“Power over the press,” he said, “is the path to dictatorship.”
And:
“What most of us find the most objectionable in the President’s [Truman’s] order is the ease with which it can be used to cover up blunders and incompetence, and the absence of any provision for removing secrecy provisions after the emergency has passed. We may now find our friends in other countries revealing information which we are not permitted to publish or broadcast.”
Bender’s last sentence could not have been more prophetic. The majority report hammered home the prophecy-come-true: “The British have published substantially the same export-control list as that which our Government departments and agencies seek to hide and conceal from the American people.”
On the basis of consistency, reason, and logic the Eisenhower administration’s broad use of “executive privilege” was by now thoroughly discredited. I did not see how President Eisenhower or anyone else could defend it, but I had not taken into account President Eisenhower’s lack of understanding of just what was taking place under the cover of “executive privilege.” The President was exceedingly popular, and there were plenty of people who were willing to use his good name and reputation for honesty as a cover for their own errors, incompetence, misjudgments, or improprieties.
CHAPTER X
Pressing a Point with Ike
The final reports from the four congressional investigations—a House Government Operations Committee, the Senate Dixon-Yates investigating subcommittee, the McClellan subcommittee on East-West trade, and the Wolf Ladejinsky probe—were all released during the summer of 1956. Each assailed the excessive arbitrary secrecy that had hampered the investigations.
So, once again, at a press conference on September 27, 1956, I raised the problem of arbitrary executive secrecy with President Eisenhower.
“Mr. President,” I said. “At least four Congressional committees in a period of the last few weeks have issued reports that were critical of what they termed excessive secrecy which they felt covered up mismanagement in the operation of the Government.
“Now, these committees contend that there is no court decision backing the broad proposition of executive secrecy, and I wondered if you could tell us if you feel that all employees of the Federal Government, at their own discretion, can determine whether they will testify or will not testify before committees when there is no security problem involved?”