The answer, from Gerald D. Morgan, Deputy Assistant to the President, reached me a few days later on July 21. Morgan merely quoted from the President’s letter to Representative Hoffman of some months before, and from other earlier statements of his on “executive privilege.”
Morgan wrote, “The President’s position has not changed.” I was not convinced that President Eisenhower knew what his position was. The letter left all basic questions unanswered.
The foreign-aid bill, amending the Mutual Security Act of 1954, was now before the Congress, and Representative Hardy had tacked on an amendment specifically stating that “all documents, papers, communications, audits, reviews, findings, recommendation reports and other material which relate to the operation or activities of the International Cooperation Administration shall be furnished to the General Accounting Office” and authorized committees of Congress.
On July 24, 1959, President Eisenhower signed the bill with Hardy’s amendment, including three provisions for disclosure of information to the Congress or the GAO. In signing it, however, the President served notice he would not abide by the disclosure sections:
“I have signed this bill on the express premise that the three amendments relating to disclosure are not intended to alter and cannot alter the recognized constitutional duty and power of the executive with respect to the disclosure of information, documents, and other materials. Indeed, any other construction of these amendments would raise grave constitutional question under the historic separation of powers doctrine.”
Five days later at the July 29, 1959, press conference I asked the President if he considered the provisions in the bill to cut off funds to balky agencies to be “a criticism of the administration’s secrecy policies.”
President Eisenhower turned red in the face at the reference to “secrecy” in his administration. “You start your question with an implied fact that is not a fact,” he said. “You say the administration’s secrecy policies. There has been no administration....”
I tried to amplify my question, but was cut off.
“Please sit down,” the President said sharply. I sat on orders from the Commander in Chief, and he continued:
“There has been no administration since my memory, and I have been in this city since 1926, who has gone to such lengths to make information available as long as the national security and the national interest of this country is not involved.”