“An informed public makes the difference between mob rule and democratic government. If the pertinent and necessary information on governmental activities is denied the public, the result is a weakening of the democratic process and the ultimate atrophy of our form of government.”
Moss took the assignment immediately but waited five months before starting what was to become the committee’s five-year struggle with the Eisenhower administration.
Although the investigation ultimately became involved almost exclusively in trying to break down the barrier of “executive privilege,” it started out on general information policy problems. At the time of the first hearing (November 5, 1955) there was only a handful of observers greatly concerned over “executive privilege.” James S. Pope, executive editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, J. Russell Wiggins, executive editor of the Washington Post and Times Herald, and Harold L. Cross, special counsel for the American Society of Newspaper Editors, were among those who shared my worry.
James (Scotty) Reston, Washington correspondent for The New York Times, had recently expressed concern over “managed news.” He objected to “the conscious effort” to give news emanating from the Geneva Conference “an optimistic” flavor.
“After the Geneva smiling, the new word went out that it might be a good idea now to frown a little bit, so the President made a speech at Philadelphia, taking quite a different light about the Geneva Conference,” Reston said. “That is what I mean by managing the news.”
I didn’t like “managed news” any better than Reston, but I believed that the arbitrary secrecy of “executive privilege” was the core of the problem. There would be “managed news” as long as executive departments and independent regulatory agencies were able to invoke an arbitrary secrecy to prevent the press and Congress from reviewing the record—and as long as newspapers indolently accepted the management.
The Moss subcommittee gave me an excellent chance to state my views the first day of its hearings. I began my testimony with a review of the history of the May 17, 1954, letter and the Army-McCarthy hearings.
“Since that time,” I stated, “seventeen departments of the Government have used this letter as a precedent for withholding actual decisions of the government. Conversations and documents used in arriving at decisions are regarded as confidential, and the Congress and reporters alike are denied information.”
I pointed out that the American Civil Liberties Union had filed a complaint against the use of “executive privilege” by subordinates of executive agencies. And I commented that it was startling to find Senator McCarthy and the American Civil Liberties Union together on an issue.
“I think this demonstrates that this is not something political,” I said. “The party in power may gain some kind of a temporary advantage from hiding the record, but in a long-time advantage, for both parties, it is best to try to make a full disclosure of what goes on in government.”