“Complete independence and separation between the three branches, however, are not attained or intended, as other provisions of the Constitution and the normal operation of government under it easily demonstrate.” The Grossman case set out the various checks the executive, legislative, and judicial departments are specifically granted under the Constitution.
The subcommittee legal report stated flatly that there are no legal cases upholding the claimed “inherent right to withhold information” from Congress.
In another report, the subcommittee also challenged the broad use of the May 17, 1954, letter from Eisenhower to Defense Secretary Wilson. The report quoted from the May 17, 1954, letter:
“You will instruct employees of your Department that in all their appearances before the subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Government Operation regarding the inquiry now before it [Army-McCarthy hearings] they are not to testify....”
“It is clear that this letter was intended to apply specifically to the Army-McCarthy hearings,” the subcommittee report concluded, but the fact was that it had “been cited by twenty or more federal agencies and departments as grounds for refusing information to Congress.”
Chairman McClellan went on the Senate floor to express his concern over the total secrecy that was being clamped on the executive branch.
“The Government agencies acting in concert are doing everything to hinder and hamper the Subcommittee’s efforts to ascertain the facts concerning the relaxation of these controls,” the Senator declared. “Except for some co-operation from the Department of Defense, the information has not been forthcoming. The facts the Subcommittee has developed thus far ... have not been made available or furnished ... by the executive agencies.
“The information we have has been secured from documents and publications of foreign governments, where the information is being freely given out by our allies. That same information in the United States is being withheld by the executive branch of our Government from both the Congress and the American people.”
McClellan declared it is “a farce” how the Battle Act list of strategic materials is withheld from Congress and the people of the United States but is available to the Communist-bloc countries. “They know what they can buy,” he said. “They [the Communist bloc countries] know what they do buy and have bought.
“Can it be ... this classification, this policy of secrecy, this suppression or withholding of the truth is a process or an action designed for hiding of errors, inefficiency and bad judgment of Government officials?” he asked. “I am convinced it is. If not, then why not give the Congress the information and let the American people know the truth?”