As the Acheson crew was piped aboard, John Peurifoy faced a forbidding prospect. Not only was he new on the job, he inherited scores of explosive cases left smoldering beneath the decks when Panuch and Lyon walked the plank. To make matters worse, there was the pushy Republican Congress, flexing its investigative powers and focused intently on the doings of his office. Peurifoy thus had to get up to speed while fending off lawmakers who wanted to know about particular suspects, failure to enforce the McCarran rider, security standards being used, and much else involving the security drill at State.
Amid all this turmoil, one factor was unchanging: the semi-official role of Samuel Klaus as record-keeper of the division. Why Klaus was kept on is unclear, though one plausible reason would seem to be that Hamilton Robinson, the new Director of Controls, voiced legalistic, civil libertarian concerns about security issues identical to those expressed by Klaus the previous August. Also, Klaus was now by default the institutional memory of the office, and the Acheson staffers would need briefings on pending cases and replies for questions coming down from Congress. So, in the early days of 1947, Sam Klaus was busy drafting memos, compiling lists of suspects, and framing answers for inquisitive members of the House and Senate.
These Klaus papers, some already noted, provide intriguing glimpses of what had been happening in the security shop in the weeks and months preceding. On February 3, for instance, Klaus memoed one new staffer, summarizing some salient topics. The first item on the list is of interest, considering the direction things would take in the new security age then dawning. “Peake*85 should be interviewed as soon as convenient for you,” said Klaus, “with a view to exhausting the Amerasia and Institute of Pacific Relations background. The information obtained should provide a basis for questioning departmental personnel who are associated with either institution. Specific reference should therefore be made to the role played by such persons as William T. Stone, John Carter Vincent and others now in the department. You have a list.”5
Like the chart in Bannerman’s office and earlier effort to get rid of Stone, this indicated that the Amerasia/IPR combine at State had been a priority target of the old security squad. Also suggestive, Klaus spotlighted the case of Robert Miller, who had left the payroll in December but many of whose confederates remained there. Klaus stressed the need for inquiry on these cases. “You should,” he wrote, “re-examine the case of Florence Levy, sister-in-law of Robert Miller, with a view to making suggestions for additional investigation.” And: “The DRA [Latin American] cases should be pursued with special emphasis on the connections of Miller, Marshall Wolfe and Minter Wood.”6
Three weeks later, Klaus drafted a more detailed update for Hamilton Robinson, stating:
…I have requested Mr. Lyon on several occasions to produce from the files or obtain from the FBI reports allegedly existing which show connections of Mrs. Rowena Rommel and Robert T. Miller III with the notorious Communist Bruce Minton or his family in the Washington area. I have also asked for an investigation of Miller’s sister-in-law, who I have found associated with him in a number of enterprises; her name is Florence Levy and she is employed in the department…I have also had no report for several months on the status of the investigation into the activities of Minter Wood, another Miller associate.7
For reasons to be noted, the idea of looking closely at the kith and kin of Robert Miller probably wasn’t something Hamilton Robinson would have relished, but that would surface somewhat later. In the meantime, Klaus was drafting still other memos on cases of concern to Congress, arguably his most important duty. Congress not only had the power of legislation, oversight, and funding, all worrisome to State. It could also wield the power of exposure, which might happen with any member who took the trouble to dig in on security issues and speak about them in a public forum.*86
Klaus and his colleagues were acutely aware of this and worked hard at keeping the lawmakers appeased, reasonably friendly—or something less than totally hostile—and, above all, quiet.†87 In another early memo, Klaus suggested a generic way of heading off congressional protest—invoking the prestige of Marshall. Summarizing the views of ACOPS, Klaus reported a consensus that “Secretary Marshall should personally vouch to the members of the House and Senate committees covering Foreign Affairs, State Department appropriations, and Un-American Activities for the adequacy of the present security procedures and of the personnel assigned to handle them.”‡88 8 At this point, Marshall had been Secretary for not quite three weeks, and undoubtedly knew nothing of the combustible issues on which he was to give assurance. This tactic would in due course be used, but couldn’t prevent inquiring members from pestering State with their unwelcome questions.
ONE such member was Bartel Jonkman, who had confronted Joe Panuch about the Carl Marzani case, demanding faster action and conceiving an aversion to Panuch that would figure powerfully in his thinking. Now he returned to the fray, determined to pursue the matter further. On February 12, he showed up in Peurifoy’s office, where Klaus joined the conversation. Jonkman was irate that Marzani hadn’t been fired the previous summer, saying, according to Klaus, “that he felt deceived by Secretary Byrnes, Mr. Russell, and Mr. Panuch” because he thought there was a pledge to do so. (Klaus denied that this was promised.)9
At this meeting, Jonkman, Peurifoy, and Klaus also discussed a further group of suspects, including Miller, then-current and former State employees Jeanne Taylor, Woodrow Borah, Maurice Halperin, and Joseph Gregg. On February 17, Jonkman followed up by requesting more specific data on Borah, Taylor, and seven other pending cases: Just Lunning, Bernard Nortman, Irving Goldman, Helen Yuhas, Minter Wood, Peveril Meigs, and Robert Lehman. In so inquiring, Jonkman showed that he—like several other members—already had certain facts in hand that closely tracked with FBI reports about the Bentley people and their contacts.
The nagging question of dismissals under the McCarran rider was brought up by Jonkman in April when he came back for yet another visit. On this occasion he again raised the issue of Marzani (and fellow OSS alumnus David Zablodowsky), mentioned the case of Haldore Hanson, and inquired again about the forty security suspects eased out in 1946. Klaus drafted a further memo about all this, noteworthy for its clear statement of the methods used in dealing with such cases:
I told him [Jonkman] that…the forty figure was not intended to mean that forty persons were fired for that given reason (being pinks or Reds), but that forty persons who were dismissed on other grounds had derogatory allegations of that character against them and that, in fact, no one was fired for being a Communist. He said that it was his recollection also that Panuch said in that conversation [the previous summer] that no one was actually fired for being a Communist…I said that Panuch might have said so because it was the truth.*89 10
The operational, and striking, phrase in this was that, though the likes of Hiss, Marzani, Keeney, Halperin, and Miller had been sheltering in the State Department—when no fewer than twenty alleged Soviet agents had been ensconced there, per Bannerman’s charts and Klaus’s memo—“no one was fired for being a Communist.” The scope and nature of the penetration had thus been finessed and kept out of the employment records, a technique that would be used many times thereafter and lead to still more security problems in the future.
As dogged as Jonkman, and doubtless more troubling to State, was Rep. Karl Stefan of Nebraska. Stefan was a major VIP in the world of Foggy Bottom—the new chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that controlled the State Department budget. Making him more formidable still, he seemed to have good information sources and an extensive list of suspects. In March of 1947, he submitted more than three dozen names to the department, describing them as people “whose loyalty to this government has been or is questionable” and asking for a rundown on their cases.
The Klaus response to this, dated March 21, 1947, is one of the more revealing documents on record, as it sets forth in tabular form the then-current status of these cases and the
way they were disposed of. The result is a synoptic view of the security scene at State, or a substantial fraction of it, that had developed up through the spring of 1947. It reads as follows:
Persons Still Employed
1. The following have been investigated by the Department and no adverse findings have been made by the Department:
Haldore E. Hansona90
William Treadwell Stonea91
Julian R. Friedman T. Achilles Polyzoides
Elwood N. Thompson
Dudley Poore
William P. Maddox
John Stewart Serviceb92
John Carter Vincent
2. The following are still under investigation by the Department. In the first three cases the employees were previously rated eligible by the Civil Service Commission:
Theodore J. Geiger (rated eligible by the Civil Service Commission)
Alexander Lesser (rated eligible by the Civil Service Commission)
Peveril Meigs (rated eligible by the Civil Service Commission)
Minter Wood
John T. Fishburn
Hugh Borton
Rowena S. B. Rommel
David Randolph
William D. Carter
Charles A. Thomson
Persons No Longer Employed
1. Carl A. Marzani was discharged on the basis of investigation by the Department under the McCarran Rider.
2. H. S. Barton, Jr., was discharged on the basis of investigation by the Department under Rule XII on charges not involving loyalty.
3. In the following cases the Department had completed investigations and no adverse finding had been made at the time of termination:
Clyde Eagleton (resigned)
Herbert S. Marks (transferred to Atomic Energy Commission)
Monroe B. Hall (resigned)
Abraham Pivowitz (terminated at completion of temporary appointment)
4. In the following cases investigation had not been completed, and no adverse finding was made by the Department.
(a) These persons had previously been rated eligible by the Civil Service Commission:
Robert T. Miller III (resigned)
Robin Kinkead (resigned)
Wayne Vucinich (resigned)
John N. Hazard (resigned)
David Zablodowsky (resigned)
Donald A. Wheeler (resigned)
Maurice English (resigned)
Robert Rendueles (resigned)
Herbert R. Southworth (completion of assignment; involuntary separation)
Donald H. Cooper (transferred to War Department)
(b) These persons had previously been investigated and approved by OSS:
Alexander S. Vucinich (resigned)
William W. Lockwood (resigned)
(c) Others:
Clifton Read (resigned)
Alger Hiss (resigned)
Bess Lomax Hawes (reduction in force)
Charles A. Page (resigned)11
Again, the mere fact that somebody’s name appeared in such a lineup didn’t mean he or she was thereby labeled a Red or a loyalty risk. Klaus made the point by noting that inquiries on some cases had resulted in “no adverse finding,” and that still others had been rated “eligible” by Civil Service. On the other hand, it’s also true that someone’s having been cleared or rated “eligible” didn’t mean much either. (Both Hiss and Miller, for example, were in the “no adverse finding” column, while Klaus had himself been pushing for renewed inquiry on Stone, Vincent, and the Miller network.) Otherwise, what leaps off the page, once more, is the resignation tactic: Of the twenty-three people “no longer employed,” fifteen had been permitted to resign, including not only Hiss and Miller but also Charles A. Page, one of the more notorious cases on record.*93
Still other congressional troubles, meantime, were developing for the department and its security staffers. One lawmaker who took strong exception to kid-glove, slow-motion methods in dealing with egregious suspects, and to State Department security practice in general, was GOP Rep. Fred Busbey of Illinois, probably the most stringent critic of the department then in Congress. As seen, Busbey had previously gone after OWI, and, in a natural segue, now zeroed in on its successors—the Voice of America and cultural programs that had been folded into State under Assistant Secretary William Benton.12
At this time, the department still had a healthy regard for the plenary powers of Congress and was trying to maintain good relations with its members. In an episode that would be unimaginable some months later, Busbey in March of 1947 obtained from Peurifoy a letter which said the congressman “has my complete authority to talk with individuals in the organization concerning their background and the type of work which they are doing.”13 Using this laisser passer, Busbey variously traveled to New York to look into VOA broadcast operations, inquired about the art projects sponsored by the cultural division, and visited at least twice with Klaus at State.†94
Thereafter, in floor debate on the State Department authorization, Busbey assailed the Benton office, saying “the personnel of the cultural division is in large measure a legacy from Communist-permeated OWI.” The congressman read off a list of people in the unit, including Miller, Stone, Hanson, Charles Thomson, Page, and—a new addition to the roll call—Esther Brunauer. Following up on earlier hearings run by Stefan, Busbey also attacked the arts and publication efforts of the division, putting into the Congressional Record extensive data about the Communist and Communist-front connections of artists being sponsored by it.
As all of the above suggests, by the spring of 1947 intense concern about security matters at State, and elsewhere, was building rapidly in Congress. Even more to the point, while some lawmakers continued to raise their questions and exert their leverage behind the scenes, such as Busbey, Stefan, John Taber of New York, the powerful and often testy chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and Rep. Eugene Rees of Kansas, chairman of the Civil Service Committee, were now sounding the alarm in public. (Rees at this period proposed creation of a new freestanding security agency to deal with cases of alleged subversion among federal workers.)14 Faced with this mounting pressure, the Truman White House sought countermeasures to blunt the issue.
Foremost among these was the Truman loyalty program, in gestation since the 1946 elections but announced precisely at this juncture (March 21, 1947). In a step self-evidently meant to head off the legislative critics, the President unveiled what appeared to be a far-reaching plan to deal with the problems being complained of. A key feature was a proviso that every staffer of the government would be subject to investigation, regardless of position or department. Seemingly more draconian yet, Truman would stipulate that all employees be vetted for “loyalty” to the United States. Despite some ambiguities in the wording, these two aspects together appeared to say the loyalty of every employee of the federal government was prima facie suspect.
To oversee investigation of such matters, Truman directed that complex machinery be set up covering every aspect of the federal workforce. At the apex of the system would be a Loyalty Review Board (LRB) in the Civil Service system, its members presidentially appointed. Under this would be a network of regional boards to hear appeals in disputed cases. Under these in turn would be departmental boards, the basic working units of the program, to hear the cases of accused employees de novo. The head of each employing agency would appoint the departmental boards and act as the arbiter of cases, subject to post-audit at higher levels.
In April, shortly after announcement of the loyalty program, the administration began laying plans to present the cases of myriad suspects from the Bentley inquest to a grand jury in New York. This would be a laborious drill, as more than 100 witnesses made appearances before the jury in a marathon procession that went on for months. Such by-now-familiar figures as Gregory Silvermaster, Alger Hiss, Harry White, and William Remington would all be summoned. A full year later, however, there would be no indictments of the Bentley people—the main reason given for this being that
the government had only Bentley’s word to go on, with no confirming documents or cooperating suspects. It thus appeared that the massive FBI probe of the Gregory case would sputter out in futility after a year and a half of exhaustive effort.*95
The loyalty program and grand jury proceedings both signaled that the administration was moving against the internal Communist menace and were obviously meant to send this message. But both had the effect as well of keeping the issue firmly in executive hands, with minimal input from Congress. Both would also take a long time to develop; the grand jury deliberations would grind on for eighteen months, while the loyalty plan, though announced in March, wouldn’t be fully up and running until the end of 1947. For members of Congress already incensed about delays in ousting suspects, some on the payroll for better than a decade, neither of these drawn-out procedures seemed a valid reason to drop the issue.
Accordingly, the State Department would now play its Marshall card, hoping thus to pacify the critics. In June of 1947, Marshall met with members of the Senate subcommittee on State Department appropriations and was examined on security matters. He duly gave assurances as suggested, received by the senators with little comment. After the session, however, members of the subcommittee handed him a blunt report about security affairs at State that was anything but reassuring. While details about this remarkable report must be deferred, one point is chiefly relevant here: its stress on the Marzani case, the long delay in seeking his dismissal, and the failure of officials at State to invoke the McCarran rider in other cases of like nature.15
Whether this particular missive did the job, or whether the cumulative weight of so many critiques proved decisive, the department did now move to enforce the rider, on something like a widespread basis. On June 23, State announced that ten of its employees were being discharged on security grounds, at the discretion of Marshall, using his summary powers of dismissal. Thus, after gathering cobwebs for almost a year, the McCarran rider was unsheathed to fell ten suspects at a stroke. Security hawks in Congress who had been complaining of inaction were, for a while, encouraged.
Blacklisted By History Page 21