It will continue to be this administration’s policy to keep the Congress and the people fully informed of what is being done in the executive branch. An employee is not free merely to exercise his own discretion but in the final analysis information will be withheld only when the President or agency heads acting under the President’s authority or instruction determine it is contrary to the public interest to disclose it.
All of the above, of course, is subject to the Executive order dealing with the classification of information in the interest of security, and to the various statutes and regulations of the department and agencies relating to information to be held in confidence.
I hope this answers your inquiry.
Sincerely,
Gerald D. Morgan,
Special Counsel to the President
APPENDIX C
Correspondence on the Right of Access to Information by the General Accounting Office
November 12, 1958
Hon. Dwight D. Eisenhower,
President of the United States,
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. President: I just returned to Washington for a hearing of the Government Information Subcommittee. The subcommittee, I understand, will inquire into the matter of General Accounting Office access to Air Force Inspector General’s reports. In that context, my attention has been directed to your press conference comments of November 5, and to some newspaper speculation about those comments.
The text of your remarks to which I refer is as follows:
“Q. (Clark R. Mollenhoff, Des Moines Register). Mr. President, you have mentioned the spending in the Defense Department here as one of the important issues, and the General Accounting Office, which is the watchdog on frauds and extravagance in the various agencies, has been barred from reports over in the Air Force and the Defense Department generally, and on this they claim that they have authority from you to withhold reports any time it is ‘inexpedient to do so.’