cause a department or an officer of a department sees fit to classify a document, does it necessarily follow that the document is in fact a document that should be so classified?

In other words, the power to classify in my judgment in whatever experience I have had in the past has on occasions been used to prevent publicity for embarrassing situations or embarassing decisions.

I do not mean to say this is done very frequently. I do not mean that at all. But to follow that argument to a logical conclusion and to say because per se or because a document was actually classified by some employee of a department, there is no power here to be exercised-to exercise judgment as to whether or not it was in fact a document that should be classified-do you think the mere fact of classification should put the veil of secrecy on all documents that are so classified unless the particular department involved approved its declassification?

Secretary ACHESON. Senator, I do not think I ever suggested that the committee did not have power to take the step which it is considering. If a document is classified, then it means that under theregulations, based upon an act of Congress, it is that sort of a document.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. Yes.

Secretary ACHESON. Now we are quite aware that very often documents are overclassified, and in fact our regulations caution officers against doing that. These particular directives to the Voice of America clearly must be classified as confidential because we cannot have those documents printed in the newspapers.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. If I may just illustrate

Chairman RUSSELL. Just a moment, on a procedural question. Gentlemen, under the rules we adopted the limitation of 30 minutes applying to the examination of the Secretary of State. I assume that the committee intended that to apply to collateral matters such as now is under consideration. The Senator from Iowa has now been a little longer than 15.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. I did not understand it applied to discussions on procedural matters. I understood this is a procedural matter, but I will be willing to abide if that is the will of the chairman. Chairman RUSSELL. I merely made the statement so there will be no confusion about it, sir. I am assuming this 30-minute rule applies to these procedural matters also. You have exhausted 15 minutes. Senator HICKENLOOPER. What I am trying to get at, Mr. Secretary, is to give you an illustration of a letter which I have in my file in reply to a letter that I wrote to a department asking for certain information. I got back this kind of a letter, and it had no more information in it than this. It said:

DEAR SENATOR HICKENLOOPER: Your letter addressed to so and so of such and such a date has been received in this office. The information which you seek will be investigated, and such information as we can give you will be sent to you in due

course.

Very truly yours

and it was signed by the head of the department.

That was stamped "Confidential." It did not even refer to the subject matter that I had inquired about. It was purely a letter of acknowledgment, and it was marked "Confidential," under the theory,

I suppose, I would be prevented from releasing the letter if I had occasion to release it. I have not, because somebody had used a red stamp on it; and that was what I meant by the question of good judgment and common sense in connection with the seriousness of the degree of classification, and which, I should think, should be open to some probing from time to time.

That is all I have to ask, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman RUSSELL. Mr. Secretary, if you will retire I think you winll find a chair in that room.

Chairman CONNALLY. Mr. Chairman, I want to say a word.

Chairman RUSSELL. You will have an opportunity to make a statement, Senator. Do you want to ask any questions?

Chairman CONNALLY. No.

(Secretary Acheson and Mr. Fisher retired from the committee room.)

Chairman RUSSELL. Senator Connally is recognized.

DANGERS IN PRECEDENT TO DECLASSIFY

Chairman CONNALLY. Mr. Chairman, I want to state, briefly, I am very much opposed to this motion. I doubt very seriously, and challenge the authority of this committee to declassify this paper.

If that is possible, if that is the law, I see nothing to prevent us from bringing up anything we want to, out of the departments, and declassifying it and publishing it to the world.

These are executive documents. They don't belong to us. It is true we are part of the Government, but these are executive documents and I don't think that we have any authority to do it.

In the second place, you are cutting off your nose to spite your face. If you adopt this sort of a provision, the departments will quit sending you documents on request. I would, if I were a Secretary, and they demanded something I thought they were going to put in the paper and publish, I wouldn't send it.

Now, those are very serious considerations, it seems to me, and you are not helping yourself a bit on earth.

This matter has already largely been published, and there is no reason why you should make a great precedent of this affair, when it has already been leaked and scattered all around over the Pacific Ocean, as well as in the United States; and I think it is a very serious blunder for us to take action declassifying this material.

And, I hope that the committee won't vote for any such revolutionary procedure.

That is all.

Senator KNOWLAND. May I ask for a roll call, Mr. Chairman?

Senator WILEY. I would like to be heard, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman RUSSELL. Senator Wiley is recognized.

Senator WILEY. I think there is a lot to be said on both sides of this matter, at this time of the proceedings.

ADVANTAGES FROM DECLASSIFICATION

I hate to see a step taken that would result in the Department taking the attitude that this committee is not entitled to documents;

but I listened very carefully and intently when the Senator from Oregon inquired of the Secretary what his position was.

I rather got the idea that he would not commit himself to the answer that was sought, which was that he would not send these papers, if we wanted them.

I feel that this is a matter for the committee.

In fact, the Secretary has said so twice on direct questions-the power is here.

Now, for the life of me, I have been trying to understand from all the facts as they have developed why the Department should not declassify this in order that the people could get the facts, get the truth about this very thing.

It is contended and will be contended undoubtedly by many folks that there was some other purpose, gotten out by people who had some other objectives than what the Secretary said.

Now, he has given his explanation, which in substance is that it was a direction to the Voice of America how to proceed at that time when there was thought that we might lose Formosa.

Now, the news release that has gone out from his viewpoint doesn't give that impression. I should think he would want the whole instrument to go out so that the people themselves could weigh which is

correct.

Now, I don't consider this as a precedent, Mr. Chairman. I think that every instance that comes before this committee where it is a question of whether we should disagree with the Department as to whether or not it should be released is a matter that we must determine on the facts with our responsibility as Members of this great body. I do not think that we should be dictated to by the other branch of government; neither should we try to dictate to it.

I feel, as Senator George intimated he felt, that in view of all the facts that have been developed, we should take the appropriate action and declassify it, if that is the word, ourselves.

Senator MORSE. Mr. Chairman.

Senator FULBRIGHT. Mr. Chairman.

Chairman RUSSELL. The Senator from Oregon.

Senator MORSE. I want to take a half minute to correct an impression my good friend from Wisconsin left in the record that I asked a question this morning seeking some particular answer. I asked the question this morning seeking whatever answer the Secretary of State wished to give to the question.

I want to assure the Senator from Wisconsin that I did not ask any question in order to elicit an answer from the Secretary of State favorable to any private point of view the Senator from Oregon might have.

The record will speak for itself as to the fairness of the question. Senator WILEY. I agree the record will speak for itself. Chairman RUSSELL. The Senator from Arkansas.

Senator FULBRIGHT. Mr. Chairman, I do not want to take any time, but simply to say my position has been well stated by the Senator from Texas and the Senator from Oregon this morning, and I associate myself with those remarks, and I will not take the time of the committee to reiterate them.

NATIONAL SECURITY NOT INVOLVED

Senator HICKENLOOPER. Mr. Chairman, I asked some questions a moment ago of the Secretary of State. My experience in the Senate has not been as long as a great many Members, but I have never served on a committee in the Senate where the question of national security was involved in a document where the committee did not respect the presentation of the reasons why national security was involved and preserve that document so far as the committee was concerned in secrecy.

I know of no committee, none that I have served on has ever arbitrarily violated that rule. This committee has gone down the line respecting censorship where national security is involved. We have not overridden a single line of censorship where the national security is considered to be involved in the testimony.

Now by the Secretary's own testimony here before lunch and his testimony or his confirmation of that testimony since lunch, he says that the release of this information will not affect the national security, either the general national security or the security of our situation in Korea, so that national security is not involved in this operation.

What is involved? I understood him to say just before lunch-and I stand to be corrected in my understanding, not having looked up the record-I understood him to say it would be embarrassing to the Voice of America if this were released.

He said that I had misunderstood, that was not what he said. That it would hamper the Voice of America in his opinion in its operations. Now I want to call attention to the statement that the chairman has made at the outset of these hearings, and I think on one or perhaps two occasions during these hearings, that censorship, the policy of censorship as he understood the committee's intent was not to save anyone embarrassment but to protect the national interest or the national security.

Chairman RUSSELL. If the Senator will pardon me, I have used that expression twice, not to prevent any individual from being embarrassed, any individual. I remember that very well.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. I take it that the Department is no stronger than an individual. I do not care to dispute that point, but the key to secrecy here is the national security, and that has been taken out of the picture by the Secretary's own testimony.

In addition, this matter has been given widespread publicity for almost 2 years, a year and a half anyway. The curiosity is great about it. I think it has been promulgated, 456 copies sent all over the world of this document.

Now I do not mean to say that we have a great sieve of leaky information all over the world, but past events that have been proved in the last 2 or 3 years indicate to me that without any doubt the Soviet has one copy or maybe a dozen copies of this surreptitiously obtained on one way or another checked up on if it is a matter of any interest to them.

That news story published in January in 1950 alone would certainly whet their appetites for it if it were an important thing for them. I think that other nations know it. I think the Soviet knows it and

everybody but the American people know what the actual contents of this document are.

National security is not involved, and I think that we are thoroughly justified in this case in voting this matter as a public document.

In any document where national security is involved, if there is any scintilla of evidence on the national security phase, I will stand up just as much as anybody to keep it secret and preserve it. I have not asked that a single other document that in any way involves national security in this hearing or in any other committee that I have ever sat on be released to the public.

But with national security out, then only embarrassment remains, and I submit that this might embarrass the Voice of America a little bit, but the Voice of America, as various committees have shown time and again on their public releases has embarrassed the American people on a good many occasions because of their proven distortion of messages which they have sent out over that network.

Senator MCMAHON. Mr. Chairman?

Chairman RUSSELL. I will recognize the Senator from Connecticut. Senator MCMAHON. There is an old saying in the law that hard cases make bad law.

I personally feel that, after weighing all of the factors with regard to this particular document, if I were in the Secretary's place, after weighing all the factors, I think I would have declassified it. Senator BREWSTER. What was it you said?

Senator McMAHON. I would have declassified it.

DANGER OF ESTABLISHING A PRINCIPLE

I am troubled by this situation: We are faced today with the obligation, nay, the necessity of operating a government under circumstances that we have never had to engage in before. The committees of Congress can only function in collaboration with the executive departments as we are able to be told of matters of vital significance to the operation of the Government.

I have been impressed with this time and time again, when I have seen leaks out of committees, and I have felt that the Senators were operating against the exercise of their own powers when they leaked information which came to them in excutive session, and we all know that has happened time and time again.

Now, it seems to me that if we take the step of declassifying a document which the Secretary, whose responsibility it is, has said would prejudice the operation of the Voice of America, we will have been substitutiong our judgment for that of the executive officer who is charged with the operation of that Department.

The fact that I, as Secretary, would act differently than he has in this particular case, if I were Secretary, does not change the fundamental principle involved, which is the right of this committee to make that adjudication.

I think, along with the Senator from Oregon, that we would be establishing a very dangerous principle.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. Mr. Chairman, will the Senator yield?
Senator MCMAHON. Not at this point; just a minute.

If the information is furnished-let us assume it was a top-secret document, and we were to substitute our judgment for the release