Washington cover-up

by Clark R. Mollenhoff

When Chairman Hardy called a hearing five days later on March 21, the witnesses showed up with letters of instructions flatly barring testimony. Secretary of State Rusk supplied each witness with the form letter prohibiting free testimony “concerning the conduct of the foreign aid program in Peru.

“I am writing this letter to instruct you that you are not authorized to testify concerning the contents of any files of the International Cooperation Administration or the Office of the Inspector General and Comptroller in the Department of State which relates to an investigation into charges of misconduct on the part of individuals or corporate persons or, more generally, to testify concerning any matter involved in such an investigation carried on by the International Cooperation Administration or the Office of the Inspector General and Comptroller in the Department of State.”

So this was what the Kennedy administration called “co-operation” to “expedite your investigation and to make available to you all information and documents relevant to your inquiry which we properly can.” Chairman Hardy had hoped for better, but concluded that it was time to end the polite letter writing and get down to tough talk.

“Until this morning,” he declared, “it was my sincere hope that we would see some real improvement.”

Hardy had been frustrated for a full year in his effort to gain access to the key documents on foreign aid in Peru. And the Kennedy administration, in office already two months, had done nothing to change the system that covered up for the dishonest and the incompetent people who wasted foreign-aid funds. Worse yet, it developed that twelve witnesses Hardy called in carried identical letters of instructions from Rusk to refuse to testify or produce records on any investigations conducted by ICA.

Hardy denounced the Rusk letter as “the most arrogant instruction” ever given to government witnesses. Representative George Meader declared that “a curtain had been rung down” on the operations of the ICA.

Meader, the highest ranking Republican on the Hardy subcommittee, demanded that Secretary Rusk should be brought before the subcommittee to explain the barriers he was erecting against investigations by Congress.

When Chairman Hardy agreed to call Rusk the very next day, State Department officials said “it would be very difficult” for Rusk to appear at that time for he was leaving the following evening for Bangkok and a major international conference of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization nations.

Hardy declared that Rusk would be summoned before the subcommittee when he returned from the international conference, and that in the meantime he would be calling all other responsible State Department officials in an effort to get to the bottom of the stalling.

For the record, he reviewed the long struggle to get information on the Peru program from the Eisenhower administration. He also related the details of the patient two-month wait to give the Kennedy administration sufficient time to examine the problem carefully.