White House Press Release

252-K IMMEDIATE RELEASE MARCH 15, 1948 The President's directive brings to the attention of all officers and employees in the executive branch the Administration's policy of carry- ing out the Federal employee loyalty program on a confidential basis. The loyalty order itself (Executive Order No. 9835 of March 21, 1947) indicates in Part IV the necessity of preserving reports and other information in. strict confidence. The new directive indicates that this policy is to be applied even where a "subpena or demand" has been received. Subpenas issued by courts and congressional committees are to be "respectfully declined," but are at the same time to be referred to the President, who will determine in the public interest the nature of the response to be made in the particular case. The President thus takes responsibility for informing the court or congressional committee concerning the extent of the confidential information, if any, which can properly be furnished. The directive and the policy therein expressed have ample prece- dent. Since the founding of the Government the Presidents of the United States have, from time to time, held information of various types to be confidential, and have refused to divulge or to permit the divulgence of such information outside of the executive branch of the Government. In 1796, for example, President Washington declined to comply with a request of the House of Representatives to furnish it with a copy of the instruc- tions to Ministers of the United States who had negotiated a treaty with Great Britain. Later, President Jefferson refused to allow two members of his Cabinet to supply documents at the trial of Aaron Burr. In 1825 President Monroe declined to comply with a request of the House of Representa- tives to transmit to the House certain documents relating to the conduct of naval officers. In 1833 President Jackson refused to comply with a Senate request that he communicate to it a copy of a paper purporting to have been read by him to the heads of the executive departments relating to the removal of the deposits of public money from the Bank of the United States. In 1886 President Cleveland supported his Attorney General's re- fusal to comply with a Senate resolution calling for documents and papers re- lating to the removal of a District Attorney. These are only a few of the precedents to be found in the history of our Government. The policy expressed in these precedents has perhaps its most pertinent application to information contained in the confidential reports of investigative agencies of the Government and in the files and records relating to the loyalty of Government personnel. With respect to the former, Attorney General Jackson on April 30, 1941, wrote to the Chairman of the House Committee on Naval Affairs declining to furnish that Commit- tee with certain reports of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In his letter, which Attorney General Jackson indicated was written "with the ap- proval of and at the direction of the President," he reviewed the practice of a number of his predecessors as Attorney General and of a number of Presidents, which practice was in accord with the position taken. The practical reasons which demand in the interest of sound Government admin- istration that such reports be held confidential were stated by Attorney General Jackson as follows: "Disclosure of the reports could not do otherwise than seriously prejudice law enforcement. Counsel for a defendant or prospective defendant, could have no greater help than to know how much or how little information the Government. has, and what witnesses or sources of information it can rely upon. This is exactly what these reports are intended to con- tain. "Disclosure of the reports at this particular time would also prejudice the national defense and be of aid and comfort to the very subversive élements against which you wish to pro- tect the country. For this reason we have made extraordinary efforts to see that the results of countèrespionage activities and intelligence activities of this Department involving those elements are kept ithin the fewest possible hands. A catalogue of persons under investigation or suspicion, and what we know about them, would be of inestimable service to foreign agen- cies; and information which could be SO used cannot be too closely guarded. First copy filed PP7-1-7 (OVER)