Chairman Hardy’s staff had also called his attention to another law (5 U.S.C. 105 [a]) which provided that every department shall, upon request of the Government Operations Committee, “furnish any information requested of it relating to any matters within the jurisdiction of said committee.”
Added to these laws, and the previously mentioned Budgeting and Accounting Act of 1921, was the fact that the State Department was preparing to ask Congress for more money for aid to Latin America. The stage was legally and psychologically well set for co-operation. And Chairman Hardy was indeed advised that he would receive full co-operation. It never came. When his first requests for files on the Bolivia program produced no results in six weeks, Hardy notified the State Department and ICA that hearings would begin on the information policy on June 28, 1960.
The hearings revealed that the State Department had constructed an involved thirteen-step routine for clearing papers for Congress, and the papers Hardy requested simply had not been cleared. Eric H. Hager, legal adviser of the Department of State, identified himself as the man responsible for the new system.
It was found that in one instance it took six weeks for one subcommittee request to clear eight of the thirteen steps. When Chairman Hardy tried to find out what had happened to the request for documents, he learned that the request and the documents were resting in the “in box” in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of State for Congressional Relations. The papers had been gathering dust in the box for two weeks and were only moved when the State Department started to prepare for the hearing.
In the report on the hearings, Hardy’s subcommittee explained the need for original documents as “the best evidence available” on the internal operations of ICA.
“It has been the policy and practice of the subcommittee, in order to insure accurate reporting of these complex operations, to support its findings with documentary corroboration from files of the executive agencies,” the report stated.
“The subcommittee has sought to obtain the facts from the documents and records ... as they are prepared in the ordinary course of doing business, rather than to rely upon oral testimony or upon secondary documents prepared especially for the subcommittee’s consideration.”
The report scored “executive privilege” as a “nebulous doctrine” that had plagued the subcommittee with delays. Again it was pointed out that the withholding of information was in violation of clear laws imposing a duty to make records available to Congress. The report stated that the subcommittee had sought to be reasonable in its request, and “on several occasions [has] withdrawn its requests for particular documents at the suggestion of the executive branch. Examples of documents in this category are certain memoranda recording high-level discussions between Department of State officials and senior officials of foreign governments.”
The report stated it should be understood that this willingness to refrain from pressing for certain documents was not a recognition of any right to withhold them. It continued:
“No court decision has settled the question of whether executive officials may refuse to honor a request of a congressional committee for papers, documents and records. Many court decisions, however, have upheld the power of congressional committees to obtain records and papers in the possession of private individuals, corporations, and associations even though such records might be regarded as of a highly personal nature. It logically follows that the power of Congress to obtain information regarding the public business, the exercise of authority granted by Congress, or the expenditure of funds appropriated by Congress would likewise be upheld in the event of a court test.