PRESIDENT HOOVER’S ADMINISTRATION
A similar question arose in 1930 during the administration of President Hoover. Secretary of State Stimson refused to disclose to the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee certain confidential telegrams and letters leading up to the London Conference and the London Treaty. The Committee asserted its right to have full and free access to all records touching the negotiations of the treaty, basing its right on the constitutional prerogative of the Senate in the treaty-making process. In his message to the Senate, President Hoover pointed out that there were a great many informal statements and reports which were given to the Government in confidence. The Executive was under a duty, in order to maintain amicable relations with other nations, not to publicize all the negotiations and statements which went into the making of the treaty. He further declared that the Executive must not be guilty of a breach of trust, nor violate the invariable practice of nations. “In view of this, I believe that to further comply with the above resolution would be incompatible with the public interest” (S. Doc. No. 216, 71st Cong., special sess., p. 2).
PRESIDENT FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT’S ADMINISTRATION
The position was followed during the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. There were many instances in which the President and his Executive heads refused to make available certain information to Congress the disclosure of which was deemed to be confidential or contrary to the public interest. Merely a few need be cited.
1. Federal Bureau of Investigation records and reports were refused to congressional committees, in the public interest (40 Op. A. G. No. 8, April 30, 1941).
2. The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation refused to give testimony or to exhibit a copy of the President’s directive requiring him, in the interests of national security, to refrain from testifying or from disclosing the contents of the Bureau’s reports and activities. (Hearings, vol. 2, House, 78th Cong. Select Committee to Investigate the Federal Communications Commission, 1944, p. 2337.)
3. Communications between the President and the heads of departments were held to be confidential and privileged and not subject to inquiry by a committee of one of the Houses of Congress. (Letter dated January 22, 1944, signed Francis Biddle, Attorney General to Select Committee, etc.)
4. The Director of the Bureau of the Budget refused to testify and to produce the Bureau’s files, pursuant to subpoena which had been served upon him, because the President had instructed him not to make public the records of the Bureau due to their confidential nature. Public interest was again invoked to prevent disclosure. (Reliance placed on Attorney General’s Opinion in 40 Op. A. G. No. 8, April 30, 1941.)
5. The Secretaries of War and Navy were directed not to deliver documents which the committee had requested, on grounds of public interest. The Secretaries, in their own judgment, refused permission to Army and Navy officers to appear and testify because they felt that it would be contrary to the public interests. (Hearings, Select Committee to Investigate the Federal Communications Commission, vol. 1, pp. 46, 48-68.)
PRESIDENT TRUMAN’S ADMINISTRATION