The Right to Know

Were the congressional investigations of Communism in government just a political red herring? Harry Truman said they were--in an anomalous use of a cliche much fancied by Communists. Republicans scoffed that the President's accusation was just a political dodge to get his party off an uncomfortable election-year spot. Of course it was a fact that both parties were playing election-year politics.

But the real issues of the investigations went far beyond partisanship. Were the innocent being smeared along with the guilty? It was a cry that had gone up during almost every congressional investigation. It had sounded with particular force during the House hearings on Communism in Hollywood (TIME, Nov. 10, 1947). But, wrote Baltimore's crusty old H. L. Mencken (who had himself been accused of Communism after World War I): "The number of such cases has been greatly overestimated by the bogus 'liberals' who are always so ready to slide down the pole when Reds sound the alarm."

The current investigations were aimed at specific acts of disloyalty. The fact that a federal grand jury had taken no action against some persons named by congressional witnesses did not mean that those persons had been automatically cleared. For one thing, there was a strong suspicion that Department of Justice lawyers had not been overanxious to produce evidence which would reflect on a Democratic Administration. For another, congressional investigators could and should throw their spotlight in areas which no grand jury can illuminate.

That had been proved countless times in previous congressional hearings. The Pujo investigation (1913) paved the way for the Federal Reserve Act. The Pecora investigation of Wall Street produced the Securities Exchange Act; the Black investigation of the utility lobby led to the Lobbying Act of 1946.

It was proved again last week by the evidence uncovered in the hearings to date. This was that the Administration had been staffed by some criminally gullible if not criminally liable officials, and that Administration higher-ups had been extraordinarily careless in hiring them and keeping them in their jobs. That was something the U.S. had a right to know and to legislate about, if legislation seemed to be needed.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.