them appeared in the newspapers in a day or two. But there was a full and frank exchange, (a) with the Congress, and (b) with the people. I think if we could get the message to the executive that oftentimes secrecy is not in the best interest, particularly when it is keeping things secret from the American people which are probably better known by the enemy than they are known by the American people, then I think, in my judgment, the Government will work better and democracy will work better. If there are no further comments or questions, the Mr. CORNISH. Mr. Chairman, this morning we asked Justice Goldberg if he would be willing to answer some questions in writing. I wonder if these two gentlemen would also agree to such an understanding? Mr. BISHOP. Certainly. Yes. Mr. WHITE. Yes. We will do the best we can. Mr. MOORHEAD. Thank you both very much. We have kept you a long, long time. I apologize for that, but you have been most helpful to this subcommittee, and we deeply appreciate it. The subcommittee stands adjourned until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning in room 2128 of the Rayburn House Office Building. (Whereupon, at 5:15 p.m., the hearing was adjourned, to reconvene at 10 a.m., Thursday, June 24, 1971.) U.S. GOVERNMENT INFORMATION POLICIES AND (Part 1) THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 1971 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FOREIGN OPERATIONS AND GOVERNMENT INFORMATION SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 10 a.m., in room 2129, Rayburn House Office Building. Hon. William S. Moorhead (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: William S. Moorhead, John E. Moss, John Conyers, Jr., Bill Alexander, Ogden R. Reid, Frank Horton, John N. Erlenborn, and Paul N. McCloskey, Jr. Staff members present: William G. Phillips, staff director; Norman G. Cornish, deputy staff director; William R. Maloni, professional staff member; and William H. Cophenhaver, minority professional staff, Committee on Government Operations. Mr. MOORHEAD. The Subcommittee on Foreign Operations and Government Information will please come to order. At yesterday's hearing there was discussion about the so-called Vietnam documents and the jurisdiction of this subcommittee. As a result of the discussion I spoke to the chairman of the full committee, and subsequently to the Speaker of the House. The Speaker said he could not, under the House rules, refer the documents to a subcommittee. Subsequently the chairman of the full committee met with Speaker Albert this morning and the Speaker said he had not yet received the documents. He stated further that the Parliamentarian recommended that the documents be referred to the Armed Services Committee for study, but that every Member of the House will have access to the documents. I intend to speak to the Speaker again on this subject and at the luncheon recess the subcommittee will go into executive session and discuss the matter further. Our first witness was to be the gentleman from California, Mr. McCloskey. But I understand Mr. McCloskey would like to defer his testimony. I yield to the gentleman from California. Mr. MCCLOSKEY. Mr. Chairman, I was prepared to testify this morning on some 600 or 700 pages of documents which purport to be related to this study. I would respectfully like the privilege to compare the documents I have against the documents that are being furnished to the House before testifying. 68-036 0-71-pt. 1-7 (93) I understand from Chairman Hébert of the Armed Services Committee that those documents will be available for inspection to any Member of the House who wants to go into the committee room and review the documents in the committee room, without making copies or removing them from the room. I think it will diminish the time required for my testimony if I am able to do that before presenting these matters to the subcommittee. Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, can we get an understanding of when all of this is going to happen? We had a motion that consumed approximately an hour of this subcommittee's time yesterday and apparently we have gotten no further ahead than we were yesterday afternoon. We do not know on what basis the Speaker is going to make this ruling. I would like to know the parliamentary basis for his ruling. We don't know when the documents are going to be made available. Can we get a clarification of this one way or the other? Mr. REID. If the gentleman would yield, it would be my hope that Mr. Moss and I, in concert with other members of the committee, will be able to examine this question at lunch and come back with an appropriate motion to maintain our proper jurisdictional interest in this whole question with access to the documents. We will so attempt to do and have a motion brought before the committee right after lunch. Mr. MOORHEAD. The chairman of the full committee said that he was very interested in this matter and that he would have been here as an ex officio member if he did not have another meeting of his Joint Atomic Energy Commission Committee. Because of the death of a close associate, he has to be in California this afternoon. Mr. Horton? Mr. HORTON. Mr. Chairman, as I understood your statement, we were going to have an executive session after the hearing this morning at which time the subcommittee would discuss the matter of the motion. As I understand Mr. Reid's statement, he indicated he and Mr. Moss and perhaps you were going to be meeting and talking with the committee again at some future time. Mr. REID. No. If I can clarify what I said, my thought is that Chairman Moss and I discuss it with members of the committee Mr. MOORHEAD. Let me state one thing to the gentleman from New York. The chairman of this committee is the gentleman from Pennsylvania, and if there is going to be any negotiating, the chairman of the subcommittee will do it with those members of the subcommittee I want to have with me. So I think we can discuss this better at the executive session at the luncheon recess and determine what the procedure will be. proper Mr. HORTON. Do I understand we will have an executive session at 12 o'clock? Can we set a time and then ask the staff to get in touch with the other members of the subcommittee who are not here so they can have an opportunity to be informed? Mr. MOORHEAD. We will do that. In view of Mr. McCloskey's statement, our first witness today will be Mr. William G. Florence, a retired civilian security classification policy expert. Mr. Florence served for 43 years in military and civilian capacities for our Government and assisted in the policy preparation of Execu tive Order 10501 and implementing directives. He retired from the Government just a little over 3 weeks ago after serving for some 4 years in the Pentagon as a Deputy Assistant for Security and Trade Affairs for the Deputy Chief of Staff for Research and Development and the Deputy Chief of Staff for Systems and Logistics, Headquarters, U.S. Air Force. Mr. Florence, will you rise and raise your right hand? (Witness sworn.) Mr. MOORHEAD. Mr. Florence, you may proceed. STATEMENT OF WILLIAM G. FLORENCE, RETIRED CIVILIAN SECURITY CLASSIFICATION POLICY EXPERT Mr. FLORENCE. Mr. Chairman, I am truly honored to have been invited here. I am deeply grateful for this opportunity to participate in the exploration of perhaps the most serious constitutional question that has arisen in my lifetime: The question whether we shall continue to enjoy the freedom of speech. I am familiar with the work this subcommittee has accomplished over the past 16 years, including the landmark legislation known as the Freedom of Information Act. I believe the time has come for another service of perhaps equal, maybe even greater importance. It is my purpose to furnish facts that could be useful to the subcommittee in reviewing practices of the Department of Defense involving the evaluation, classification, dissemination, and declassification of information under Executive Order 10501, November 5, 1953, entitled "Safeguarding Official Information in the Interests of the Defense of the United States," as amended by Executive Order 10816, May 7, 1959, and Executive Order 10964, September 20, 1961. I also wish to offer suggestions for eliminating unrealistic restrictions which currently are applied by the Department of Defense, in the name of national security, against the disclosure of information to the public regarding Government business. During my 43 years of military and civilian service with the Government, which ended by retirement May 31, 1971, I worked in many positions involving responsibility for safeguarding defense information. At Headquarters, U.S. Air Force, I exercised responsiblity from 1945 until 1960 for developing and publishing Air Force policy and procedures for evaluating, classifying, safeguarding, and declassifying defense information. This included writing the basic policy in Air Force Regulation 205-1, subject: safeguarding classified information. During the period 1945-60 I also served on committees within the Department of Defense and on interdepartmental groups concerned with developing or revising policy for safeguarding defense information within the United States and international organizations such as NATO. This included contributing to the preparation of policy in Executive Order 10501, which was originally promulgated as Executive Order 10290, and to the preparation of implementing directives issued by the Department of Defense. |