By this time editors of a couple dozen newspapers had done considerable study on the problem of “executive privilege.” Although cognizant of the many problems weighing on President Eisenhower, they felt the time had come for him to make himself aware of the insidious secrecy that was creeping into the federal government under his prestige.
It was a week after this press conference that James W. Riddleberger, Director of the ICA, refused to make evaluation reports available to Congress on the foreign-aid program in Laos and Vietnam.
Now Chairman Hardy saw that a disclosure amendment to the Mutual Security law would not be enough to force the Eisenhower administration to produce records for the GAO and the Congress. The 3.1-billion-dollar foreign-aid appropriations bill was still pending in Congress, and Hardy decided to try to use an amendment to this purse-string measure to force the Eisenhower administration to produce records.
The House was unanimous in adopting the Hardy amendment to the appropriations bill. This amendment provided that the Comptroller General could shut off aid funds to any program if records were refused to Congress and GAO investigators.
The Eisenhower administration was gravely concerned over this amendment. Riddleberger voiced the opposition, and the Senate weakened in the face of administration pressure. The Senate version of the appropriations bill carried the provision that the President could authorize withholding by a simple certification “that he has forbidden its being furnished ... and his reason for so doing.” In a late night session the Senate-House conference committee accepted the huge loophole in the Senate version of the appropriations bill.
Representative Hardy recognized it immediately as a loophole that could destroy the effectiveness of his amendment. A simple note from the President would override any request by Congress or the GAO.
Would President Eisenhower read the documents necessary to determine for himself whether a certification for withholding was justified? It seemed more likely to his critics that he would sign certifications continuing to bar the GAO and Congress from a thorough examination of the internal workings of the foreign-aid program. Chairman Hardy’s fears were justified. It wasn’t long before his requests for information were being met with “certification” from President Eisenhower giving only the most general reasons.
The Congress could have done more than it did. It unquestionably had the necessary power, reaffirmed by the Supreme Court as recently as 1957 in the Watkins case. The Court said:
“The power of Congress to conduct investigations is inherent in the legislative process. That power is broad. It encompasses inquiries concerning the administration of existing laws as well as proposed or possibly needed statutes. It includes surveys of defects in our social, economic, or political system for the purpose of enabling the Congress to remedy them. It comprehends probes into departments of the Federal Government to expose corruption, inefficiency and waste.”
I was unsuccessful in my efforts to get Speaker Sam Rayburn or Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson interested in taking any effective measures to reaffirm the right of Congress to compel production of records for GAO.