Mr. SOURWINE. Did you know Mr. Otepka had been specially chosen to evaluate the John Stewart Service case? Mr. REILLY. He had told me that; yes. Mr. SOURWINE. Did you know he had been specially chosen to evaluate the William Wieland case? Mr. REILLY. Yes. MR. REILLY'S QUALIFICATIONS What were the qualifications of Mr. Reilly? There was a recital of his experience, during his testimony May 23, 1963. This showed that, while he was attending law school, he spent 3 years with the War Production Board and its predecessor agency, and 2 years with the Defense Supplies Corporation of the RFC. Then after a year as a law clerk to a judge in the municipal court of appeals here he had about 4 years in the private practice of law. Then followed 6 months in the Antitrust Division, Department of Justice; 21⁄2 years with the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice; 7 years with the Internal Security Division at the Department of Justice; 11 months as a trial attorney with the Federal Communications Commission. During his service at the Justice Department he was for a time alternate observer on the Planning Board of the National Security Council and sometimes attended sessions of the Operations Coordinating Board. He served for a short time on one of the subcommittees of the Interdepartmental Committee on Internal Security. Subcommittee counsel then brought up the question of experience in security evaluations.13 Mr. SOURWINE. You have no other or further security experience; is that right? I haven't left anything out? Mr. REILLY. No. I might want to point out that during my years in the Internal Security Division I attended many conferences in both Mr. Tompkin's office, the Assistant Attorney General, and in Mr. Yeagley's office when Executive Order 10450 was being formulated and when it was being initially implemented. Mr. SOURWINE. You were involved in the legal problems under consideration at the time? Mr. REILLY. Yes. Mr. SOURWINE. Until you came with the State Department, you had no experience with personnel security evaluations? Mr. REILLY. No direct experience. SENATOR DODD ISSUES STATEMENT Senator Dodd, on October 22, 1963, issued the following statement:14 REMARKS BY SENATOR THOMAS J. DODD, VICE CHAIRMAN OF THE SENATE SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNAL SECURITY, RE MR. OTTO OTEPKA; RELEASED OCTOBER 22, 1963 I consider Mr. Otto Otepka an outstanding public servant, and I believe this assessment is confirmed by his efficiency ratings over the years, his record of promotion, his receipt of an award for specially meritorious service, and by his conscientious performance in one of the most obscure, but difficult and significant of the senior positions in the Department of State. Mr. Otepka has been an honest witness before the Subcommittee on Internal Security in its examination of the case of William Arthur Wieland, former head of the Caribbean desk of the Department of State, and of matters relating to State Department security in general. 12 State Department Security hearings, pt. 19, p. 1592. 14 State Department Security hearings, pt. 19, pp. 1647-1648. I am in no position to comment on the details of the charges brought by the Department of State against Mr. Otepka, and it would be improper for me to do so, since these charges are a departmental matter, presently sub judice within the Department. However, I would consider it a great tragedy if the services of this exceptionally able and experienced security officer were lost to the U.S. Government, on the basis of alleged technical violations growing out of his cooperation with the subcommittee. The There is one aspect of the charges against Mr. Otepka which did concern the subcommittee at this morning's hearing and on which I wish to comment. charge was made that Mr. Otepka had given information and documents relating to State Department security to Mr. Julien Sourwine, counsel for the Subcommittee on Internal Security. From the wording of the charge, as it has been carried by the newspapers, it would appear that the Department looked upon Mr. Sourwine as an unauthorized individual who may have been acting outside his function as counsel for the subcommittee. In their conversation with Mr. Rusk this morning, the members of the committee made it emphatically clear that Mr. Sourwine had acted not as an individual but as general counsel of the subcommittee, and that the information and documents which Mr. Otepka had given to Mr. Sourwine, had subsequently been incorporated into the record of hearings held in executive session. They made it clear, in short, that they would consider the pursuit of this charge tantamount to a continuing prohibition on collaboration with the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security by State Department employees. The meeting with Secretary Rusk this morning, as I have already stated, was a friendly one, and it is my hope that it will lead to an effective agreement on procedures and on relations between the subcommittee and the Department of State. I believe that I can fairly state that the opinions I have expressed here represent the collective thinking of the members of the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security. CHALLENGE SEEN IN OTEPKA DISMISSAL Again on November 5, 1963, Senator Dodd stated that the dismissal of Mr. Otepka was a challenge to the system of checks and balances and an affront to the U.S. Senate when the State Department nullified the law whereby an employee could furnish information to either House of the Congress: 15 STATEMENT BY SENATOR THOMAS J. DODD ON THE DISMISSAL OF MR. OTTO OTEPKA BY THE STATE DEPARTMENT; RELEASED NOVEMBER 5, 1963 I consider the dismissal of Mr. Otto Otepka by the Department of State a serious challenge to responsible government and to the system of checks and balances on which it is based. It is not only a direct affront to the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security but an affront to the Senate as a whole and a denial of its powers as established by legislation. The charges on which Mr. Otepka's dismissal is based boil down to the simple fact that he has testified honestly before the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security on matters relating to security in the Department of State. The right of Government employees to furnish information to them is established by statute. The United States Code, title 5, paragraph 652(d), reads: "(d) The right of persons employed in the civil service of the United States, either individually or collectively, to petition Congress, or any Member thereof, or to furnish information to either House of Congress or to any committee or member thereof, shall not be denied or interfered with. As amended June 10, 1948, ch. 447, 62 Stat. 345; 1949 Reorg. Plan No. 5, eff. Aug. 19, 1949, 14 F.R. 5227, 63 Stat. 1067." The State Department, by its action in the Otepka case, has, in effect, nullified this statute and issued a warning to all employees that cooperation with the established committees of the Senate, if this cooperation involves testimony considered unpalatable at higher echelon, is a crime punishable by dismissal. The significance of the Otepka case cannot be overstated. Ibid., pt. 19, pp. 1648-1649. Mr. Otepka was the last old-line security officer holding a top position in the Office of Security. He has been an employee of the U.S. Government for 27 years. He has served as Deputy Director of the Office of Security and officer in charge of evaluations. His efficiency ratings have always been "Excellent." In 1958, he received the Meritorious Service Award from Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. But suddenly, for some strange reason, certain people in the Department decided that Mr. Otepka had to go. And so, they began first, to restrict his functions. Then they installed a tap on his telephone. Although a State Department official has denied under oath that this was done, the Subcommittee on Internal Security has proof that the tap was installed. Then they began to monitor Mr. Otepka's burn basket. Then they locked him out of his office and denied him access to his files, although no charge had yet been brought against him. No one suspected of espionage or disloyalty has, to my knowledge, been subjected to such surveillance and humiliation. But Mr. Otepka was not suspected of disloyalty or espionage. He was suspected very simply of cooperating with the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security and of providing it with information that some of his superiors found embarrassing or objectionable. In the topsy-turvy attitude it has displayed in the Otepka case, the State Department has been chasing the policeman instead of the culprit and the words "security violation" have come to mean not the act of turning over information to an alien power, but the act of giving information to a committee of the Senate of the United States. I have asked for an emergency meeting of the full Senate Judiciary Committee to consider the implications of Mr. Otepka's dismissal. I have also asked that the 10-page memorandum on the Otepka case which I delivered to Secretary Rusk in New York and which was signed by all the members of the Judiciary Committee, be circulated to all the Members of the Senate. If the dismissal of Mr. Otepka is permitted to stand, it will become impossible or exceedingly difficult to elicit any information from employees of the executive branch that bears on disloyalty, malfeasance, conflict of interest, or other wrongdoing by their superiors. I hope that the Secretary of State will see fit to reverse the decision of the Department when Mr. Otepka appeals his case. Mr. Otepka's opponents and critics said a lot of things about him, in their turns on the witness stand, but through the many volumes of testimony not a witness alluded to him as a security risk. The Deputy Under Secretary for Administration, Mr. Crockett, testifying on May 4, 1965, had this to say: 16 Mr. SOURWINE. Do you know of anyone in the State Department, sir, who thinks Otepka is a security risk? Mr. CROCKETT. No, sir. Harry M. Hite, an administrative officer and a former evaluator, testified (Aug. 13, 1964) that Mr. Otepka was an excellent administrator a conclusion that clashed with the view voiced by Mr. Reilly. Here is Mr. Hite's observation: 17 Mr. SOURWINE. You have told us you worked under the supervision of Mr. Otto Otepka? Mr. HITE. Yes, sir. Mr. SOURWINE. Over a period of years? Mr. HITE. Yes, sir. Mr. SOURWINE. Did you have an opportunity to observe his work and to form a judgment with respect to him? Mr. HITE. Yes, sir. Mr. SOURWINE. Did you consider him a good supervisor? Mr. HITE. An excellent supervisor. Mr. SOURWINE. Did you consider him a good administrator? 15 State Department Security hearings, pt. 5, p. 303. 17 Ibid., pt. 8, pp. 538-539. Mr. HITE. Yes, sir; excellent. Mr. SOURWINE. Did you consider him a good security officer? Mr. HITE. The finest. Mr. SOURWINE. Do you know what Mr. Otepka's reputation is in the security community with respect to efficiency, reliability, and knowledgeability? Mr. HITE. My associates in the security field Mr. SOURWINE. Do you know what his reputation is? Mr. HITE. Yes, sir; I do know. Mr. SOURWINE. What is it? Mr. HITE. It is that he is considered without a doubt the finest personnel security officer in the field. Mr. SOURWINE. You mean in all of the Government? Mr. Reilly, in an effort to defend himself against Mr. Otepka's challenge of his honesty, came up with a suggestion that Mr. Otepka was mentally upset. He called him "a nut." But Mr. Reilly's superior, Mr. Crockett, threw the idea down. John Norpel, one of Mr. Otepka's supporters, told the subcommittee about the Reilly remark.18 Mr. SOURWINE. Did he say that it was part of his job to get rid of Otepka? Mr. NORPEL. No, sir. He referred to Mr. Otepka as a "nut," in the same sequence of conversation. Mr. SOURWINE. Did he say anything at all about getting Mr. Otepka out of his job? Mr. NORPEL. No, sir; he did not. Mr. SOURWINE. You have known Mr. Otepka for a long while, have you not? Mr. NORPEL. I have known him since shortly before I was employed at the Department of State, sir. Mr. SOURWINE. Do you consider him to be a nut? Mr. NORPEL. No, sir; I do not. Mr. Crockett gave his view on the subject in testimony of May 4, 1965: 19 Mr. SOURWINE. Do you have any reason to believe that Mr. Otepka suffers from any mental instability? Mr. CROCKETT. No, sir. Mr. SOURWINE. Any mental unbalance? Mr. CROCKETT. No, sir. Mr. SOURWINE. Any mental uncertainty? Mr. CROCKETT. No, sir. Mr. SOURWINE. You have never charged that he does suffer in this way? Mr. Crockett agreed that Mr. Otepka was a knowledgeable and realistic security man, in testimony on September 16, 1964.20 The subject at the time was a seven-page memorandum Mr. Otepka had written about Executive Order 10450. Mr. Crockett said he could not reveal the document because it was classified but did declassify these two sentences: The completion of the procedural requirements of Executive Order 10450 for employees ought not result in a relaxation of vigilance. The problem of security is a real and unending one. Mr. SOURWINE. *** Do you know of any conclusion arrived at by Mr. Otepka and evidenced by him in any way either in 1955 or in 1961, or for that matter, at any other time, that the security program of the State Department is a sound one or was a sound one as of the date he wrote it? 18 State Department Security hearings, pt. 8, pp. 547-548. Mr. CROCKETT. I believe this question should be asked of Mr. Otepka. I am not in a position to quote Mr. Otepka with regard to his feelings about the security program of the Department of State. Mr. SOURWINE. Any conclusion that Otepka arrived at and which he evidenced in any way-any time; 1955 or any later time. Mr. CROCKETT. Well, I think that Mr. Otepka is a knowledgeable, realistic security man. Mr. SOURWINE. I agree; highly so. |