Statement by Seth Richardson, Chairman of the Loyalty Review Board, with Related Material

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252-70 BRUMAN SECURITY UNITED STATES CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION filed by NATURAL STATEMENT BY SETH W. RICHARDSON ECORAS Nauron SERVICE CHAIRMAN, LOYALTY REVIEW BOARD x2-E m 6-11-52 The proposed loyalty program represents a comprehensive effort to weed disloyal employees out of the Government service. Due to the immediate importance of the program to the large number of Government employees, and the evident nation-wide interest in the general subject om employee disloyalty, I have thought it advisable, as the program now will go into general operation, to present to the general public an overall picture of approximately what we propose to do. I suppose that all good citizens would agree that disloyal per- sons ought not to remain in the employ of the Government, but keeping them out or getting them out, presents substantial difficulties. The Government itself has been interested in the subject for some time. In 1939 Congress passed legislation commonly known as the "Hatch Act", with- holding pay from persons belonging to disloyal organizations. Since 1941, Congress has inserted similar language in each of its appropriation bills. The United States Civil Service Commission in 1940 declared that, as a matter of policy it would not certify for employment, the name of any person who was a member of the Communist Party, the German Bund, or any other Communist or Nazi organization. Despite these efforts on the part of the Government, lack of uniformity in application and responsibility for action brought about a Congressional investigation by the Seventy-Ninth Congress, which resulted in the appointment of the President's Temporary Commission on Employee Loyalty, which was directed to propose a program to give ad- equate protection to the Government in respect to elimination of dis- loyal employees. This Commission gave considerable thought to the problem, but did not draft the outlines of such a program. In due course there followed the executive order of March 21, 1947 (Executive Order 9835) which contemplated the establishing of procedures for the administration and accomplishment of an employees loyalty program and, in part, directed the creation of a Loyalty Review Board by the Civil Service Commission, in aid and furtherance of such program, Con- gress approved the program and appropriated 11. million dollars to effec- tuate it. Thus the resulting Loyalty Program may rightly be said to be genuinely bi-partisan.