INDIVIDUAL VIEWS OF SENATORS EASTLAND AND DODD

This report, carefully documented by sworn testimony reveals many mistakes in management and in the lack of supervision or controls over powers exercised by officials in some management levels. It is to be hoped that the lessons indicated in these hearings and noted in this report have been taken to heart by administrative officials.

During the course of these hearings, and in the intensive study of the hearing record which was necessarily involved in the preparation of this report, the committee has found several areas in which it appears personnel security in the State Department, and in other departments as well, can be strengthened by legislation.

Recommendations in these areas will be made by the committee early in the next session, in combination with other security recommendations, of a legislative nature, growing out of the subcommittee's hearings in 1966 and in 1967 on the subject of gaps in our internal security laws. It is hoped that legislation to implement these forthcoming recommendations can be enacted at the next session of the Congress as the Internal Security Act of 1968.

Much of the testimony in these hearings involve what has come to be known as the Otepka case, and Mr. Otto Otepka was a major witness at the hearings. It is natural, therefore, that the subcommittee's report should discuss various aspects of the Otepka case.

The impact this case has had upon personnel security in the executive branch of our Government has been far greater than is generally recognized. This impact has had both positive and negative aspects.

On the plus side, a number of improvements in security policies and procedures have been put into effect administratively to cure lapses or supply deficiencies to which Mr. Otepka and other witnesses called attention. Another plus is the inspiring example Otto Otepka has set in remaining steadfast to the uncompromising principles and high standards which should and do motivate a majority of the professional security officers who serve our Government.

The most outstanding negative aspect of the Otepka case has been its chilling effect upon all those Government employees, both in and out of the security field, who may quite reasonably see it as an object lesson teaching that honor and virtue are not their own reward if following the path of honor and virtue involves stepping on the toes of entrenched authority, or calls for disclosing matters embarrassing to officials in high places.

The subcommittee, the Senate, the Congress, and the country owe a debt of gratitude a debt which today remains still unpaid-to Otto Otepka and those who, like him, have told the truth and the whole truth without hedging or covering up for the sake of protecting either themselves or their superiors. For this reason alone, neither the committee nor the Senate nor the Congress should be willing to consider the Otepka case closed until Mr. Otepka stands free of all continuing punishments or harassments of any kind.

Reinforcing this equitable consideration, there is an even stronger reason why we must not rest until full justice has been done to Otto Otepka. No legislative body can discharge its duties with maximum efficiency without the power to conduct effective investigations respecting activities in the executive branch of the Government, most especially where wrongdoing or subversive activity is involved. The legislative body, or the committee of such a body, which cannot protect the witnesses who come before it from reprisals or harassment either because of their testimony, or because of the fact that they have appeared and testified, is in a poor position to seek or expect the full cooperation of other witnesses subsequently called.

Until we can find a way to terminate the Otepka case with full justice to Mr. Otepka and every other witness who testified, and with full and continuing recognition of the right of the Congress and its committees to obtain complete and accurate information with respect to wrongdoing, subversive activity, or any other threat to our security which may exist or take place within the executive branch, we must not rest; for we must recognize that until this has been accomplished, the prerogatives of the legislative branch stand infringed, and its effectiveness stands curtailed.

JAMES O. EASTLAND.
THOMAS J. Dodd.

INDIVIDUAL VIEWS OF SENATOR STROM THURMOND

As this is written, the Secretary of State has just decided adversely against Mr. Otto Otepka in charges growing out of actions connected with the investigation conducted by this subcommittee. While the subcommittee has not been investigating the merits of the Otepka case as such, the Secretary of State's decision confirms in many ways. the disturbing findings of this report.

The Otepka case, as such, involves much more data than was pertinent to the purposes of this investigation. The brief prepared by his attorney and submitted to the hearing examiner is now a matter of public record, and may be consulted by those who wish to do so in the daily Congressional Record, December 14, 1967, page H17048. The Secretary's decision largely vindicates Mr. Otepka, since the Department dropped 10 of the original charges, and changed an order for dismissal to a mere reprimand and reduction in grade. Nevertheless, the stubborn insistence upon holding to the remaining three charges must still be considered as the culmination of a grievous scandal which penetrates to the highest echelons of the State Department.

It is important to distinguish between the cause of justice for Mr. Otepka, personally, and the cause for which Mr. Otepka was fighting. It may be appropriate here to quote from a letter to Mr. Dean Rusk, Secretary of State, signed by the members of this subcommittee on October 31, 1963:

Mr. Otepka's testimony has been a valuable contribution to the Internal Security Subcommittee's current investigation of security in the State Department, and we feel he has performed a substantial service for his country. We 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 violation growing out of his cooperation with the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee.

Although I was not a member of this subcommittee at that time, I wish to associate myself with these remarks, and to reinforce them. I believe that Otto Otepka is a dedicated and loyal patriot who has suffered extraordinary, calculated harassment because he attempted to carry out conscientiously the national security program prescribed by law or regulation.

There are two issues of paramount importance raised by this report. The first is whether a Government employee loyal to his country can, in the line of duty, furnish information confidentially to the appropriate congressional committees when he sees wrongdoing. Congress has a basic right to receive such information, not only to formulate new legislation, but to review existing programs.

This right has been embodied in a statute, namely, United States Code, title 5, section 652(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, c. 447, 62 Stat. 354; 1949 Reorganization Plan No. 5, effective August 19, 1949, 14 F.R. 5227, 63 Stat. 1067.

The State Department's position has been, variously, (1) that no wrongdoing may be disclosed unless the disclosure is authorized presumably by the wrongdoers; (2) that information from personnel files may not be disclosed in any case; (3) that any paper may be protected by calling it an official paper. Any of these interpretations is manifestly contrary to the plain meaning of the statute, yet the State Department has found no extenuating circumstances for Mr. Otepka's action in cooperating with the subcommittee.

An agency that had nothing to hide would be anxious for an employee to make use of this right. One would think that such an agency would be looking for extenuating circumstances if an employee had failed to do his duty toward Congress.

As a matter of fact, Mr. Otepka furnished no substantive matter from personnel files that was not already a matter of subcommittee or public record. Mr. Otepka furnished copies of the document only to illustrate security procedures and to prove that his superior had lied under oath to this subcommittee concerning security procedures.

The second issue, therefore, concerns what the Department of State had to hide. As is amply set forth in this report and in the preceding volumes of testimony, the State Department was trying to hide a new policy of phasing out effective security procedures. The highest officers of the State Department no longer believed in the mandate to maintain critical standards of suitability and loyalty in employing personnel. Quite simply, Mr. Otepka, and a small band of associates were in the

way.

This attitude is amply documented in this report:

1. Officers with little or no experience in security evaluation were placed in positions making evaluation policy.

2. The functions of the Office of Security were dismantled piecemeal, and its staff transferred out.

3. The specialized personnel security files were broken up.

4. Mr. Otepka was criticized for being "too thorough" in a job where it is impossible to be too thorough.

5. A "personnel panel" with no written guidelines assumed many of the evaluation functions.

Many other moves are covered more fully in the report, but these steps show clearly the new policy. Since the loyalty of Mr. Otepka and his associates stood in the way of that policy, the Department began to move directly against him.

1. He was assigned to attend the National War College, in order to remove him from his duties.

2. He was detailed on make-work projects for the same reasons. 3. After his testimony before this subcommittee, he was publicly humiliated, removed from his offices, deprived of his papers and safe. His telephone was bugged, his trashbag searched, and carbons from his typewriter examined.