In his slow North Carolina drawl, the gray-haired Democrat elaborated:
“We have had experience here that people in the lower echelons of the executive departments have had their mouths stopped, and we were told that those who were at the higher levels could give us information. But I have come to this conclusion: That our position is sort of like that of one of my clients, who came in my office one day and said that he wanted to get a divorce from his wife.
“He admitted she was a good woman, a good mother, and a good housekeeper. I said, ‘Well, what in the world do you want to get a divorce from her for?’ He said, ‘Well, she just talks, and talks, and talks, and talks, and talks all the time.’ I said, ‘What does she talk about?’ And he said, ‘Well, she don’t say.’”
Stassen’s refusal to say anything was made all the more appalling by the publication of The Inside Story, a book about the Eisenhower administration written by Robert J. Donovan of the New York Herald Tribune.
“The contents of the book,” the McClellan subcommittee stated, “are based upon documents, materials, minutes, and other information similar in nature and character to that which this subcommittee has been trying to obtain in the course of discharging its legislative duties and responsibilities.
“The executive branches of the Government have been adamant in refusing to make such information available to this subcommittee, and it is difficult to reconcile such attitude with its willingness to give similar information to private individuals.”
The McClellan subcommittee was not critical of Donovan, but the members were infuriated by the policy inconsistencies. A request was made for Maxwell Rabb, Cabinet Secretary, to appear and explain the reasons and circumstances surrounding the release of information to Donovan.
“Rabb failed and refused to appear,” the subcommittee reported. “Thereafter, a letter was sent to Under Secretary of State [Herbert] Hoover [Jr.], Secretary of Commerce [Sinclair] Weeks, ICA Director [John B.] Hollister, Assistant Secretary of Defense Gordon Gray, calling attention to the fact that material of a confidential nature and relating to the internal workings of the government at Cabinet and staff levels had been disclosed to a private individual for a commercial purpose, and in the light of these facts, the chairman of the subcommittee again requested that the documents of the Joint Operating Committee, relating to decontrol of strategic materials, be made available to this subcommittee as early as possible.”
The information was not supplied, and the McClellan subcommittee declared that this “suppression of information raises not only the question as to the right of Congress to know, but also the question of the right of the public in a democracy to be informed as to the activities of its government.”
In its reports, the McClellan subcommittee declared that the doctrine of separation of powers as explained in President Eisenhower’s May 17, 1954, letter was totally wrong in asserting the complete independence of the executive branch. The subcommittee quoted from the opinion of Chief Justice William Howard Taft in the Grossman case in which he said: