When Representative George Meader, the Michigan Republican, learned of the Rogers testimony he was enraged. Meader and Rogers had both served as counsel for Senate investigating committees in the late 1940s, and Meader had firsthand knowledge of the investigations that Rogers conducted of the Truman administration. He also knew that Rogers had been sharply critical of secrecy in the Truman administration.
“Curious things seem to happen to individuals when they move from one end of Pennsylvania Avenue to the other,” said Representative Meader. He urged the Congress to “strike down” Rogers’ claim with legislation declaring specifically that records must be given to Congress. He referred to the “executive privilege” as “nonexistent imagery” which had no support in the Constitution, in the laws, or in the decisions of the federal courts. Throwing aside all political partisanship, Republican Meader told the House that if the Rogers doctrine prevailed the executive will “become the master, not the servant, of the people.”
Senator Thomas C. Hennings, whose subcommittee had heard the Rogers testimony, was equally alarmed. A few days after the hearings Hennings received a letter from Rogers designed “to clarify” his testimony. On March 6, Rogers had testified:
“Now I don’t recall any instance when Washington, Jefferson or Truman or anyone else ever relied upon this [the Housekeeping Statute] as a basis for ‘executive privilege’ for withholding information. It is something entirely different. This is a bookkeeping statute which says they keep the records, they hold them physically. It doesn’t relate at all to ‘executive privilege’.”
While stating that the Housekeeping Statute included no right to withhold information, Rogers in the same hearing admitted that it had been erroneously used by officials who had meant to use the “executive privilege” to keep government records secret.
In a letter that followed his testimony, however, Rogers completely reversed himself and stated that the Housekeeping Statute is “a legislative expression and recognition of the ‘executive privilege’.”
Hennings replied that Rogers’ letter of explanation was “incompatible” with his testimony. He said that Rogers’ letter was not only “inconsistent” from a legal standpoint, but “completely baffling when compared with his oral testimony. In almost two years of investigations and study of the subject of freedom of information,” Hennings continued, “I have come across a number of cases where various misguided, secrecy-minded executive department officials, eagerly seeking authority to justify withholding information from the Congress and the public have tortured the simple provisions of the [law] ... beyond all recognition. This interpretation now offered by the Attorney General in his letter surpasses all of these others so far.”
On the specific point at issue, Chairman Hennings wrote that he believed the Housekeeping Statute had no connection with constitutional claims of “executive privilege.” “I am amazed at the Attorney General’s assertion that it does. I think the Attorney General’s letter presents overwhelming proof of the urgent need to amend [the law] ... to make clear beyond any doubt that Congress intended it to be merely a housekeeping statute and not an instrument of censorship.”
Rogers’ testimony had sent his critics scurrying to the records. When he was chief counsel for a Senate subcommittee investigating a loyalty case in the Truman administration, Rogers had been balked by an executive order issued by President Truman barring Congress from personnel files in loyalty investigations. The records showed that Rogers had fought against this secrecy, limited as it was. The committee report, written under his direction, stated:
“Congress is entitled to know the facts giving rise to the requests and to satisfy itself by firsthand information that the reasons are valid. Any other course blinds the legislative branch and permits action only when the president provides a ‘seeing-eye dog’ in the form of a request for legislation required by the executive.