Mr. LEMAN. I am familiar with the Survey of Current Business. Mr. POLAND. I was reading from those, if that is of any help to you, in evaluating them.

Mr. LEMAN. I don't want to get down to the technical things, Mr. Attorney, because I am not sure of all of that part. I am not in this particular thing giving out a set of economic statistics.

Mr. POLAND. Then, Mr. Leman, if you will pardon me once moreMr. LEMAN. I didn't include all the economic reporting of the Department.

Mr. POLAND. Couldn't we summarize it this way, and save perhaps a little more time of the committee, that this is in confirmation of a statement you earlier made, that after all, there is a selective emphasis in the news?

Mr. LEMAN. I said a selective emphasis in the news. That the newspapers could select from the materials we have for them, what they want. I mean the New York Times would want one thing and a highly technical business publication would want something else. It wasn't in that particular reference that I made that allusion; no. Mr. POLAND. But we find evidence of selection.

Mr. LEMAN. We have a small picture of the type of news we have the good fortune of giving out. How well off the American people are today, with the exception of the farmer. They could be much better off if the President's soil-bank bill was passed and not blocked, but I don't want to go into that.

Mr. Moss. I might observe that the Chair has been somewhat lenient in this exchange between two very old and dear friends. I think we have for the first time indulged in a little political exchange.

I would now be interested in some of the information that you have on this very interesting creature in the Department of Commerce, the Office of Strategic Information.

I gather from this statement that you have made to the committee, that you are quite familiar with the workings of that agency. Mr. LEMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. Moss. Perhaps if you could do what was not done in a considerable period of time earlier today, perhaps you could tell me what it

does.

Mr. LEMAN. Mr. Chairman, understand I am the press officer of the Department. I try in that function to be able to gather information that would be suitable

Mr. Moss. Mr. Leman, I would prefer you to become the sales manager and sell me OSI.

Mr. LEMAN. I want to say this about the Office of Strategic Information, and that is this: I was in the position, you see, before the present people, who are in the Office of Strategic Information, were in the Commerce Department.

Mr. Moss. You were the predecessor of Mr. Honaman?

Mr. LEMAN. Oh, yes. I have been here since President Eisenhower came in.

Mr. Moss. You were at the White House for a while; were you not? Mr. LEMAN. That is right. I was at the White House before I came to the Commerce Department, for a brief time filling out my assignment, but I have some knowledge of the background, you might say, about the Office of Strategic Information.

This matter has troubled not only this present administration, but you will recall the other day reading in Life magazine, President Truman's Memoirs. He too, was troubled about the amount of strategic information that gets out to our enemies.

Mr. Moss. I might say at the time we had Mr. Honaman before the committee, we made a part of the record some rather caustic statements of Mr. Truman relating to the release of information. Mr. LEMAN. Yes; I think so.

Let me try to make this background clear-and you understand, perhaps, I have more feeling on this, because, as I had said earlier in my statement, I come from a profession that believes in the freedom of the press, and I couldn't suddenly reverse myself in 2 brief years against a lifetime of belief, and that of my father before me who also was an editor.

The great, great urging of the American press for freedom of discussion, and those who believe we can't have a democracy without the free flow of scientific information. And yet there comes into the picture another group, the general, the military person, who in the last war has known, for example, that by having the military people would have given their eye teeth if they could have had a photograph of some of the cities they bombed-they would have given everything if they had the contours of the coast on which they landed.

Mr. Moss. They should have had access to some of the good maps put out by American oil companies.

Mr. LEMAN. That is true, and the Coast and Geodetic Survey. You asked me for some background and that is what I am trying to give you.

Mr. Moss. I think we have had a very thorough statement of background at the time Mr. Honaman appeared before the committee. And it was in context with that background that I tried to learn today, just what the agency is doing.

Do you have a representative of your office in attendance at the meetings of the committee?

Mr. LEMAN. No, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Moss. What liaison do you maintain with the OSI?

Mr. LEMAN. I frequently talk with members of that committee on certain phases of the problem, as such. I do not meet in the day-byday discussions of their committees. It is more in the broad background of the problem, you see.

I do think you should weigh very carefully this point. It is a new group. It is a new group up against an extremely complicated problem that nobody has yet solved. They are groping their way around-with the deepest conscientious feeling of public duty-to find some way in which to progress with this problem, which is a problem. What to do and what not to do in this modern type of work; to study, explore, and try to find out something; to determine what they might do getting advice and so forth.

Perhaps the very nature of that kind of an exploratory thing does not lend itself to pieces of paper, yet-actual lists of what have been accomplished. But even so, the problem is still there, even if the accomplishments are not quite yet jelled and so forth.

Now I do not believe I have told you very much, but I feel this: I feel the problem, just as all of us do, is immense. I hope that as they

study, they may be able to get just a little bit closer to the solution of it. I don't know.

Mr. Moss. How much success do you feel we are going to have in controlling internally the publication of information, which in the judgment of some in government might possibly have a strategic importance, but which is not classified, and which is generally available?

Mr. LEMAN. I am sincerely in an exploratory mood, and I am not going to commit myself on the thing. I see a lot of bad things about it, as well as good things. I fully recognize the newspaperman's reaction: If you do not want it printed, classify it, and do not give it out. There is that old conception-which was my conception for many, many years. But there is this, perhaps, insofar as the Government agencies go: The Government agencies must try to do this right. They may go to extremes, and I am deeply pleased this committee is studying this whole problem, because it is a problem.

Suppose I said to myself, "I am a Russian enemy. Would I be helped by the publication of that information?" That is approaching it in a little different way. Now if the answer is "Yes," should we give it to them? I want in frankness to say, maybe you should, because almost all information is good to them. I mean our weather reports, all of our economic reports are important to them. But maybe by the rephrasing of certain words you do not have to do this. Maybe you can slow them down a little bit in getting the information. They are so bureaucratic in the Russian system, that all this information might get in one file and so forth and by the time they got it through

Mr. Moss. Do you think there is any possibility of making our bureaucracy so complex that the same thing might occur?

Mr. LEMAN. That is one of my pet subjects. Yes, yes, yes, I believe so, making our own bureaucracy so complicated. And that is why I am hoping that perhaps from this pioneer, pilot plant, we will be able tohave a little more simple approach to a solution.

Now let me give you one illustration about the thing and I may be wrong on my detail but as I recall, a young student was writing a doctor of philosophy thesis-did they tell you that story? The doctor of philosophy wrote it and put in all these unclassified facts. When he turned in his doctor of philosophy thesis, the Defense Department said, "Good heavens, we have to classify that, because that would hand over to the Russians the full story."

Now that is a humorous story, and it is somewhat ridiculous. What a queer world we are in when those things happen.

Mr. Moss. On the record of this committee is the testimony of.a member of the scientific panel, that a man came to Washington at the invitation of one of the agencies of Government to accept a new position. While waiting for his clearance, he undertook a little independent study and prepared the outline of some suggestions, of policies which he would pursue in the position. The document was immediately classified.

Mr. OVERTON. It was classified "secret."

Mr. LEMAN. Now there you are. On one side you get a great hazard and on the other side you get some of the ridiculous way of handling that hazard.

69222-56-pt. 6—13

I do know this and I have tried to make it clear in the statement-I think, sometimes on these new things we have to be a little patient with the growing pains.

Mr. Moss. Do you envision any duplication?

Mr. LEMAN. Yes, there is duplication, I believe. I think that is one of the characteristics of a new group. And I listened to the explanation, which I think is very, very sound. You will find duplications here and there and slowly they are ironed out.

Let me make this observation-and we are talking somewhat informally but both very sincerely: I think you will find one of the problems of the new plan, like myself, the new administration group, is not familiar with the huge mass of things that are available. İt is like an ordinary high-school kid going into the Library of Congress. There are so many books there he cannot quite use them, you

see.

And I think you will find as you explore along, suddenly you will discover there is another agency doing something. Well, after that process gets done and after the trials and errors and those things happen, out of them comes something that is workable, I hope. I am not sure, yet.

Mr. Moss. You know, I share your hope, and I might say it is on the basis of eternal hope. In this committee the full Committee on Government Operations-charged by law with an effective postaudit review of all the functions of government, wherever there is a Federal dollar, we are always trying to find the duplicating functions. It is not a case of just finding them, it is merely a matter of where you are going to probe next. There is paydirt all along the line and therefore when it comes to the attention of the committee or any of the subcommittees, when we find duplication we wonder about the economy and efficiency of government at that point.

Mr. LEMAN. There is one point you brought up and you will notice our ears perked up because it was something we had not noticed. You see, before you have written your final report you have already accomplished something. We will go back and check and perhaps find you are right.

Perhaps there is a misinterpretation of terms, and it isn't quite like we thought. I think it is very helpful, what you are exploring. I know how easy it is to smile and, you know, shrug off a complicated thing because the very descriptions and the language sound complicated. But still that does not remove the problem. The problem is still there.

Mr. Moss. It is getting late, now, and we would like to have you back Monday morning at 10.

The committee will now stand adjourned until Monday at 10. (Whereupon, at 5 p. m., the subcommittee adjourned to reconvene at 10 a. m., Monday, April 23, 1956.)

AVAILABILITY OF INFORMATION FROM FEDERAL

DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES

Part 6-Department of Commerce

MONDAY, APRIL 23, 1956

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT INFORMATION

OF THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS,

Washington, D. C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 10 a. m., in room 1501, New House Office Building, Hon. John E. Moss (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Members present: John E. Moss, Dante B. Fascell, Clare E. Hoffman, and George Meader.

Also present: Samuel J. Archibald, staff director; J. Lacey Reynolds, senior consultant; and John J. Mitchell, chief counsel for the subcommittee.

Mr. Moss. The committee will reconvene with Mr. Leman of the Department of Commerce, Director of Public Information of that Department, continuing his testimony.

Mr. Moss. I think it might be helpful, before we start into a new phase, to discuss this matter, Mr. Leman, of the classification on the progress report. You mentioned the possibility that it might not be classified under Executive Order 10501, but there would be some other classification applied to it.

STATEMENT OF ALBERT N. LEMAN, ASSISTANT TO THE SECRETARY OF COMMERCE AND THE DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC INFORMATION, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE; ACCOMPANIED BY ALLEN OVERTON, JR., SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE GENERAL COUNSEL, (IN CAPACITY AS COUNSEL FOR THE DEPARTMENT), DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Mr. LEMAN. I did not want to go that far, and we were just chatting around. I just raised the possibility that it might have been that there was mention of classified documents in the report. I do not know whether that is true or not. As I said to you, I left Friday and I did not have a chance to check.

Mr. Moss. I think the committee could only rely on the testimony of the Director of OSI, Mr. Seago, when he told us that the document was classified because it was a progress report, and it was classified by him under the Executive order, the authority of the Executive order.