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0 Filed 0 U. S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE P NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS Y WASHINGTON 25 National Bureau of Standards 252-M Address Reply to In Your Reply August 6, 1951 Refer to File D MEMORANDUM TO: The President, White House FROM: E. U. Condon, Director, National Bureau of Standards x3-M SUBJECT: Loyalty and Security Procedures # Actual operation of loyalty and security programs within the government, in the atmosphere of suspicion and hate engendered by some members of Congress, is producing bad results: (1) Nervous strain, legal expense and virtual blacklisting of individuals on trivial and silly charges which ought never to be given serious consideration. (2) Especially in science, the bad name which the Government is getting as an employer, is intensifying the problem of recruiting men to work on urgent problems. We have a critical shortage of scientists anyway which is made worse by these abuses. (3) The Administration is harming itself politically by admitting by its official actions that these individuals deserved removal. Regrettably some actions taken may have been necessary, but many have not been necessary by any reasonable standards, and yet each such removal can also be attacked as an instance of earlier carelessness X2750 x263 Filed with nimity lesminsion correspondence