Suspension & Clearance

Were the officials who played a key role in the U.S.'s disastrous China policy 1) mistaken in their judgment or 2) subversive in their intention, or 3) neither?

The Truman Administration has never admitted any misjudgment; the State Department's white paper of 1949, still the official line, holds that the Communist conquest of China had nothing to do with anything U.S. diplomats did or failed to do. And only last February, after a departmental hearing, State cleared the loyalty of John Carter Vincent, once the most influential of its Old China Hands. Secretary Dean Acheson himself gave Vincent "best wishes" and assurance of "full confidence."

Last week the President's Loyalty Review Board, which is a high court in such matters,/- overruled State's vindication of John Carter Vincent. Said the LRB: "Without expressly accepting or rejecting," it had taken into account 1) ex-Communist Louis Budenz' testimony that Vincent was a Communist, and 2) the Senate Internal Security subcommittee's finding that Vincent had been a "principal fulcrum" for pro-Communist influence in the State Department.

The board noted Vincent's "studied praise of Chinese Communists and equally studied criticism of the Chiang Kai-shek government . . . indifference to any evidence that the Chinese Communists were affiliated with or controlled by the U.S.S.R. . . . close association with numerous persons who, he had reason to believe, were either Communists or Communist sympathizers . . .

"His conduct . . . forces us reluctantly to conclude that there is reasonable doubt as to his loyalty . . ."

The LRB recommended that Vincent be dismissed. State responded by suspending the diplomat and ordering him home from Tangier, where he was assigned 21 months ago as Minister. The final decision to fire him must come from Harry Truman, who promised to talk it over with Dean Acheson.

The LRB last week cleared another controversial onetime China Hand: John Paton Da vies Jr., who is now a top political adviser to the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany.

The board did not go into "the wisdom or judgment" of the Davies record on China. It heard confidential testimony from the Central Intelligence Agency's General Walter Bedell Smith and Ambassador George Kennan (see LETTERS) concerning recommendations made by Davies for using the services of alleged Communists. The board found that there was no reasonable doubt of Davies' loyalty.

f An agency of the Civil Service Commission, the LRB was set up in 1947 by Harry Truman. Chaired by a Connecticut Republican, ex-Sen ator Hiram Bingham, it is now composed of 31 members who sit in panels of three or more. While the board's personnel is publicly known, the names of members reviewing particular cases are kept confidential.

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