vestigation has been completed, he has satisfied himself at this point that there is nothing affecting the security risk of this individual, and that he is of good character, and so forth, for which the Senate might recommend him for that job.

Senator GREEN. Does this letter cover that point? It says here: To the best of my knowledge and belief, Mr. is well qualified for the position and a loyal citizen and good security risk. Doesn't that cover the very point?

Senator HICKENLOOPER. This generally meets that condition, this letter, except that I will not go farther and abrogate our rule. Senator GREEN. You don't have to abrogate your rule, you can go into each individual case, and not abrogate the rule.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. In order to get this business going, I think we have to take some preliminary certifications, but I want it understood that I think the appointing authority has got to go further, and have a complete field investigation in each matter.

Senator GREEN. He says he is going to. I don't see how you can ask for more.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. Without destroying the rule.

Senator GREEN. Without assuming an almost impossible burden ourselves.

The CHAIRMAN. Can we agree that, with the modification suggested, that this letter would be acceptable to the committee?

WHAT INFORMATION WILL THE LETTER INCLUDE?

Senator SPARKMAN. Mr. Chairman, I have not had a satisfactory answer to my question yet.

Is any information going to be placed before us that a man is a member of an organization, or has done such things as would place him in the files, for instance, of the Un-American Activities Committee; and, there is nothing in this letter that indicates that, and yet so long as that rule stands, it seems to me we are charging ourselves with that responsibility.

Senator GREEN. We are waiving it in this particular case because of the necessity of acting without delay.

The CHAIRMAN. I cannot answer your question, because with this exception, it is very simple for us to get that list, the Attorney General's list, and when the party appears before us we can ask, if it is thought important or significant, whether he is a member of any of these organizations.

Whether the Secretary of State has that information, I don't know. Whether he takes the stand, for instance, as an old and valued friend -I would be very glad to endorse John Sparkman for any job i know that he would want, but I would not know what organizations you belonged to that might be considered a little left of center, or way left of center, but I would endorse you and if I had an officia! position, Secretary of State, and didn't have time to have the FBI report made about you, I still would endorse you in that way; but I agree with Senator George, Senator Tobey, and the rest of us, tha: we are meeting a practical situation head-on, and we have to do something and if we can agree on this letter, I will have them telephone down and see if this letter will be satisfactory down there.

It was suggested before that something might go in there, that if within 60 days the FBI reports have not come in, and clearance made, that a further communication from the Secretary will be forthcoming, or something to that effect; but, I think we have to work out a solution here, gentlemen. With all our fine heads, you ought to see a way through this mist.

It has been stated that the primary responsibility rests on the Executive; the advice and consent, which we do not waive, rests on that, but that advice and consent of course would be, or a person might evaluate it to mean what we have done heretofore and some might think there ought to be a few other steps taken. We have taken additional steps in inquiring, which we have not done heretofore in this committee, and an FBI check and report thereon, and whether that is sufficient, I would like to have an expression from the committee. Senator GREEN. I make a motion that, in the cases pending before us, the rule be waived where a letter similar to the draft submitted has been sent by the Secretary of State to the committee.

LETTER FROM SECRETARY DULLES

The CHAIRMAN. In relation to that, I will ask the secretary to read this letter of John Foster Dulles, which he sent to me, which covers the situation.

Dr. WILCOX [reading]:

DEAR SENATOR WILEY: I have given very careful thought to the decision of the Foreign Relations Committee that "all ambassadors, ministers, assistant secretaries and under secretaries are to be given an FBI investigation, the reports to be made available to the committee when the nominations are considered." Although I am most heartily in sympathy with the spirit and objectives of your decision, I must call your attention to a technical problem which could have serious consequences if you were to permit no exceptions to the application of the decision. The problem is this: In the Department of State and the Foreign Service there will be in the neighborhood of 125 appointments which will require confirmation by the Senate and which will be subject to the terms of your decision. These are key positions. The present incumbents are in the main aware of the fact that their tenure of office is coming to an end and they cannot be expected to carry on with the dedication which the task deserves. On the other hand, a technical and literal compliance with your committee's decision would require a very considerable period of time before President Eisenhower could have a State Department and Foreign Service manned and equipped to carry out his policies. In many areas the timing to create a new climate is now and if the present opportunity is lost, it will be very difficult ever to do what, in the opinion of the President and myself, is required to be done to preserve the vital security interests of the United States.

Your decision would seem to require that these new appointments could not be confirmed until each nominee has been given a full field investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, completely cleared and certified to your committee. Yet, even under the most auspicious circumstances a considerable amount of time would be required to conduct the full field investigations, evaluate the results, and report on them to your committee. As you know, these investigations by the FBI are most comprehensive and are conducted abroad, if the person has ever been abroad, as well as in the United States.

This simply means that if there is complete adherence to the letter of the committee's decision there will be considerable delay in installing a new group in the State Department and the Foreign Service and consequently in getting under way a new program and all that this entails. I personally believe that this would be a serious mistake and one which could be avoided by following the spirit of the decision without following the strict technical sense.

I propose compliance with the spirit of the decision by submitting the names for confirmation based on knowledge of the individuals and an evaluation of all investigative data available to the Government, and also my assurance that a full field investigation has been initiated. To illustrate what I have in mind. I enclose a draft of the type of certification I should like to submit in lieu of the initial compliance with all of the terms of the committee's decision.

I earnestly recommend this to you in the interest of progressing to the greater tasks ahead with as little delay as possible.

Sincerely yours,

JOHN FOSTER DULLES.

And, he referred, of course, to the draft which the staff worked up yesterday, with the people from the State Department.

The CHAIRMAN. That was the one that was read in the record. Senator TOBEY. Restate the motion pending.

MOTION TO WAIVE THE RULE, ACCEPT THE DRAFT LETTER

The CHAIRMAN. The motion made was by Senator Green and, as I will proceed to rephrase it, is the effect that:

The rule be suspended in relation to those that have been sent up. and that would be Smith, Conant, Lord, Aldrich, and Phleger; and that we proceed in these cases to examine them, provided the Secre tary has sent us a draft of a letter substantially in compliance with the one that was read into the record.

I think that states, substantially, the motion.

Is there a second?

Senator TOBEY. I second it.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. I have no objection to the spirit of the motion. I merely want to make it clear, that is, to clarify my understanding, that this motion in no way waives the eventual right of this committee to know about any serious derogatory information touching any of these people, and that the same condition obtain. that steps will be taken to eradicate the situation, or the individuals if the seriousness of any possible derogatory information warrants it. Senator GREEN. That is what I understand the letter means. Senator HICKENLOOPER. I do not want to waive further reports or the field investigation. I am perfectly willing to waive these, base on this letter, in order to get the thing going, but

Senator GREEN. That is why I limited it to the names already sub mitted.

SENATORS NEED MORE INFORMATION

Senator HICKENLOOPER. I feel this way about it: If we had an i vestigative report, of even rumored derogatory matter, if we had some information, we would have some basis upon which to ask que tions. I do not have any basis upon which to ask questions of man of these people.

I will give you an illustration: One man who is going to be pr posed, there have been some serious rumors scattered about the ma I have great confidence in him myself, but I certainly will be inter ested in inquiring a little further to see whether the rumors have any substance, and yet I would hesitate in an open hearing or otherwis to go on a shotgun examination of somebody and ask this bunch of

questions that a lot of newspaper people might feel that-well, there must be something, you get the right answer, but there must be some skullduggery going on.

I try to give a fellow the benefit of the doubt, but I think I would be derelict if I did not inquire about some rumors that have been given to me, with some degree of reliability.

That is one of the advantages of having some preliminary investigative information, and I think that after this first group of appointments are out of the way, which are essential, I think we should give this matter very serious consideration before we relax the rule in any way; but I do think it is important to the government and for everybody else to get this thing going, and that is why I am willing to compromise on this kind of basis at the moment, with the understanding that it does not in the future relax the rule any, and that each individual situation will stand on its own feet.

Senator TOBEY. Question.

ACCESS TO FBI FILES

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any further comments?

I just have this suggestion that comes to mind as I read the letter, because I want the record to be very clear. Heretofore we seem to have discussed at a previous meeting this point that we would have the FBI files, and that we would, or the chairman would be in a position to go through and evaluate it. It is very questionable whether that can be done, and very questionable whether it should be done, because there is a tremendous lot of work, as suggested by Senator Green, and in the first place, it is a matter of evaluating hearsay and everything else. I went through a number of those files when I was the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

The language here is:

Upon the receipt of this information I will examine these findings and submit to you the required security clearance or take such action as may be required.

I think that I should, at this time, in relation to this very matter, ask Mr. Cahn to give you just a few words in relation to what we ascertained when we were in New York, and what we have since ascertained in relation to this committee that is supposed to have had jurisdiction over clearing the information.

A great deal of faulty work has been done there, from what I can gather.

Tell them, if you will, about it.

STATE DEPARTMENT EVALUATIONS QUESTIONED

Mr. CAHN. This just relates, Senators to an investigation of alleged subversive American nationals inside the United Nations.

Senator GREEN. Just a minute, may I interrupt.

Has that anything to do with this pending case here?

Mr. CAHN. Only with respect to procedure, Senator, as regards evaluation.

Senator GREEN. You are just going to complicate the situation if you are going into the United Nations.

The CHAIRMAN. This is just procedure that you will have to evaluate, when it is in the record for us.

Mr. CAHN. I think that Senator Wiley just referred, Senator Green, to the fact that the McCarran Committee on Internal Security1 reported, in this report here, that in eight cases which have been brought to its attention, no adverse comment had been filed with the United Nations by the State Department evaluators and that, in the judgment of the McCarran committee, the fact that after reviewing the FBI reports, these State Department evaluators had not filed adverse comments and that that fact, that failure to file such adverse comments constituted, in the judgment of the McCarran committee, a breakdown in the system of security checks; and the McCarran committee stated that evaluation by the State Department of FBI reports was "so faulty and so delinquent from a security standpoint as prima facie to justify if not actually require an interrogation to determine if the evaluation was, itself, not the result of subversive influence."

So, the McCarran committee questioned whether there had not been perhaps subversive infiltration into the evaluation section itself. That was the substance of the McCarran committee report.

Yesterday, after the staff meeting, the staff inquired of the State Department representatives as to who would do the evaluation of the FBI report material, and it was indicated that this matter would be turned over directly to the Secretary of State, or to the White House, in view of the fact that these were Presidential nominations. The staff wondered whether, in view of the tremendous burden of work, whether it could possibly be turned over to high officials such as the Secretary of State, because of the sheer amount of work involved, and it was Senator Wiley's judgment, in discussing this earlier, that the State Department might receive, if only informal words from the chairman, that it might well improve the entire evaluation procedure in the Department because the success of this operation will stand or fall with the validity of evaluation. The FBI report is not sufficient, of itself.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF FAILURE

Senator HICKENLOOPER. Let me give an illustration or two. There are lots of them. I will state what was in my mind.

I am intimately connected with the investigation, or was at one time, of a case where a man and his wife were both Communists, admitted Communists, belonged to an espionage cell setup for espionage work in a sensitive part of our Government. That appeared in his file. This man was put in charge of some of the most highly sensitive information. He was called before a reviewing board, asked about his Communist membership, and he said that yes, up to 2 years ago he and his wife had belonged to this cell, and they had belonged to it quite awhile but they had rather dropped their membership, and they didn't belong to the cell any more. That was taken. This man was

1 The Internal Security Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired during the 82d Congress by Senator Pat McCarran of Nevada.