Rusk’s letter of Monday, March 13, stated:
“The Department shares with you a deep concern that the foreign aid programs which are so important to the success of our foreign policy, should be administered effectively and in a manner that is above reproach.
“I have therefore directed the officers of the Department concerned to co-operate fully with you and your staff to expedite your investigation and to make available to you all information and documents relevant to your inquiry which we properly can.”
Chairman Hardy took Secretary Rusk at his word and assumed that records would be made available. The next morning Hardy called Assistant Secretary Brooks Hays to inform him that a staff investigator would be visiting the office of the Inspector General and Comptroller with instructions to talk to personnel in that office. He asked that Hays do what he could to assure that Investigator Walton Woods receive a co-operative reception.
However, when Woods showed up at the office of Acting Inspector General James E. Nugent and asked to speak with Investigator Michael J. Ambrose he was refused permission. Nugent said that as far as he was concerned the orders under the Eisenhower administration were still in force, but that he would check with Legal Counsel Chayes to see if there had been a change. Later Woods returned to Nugent’s office and was informed by Nugent that no files or documents from the Office of the Inspector General were to be made available to the subcommittee.
Chairman Hardy was amazed that the same roadblocks continued to exist. On March 16, 1961, he again wrote Rusk relating what had happened and commenting:
“In spite of these developments I cannot believe that this administration is disposed to adhere to the withholding policies of the prior administration.”
Then Hardy let Rusk know that despite all the roadblocks put in the way of the subcommittee, information had already been obtained that raised serious questions about the operation of the ICA policing system.
“The data which we have already assembled independently give us reason to question whether either the Office of the Inspector General and Comptroller or its predecessor organization has performed in a satisfactory manner,” Hardy wrote.
“An office like this, exercising as it does an internal watchdog function, is of particular concern to a subcommittee such as ours. For when the Congress can be assured that such an office is doing a good job, then the areas where independent congressional inquiry may be required become fewer and smaller, and the work of Congress is accordingly simplified. Certainly we cannot evaluate the work of this office [OIGC] in any particular, if we are not permitted full access to its files and interviews with its personnel.”