Clark R. Mollenhoff

“ A truly thorough investigation of the executive branch can be conducted only in the Congress. It is unreasonable to believe that an Attorney General, appointed by the President, will aggressively delve into an investigation of matters that might embarrass his own administration. For this reason, the right of the public and the press to government information is for the most part contingent upon the power of Congress to obtain documents and testimony from the executive branch. ”

“ I shall not rest until the peddlers of privilege and the destroyers of decency are banished from the nation’s house.”
Two days later at Philadelphia, he spoke of the need for an open, frank government:
“We must not minimize the difficulties; neither can we seek with words and dollars to make the going look easy when it is tough. There will be mistakes, but the mistakes we make will not be doctored up to look like triumphs. There will be no curtain of evasion, of suppression, or double talk between ourselves and the people.” ”

“ It is well to remember that every withholding of government business from the public is an encroachment upon the democratic principle that government officials are accountable to the people. It follows that citizens should regard all governmental secrecy with some suspicion as an encroachment on their right to know.
The American citizen should reject all arbitrary claims to secrecy by the bureaucracy as sharply as he would reject any claims to a right of the executive branch to by-pass Congress in levying taxes. ”

“ For over 150 years—almost from the time that the American form of government was created by the adoption of the Constitution—our Presidents have established, by precedent, that they and members of their Cabinet and other heads of executive departments have an undoubted privilege and discretion to keep confidential, in the public interest, papers and information which require secrecy. American history abounds in countless illustrations of the refusal, on occasion, by the President and heads of departments to furnish papers to Congress, or its committees, for reasons of public policy. ”

“ One of the chief merits of the American system of written constitutional law is that all the powers entrusted to the government are divided into three great departments, the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial. It is essential to the successful working of this system that the persons entrusted with power in any one of these branches shall not be permitted to encroach upon the powers confided to the others, but that each shall be limited to the exercise of the powers appropriate to its own department and no other. ”

“ This manipulation, shading, twisting, or omission of facts—often referred to as “managing the news”—will be limited only by the political fear of being exposed for having made erroneous or intentionally misleading statements to the public. As reprehensible as the practice can be, it is nevertheless a political fact of life and those who lament its existence would do better to bolster the one sure safeguard against it: the people’s right to know—through the press and through their elected representatives in Congress. ”

“ Congress can be of great service to a cabinet officer in keeping his agency clean. If a congressional committee is unreasonable, or brutal, or oversteps its jurisdiction, such abuses, it must be remembered, take place in public where they can be seen and remedied. The President and others in the executive branch have the personnel and facilities for pointing out the abuses so they can be eradicated in the face of public opinion. ”

“ A wise citizen should be as outraged at arbitrary secrecy as he would be at arbitrary imprisonment. Logically he should insist on the same safeguards against arbitrary secrecy that he would against unjustified [Pg 10] arrest or taxation. The public’s “right to know” is that basic.
Unfortunately, there is a general tendency to regard government secrecy as only a problem for the newspapers. And even within the newspaper profession there is a tendency to ignore government secrecy until it interferes with a story the individual reporter or editor wants to develop. ”

“ There is a sharp cruelty in secrecy that results in such injury to an individual, and there is great damage to our government—and to people’s faith in it—when secrecy is used to cover up mismanagement and corruption. I am gravely concerned over any obstructions put in the way of congressional committees’ investigating the abuses of secrecy. Where [Pg 17] would we be if Congress had not looked into such nefarious schemes as the Teapot Dome scandals of the Harding administration or the tax “fixes” in the Truman administration? ”

“ If the committees of Congress, acting within the scope of [Pg 12] their authority, cannot obtain access to all the facts on government activity, then the facts can be arbitrarily hidden for the duration of the administration’s power. Who would argue that any administration should be allowed to bury its crimes, its mismanagement, and its errors until a public, barred from full facts on these matters, decides to vote that party from power? Such a philosophy would put a premium on the Washington cover-up. ”

“ In answer to questions I said I did not object to specific legislation to cover areas of government where secrecy was essential. I emphasized that “if the record of the government must be confidential, it is not too much to ask the executive department to give a reason. Democrats and Republicans in Congress have an equal interest in obtaining ... the whole story, all of the information behind the decisions of the executive agency.” ”

“ News management, I repeat, can be controlled only by insisting on the public’s right to go behind the statements distributed by the government agencies or by high government officials.
[Pg 11]
Those who manipulate the news or try to cover their tracks with arbitrary secrecy are not likely to be pursuing totalitarian goals. Usually the only motivation is short-term political gain. Often it is rationalized on grounds that a few factual errors and overdrawn conclusions are not important when viewed in the total context of the achievements of the party in power. ”

“ The nature of the position, with all its vast responsibilities, makes a circle of close advisers inevitable. Thus Presidents of the past have sought information about alleged improprieties or corruptions from the very men who have been accused of perpetrating them. Instead of facts and a clear analysis of the problem—whether it was Teapot Dome, tax scandals, or Dixon-Yates—the Presidents have received misinformation and excuses. The accusations have been explained away to our Presidents as partisan complaints from politicians maliciously bent on destroying the administration’s programs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ However, we can never trust the judgment of those in power who might be inclined to make self-serving declarations on their own virtues. This has happened often in the past. We know now that at least eight or ten congressional committees have made it clear they are not as sure as Mr. Rogers that secrecy is not being used to hide crimes, favoritism, and blunders today.
[Pg 137]
“It is not necessary to arrive at any conclusion on the virtues of this administration or any administration, to conclude that secret government is not in keeping with democracy. ”

“ The Eisenhower administration was smug in its popularity. Leaders of Congress were too busy with political chores to pay attention to any problem not connected with the business of getting re-elected. The press could not or would not think logically or consistently on the subject. Secrecy that stood in the way of an individual reporter or newspaper was deplored by that reporter or newspaper, but by too few others. For the most part the attack on secrecy lacked co-ordination, consistency, and enlightened concern. ”

“ In total, dozens of tax officials were ousted from office for questionable handling of tax cases, and dozens were indicted and convicted on charges of cheating on their own tax returns. The mismanagement and fraud, which the Truman administration had sought to deny existed, was more widespread and sordid than most of the critics of the Bureau of Internal Revenue had imagined. The damage to the integrity of the nation’s tax system was incalculable. ”

“ Any possible presidential immunity from the enforcement of legal process does not extend to the heads of departments and other Federal agencies. Judicial opinions have never recognized any inherent right in the heads of Federal agencies to withhold information from the courts. The courts have stated that even where the head of the department or agency bases his action on statutory authority the courts will judge the reasonableness of the action in the same light as any other claim of privilege. The courts have held that the mere claim of privilege is not enough. ”

“ Senator Kefauver stated: “In these circumstances a claim of privilege is tantamount to suppression of evidence of possible crime and corruption. Not even the privilege of attorney-client can be used for such a nefarious purpose.”
Sherman Adams hid out behind the protective walls of the White House, unavailable for questioning by Congress and unavailable for questioning by the press. “Executive privilege,” as smoothly practiced by the Eisenhower administration, made it appear that Adams was invulnerable to attack, or even questioning, on any of his activities. ”

“ We are of the opinion that the power of inquiry—with process to enforce it—is an essential and appropriate auxiliary to the legislative function.... A legislative body cannot legislate wisely or effectively in the absence of information respecting the conditions which the legislation is intended to affect or change; and where the legislative body does not itself possess the requisite information—which not infrequently is true—recourse must be had to others who do possess it.... ”