“Well, I don’t know exactly what you are adverting to when you say freedom of information,” President Eisenhower said and then jumped for the safety of George Washington’s shadow:
“This question, from the time of Washington, has been a live one. When the Executive determines that something is to the—will damage the security of the United States or its vital interest, then it withholds information that possibly could be put out. But I don’t know of any specific thing which you are talking about at this moment.”
McGaffin bounced back:
“Mr. President, if I could just spell it out briefly: Congress seems perturbed over various instances where they feel that the executive branch has misused the claim of ‘executive privileges’ and denied them information which they should have.
“For instance,” McGaffin continued: “There are evaluation reports made by the ICA on certain countries which have received mutual security—Formosa, Laos, Brazil, Guatemala—a whole string of them, and Congress has raised the point where they are going to try to pass a law which would compel ICA to turn that information over to them.”
President Eisenhower confused the problem with national security in answering:
“Well, there are certain things, particularly in the security field, that, if you reveal, are very obviously damaging to the United States and I think anyone of good sense will see that. And you simply must take measures to see that those things are not revealed.
“And, now, this has been—there is nothing new about this. The Executive, and there seems to be a sort of congenital built-in mutual opposition that I don’t know why it occurs, I don’t particularly feel it personally, but I know it’s there and at times it comes to my attention in one form or another.
“But,” said the President, retreating to the safety of his reputation as an honest man, “I am using my own conscience on the matter and when such things as these come to me for decision, I shall continue to do so.”
It was a most unsatisfactory answer on a most important question involving the policing of spending by the Defense Department and the ICA. I decided to follow up where the Hardy subcommittee and Bill McGaffin left off. At the next press conference, on July 15, 1959, I caught President Eisenhower’s eye.