APPENDIX B Letters Regarding the Presidential Letter of May 17, 1954
APPENDIX B Letters Regarding the Presidential Letter of May 17, 1954
October 9, 1956 Hon. Dwight D. Eisenhower , The President of the United States, The White House, Washington, D.C. Dear Mr. President : At your press conference on Thursday, September 27, 1956, you were asked whether your letter of May 17, 1954, to Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson was being misused as authority to restrict information from the public. This question was posed by Mr. Clark Mollenhoff of the Des Moines Register and Tribune. You stated that if Mr. Mollenhoff would put the quest
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APPENDIX C Correspondence on the Right of Access to Information by the General Accounting Office
APPENDIX C Correspondence on the Right of Access to Information by the General Accounting Office
November 12, 1958 Hon. Dwight D. Eisenhower , President of the United States, Washington, D.C. Dear Mr. President : I just returned to Washington for a hearing of the Government Information Subcommittee. The subcommittee, I understand, will inquire into the matter of General Accounting Office access to Air Force Inspector General’s reports. In that context, my attention has been directed to your press conference comments of November 5, and to some newspaper speculation about those comments. The
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APPENDIX D Letter from President Kennedy to the Secretary of Defense
APPENDIX D Letter from President Kennedy to the Secretary of Defense
February 8, 1962 Dear Mr. Secretary : You have brought to my attention the fact that the Senate’s Special Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee intends to ask witnesses from your department to give testimony identifying the names of individuals who made or recommended changes in specific speeches. As you know, it has been and will be the consistent policy of this administration to co-operate fully with the committees of the Congress with respect to the furnishing of information. In accordance
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APPENDIX E Executive Privilege Correspondence between President Kennedy and Congressman John E. Moss
APPENDIX E Executive Privilege Correspondence between President Kennedy and Congressman John E. Moss
February 15, 1962 The Honorable John F. Kennedy The President of the United States The White House Washington, D.C. Dear Mr. President: In your letter of February 8, 1962 to Secretary McNamara you directed him to refuse certain information to a Senate Subcommittee. The concluding paragraph of your letter stated: “The principle which is at stake here cannot be automatically applied to every request for information. Each case must be judged on its merits.” A similar letter from President Eisenhowe
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