Memorandum from Stephen Spingarn

C 0 P Y May 22, 1950 MEMORANDUM Subject: Proposal for Presidential Commission on Internal Security and Individual Rights. Senator Tydings and Senator McMahon, in their capacity as members of the Tydings Subcommittee on State Department loyalty cases, have proposed to the President that a Presidential commission of distinguished citizens be established to consider and report on the 81 State Department loyalty cases, on which the files have already been made available to the Tydings Subcommittee. Their proposal is based on the premise that the Tydings Subcom- mittee is going to split along Party lines, and the country will regard any conclusions which a majority of that Subcommittee reaches as political and will not be satisfied with them. This is particularly true because of the election this Fall and because three members of the Subcommittee (Tydings, McMahon and Hickenlooper) are up for re- election. TRUMAN In a full page editorial this morning (May 22), the Wash- HARRY ARCHIVESAND RECORDS LIBRARY ington Post proposes the establishment of a Commission on National Security. Attached is an excerpt from that editorial. SERVICE" 8.5. 1838 The Post proposal is that this Commission on National Security survey "the major aspects of national security -- the internal menace of the fifth column, civilian defense, development of new weapons, the size and use of military expenditures, economic restoration of our friends and allies". It seems to me that there is a real need for a Presidential commission in the area of internal security but that on the one hand the Post proposal is much too broad and, on the other hand, the Tydings- McMahon proposal is too narrow. The area in which a Presidential commission is greatly needed at this time is the internal security field. Such a commission should not be limited to one relatively small segment of this field, such as the State Department loyalty cases, nor should its functions be so inflated in scope that the problems of internal security are lost in one corner of the great hall. With this thought in mind, I propose the establishment of a Presidential Commission on Internal Security and Individual Rights. This commission would be assigned three areas of study: C 0 P Y