The Johnston subcommittee report also made note of the act of the First Congress establishing the Treasury Department. This law made it the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to “report and give information to either branch of the Legislature, in person or in writing (as may be required) respecting all matters referred to him by the Senate or House of Representatives, or which shall appertain to his office....”
The subcommittee did not contend that it could force the President or cabinet officers to testify on any subject, but it did contend that cabinet officers must testify when there is a specific statute covering their responsibility.
Attention was called to the Supreme Court ruling in the famous case of McGrain v. Daugherty, handed down in 1927 in connection with the Senate investigation of the Teapot Dome scandals. The opinion written by Justice Van Devanter stated:
“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.... Thus there is ample warrant for thinking, as we do, that the constitutional provisions which commit the legislative function to the two Houses are intended to include this attribute to the end that the function may be effectively exercised.”
According to the best authorities it seemed clear that Congress had the power to compel testimony when searching for facts within its jurisdiction. The Supreme Court had held that private persons could be compelled to testify, and it seemed equally clear that government officials could be compelled to give evidence. There was no way for Congress to force the President personally to give testimony or produce records except by impeaching him. Yet he was obligated, along with all other government officials, to give testimony or produce records for a proper congressional committee as long as the national security was not endangered.
Certainly the revelation of testimony of conversations between a State Department personnel officer and an Agriculture Department personnel officer on the Wolf Ladejinsky case would not endanger the national security of the United States. It is significant that the Department of Agriculture departed from precedent in previous security cases in making information on Ladejinsky available, but this was information derogatory to Ladejinsky. The Department used secrecy to hide its own faulty administration. The claim of “executive privilege” was simply being used to cover up, and everyone familiar with the record knew it.
CHAPTER VIII
Secrecy Hides the Security Bunglers
By the spring of 1955, enough executive agencies were refusing records to Congress that Representative William Dawson, the Illinois Democrat who served as chairman of the House Government Operations Committee, had become concerned.
On June 9, 1955, Representative Dawson wrote to Representative John E. Moss, the young California Democrat, formally establishing a Government Information Subcommittee and asking that Moss be chairman. Congressman Moss was only in his second term in Congress, and normally would not have been assigned chairmanship of a subcommittee unless it appeared relatively unimportant as a vehicle for publicity.
“Charges have been made that Government agencies have denied or withheld pertinent and timely information to the newspapers, to radio, and television broadcasters, magazines, and other communication media, to trained and qualified research experts and to the Congress,” Congressman Dawson wrote.