Mechanical Slippage

By last week nearly everybody was willing to admit that some 50 U.S. Communists or Communist suspects had flocked from Government jobs in Washington into tax-free jobs high in the United Nations secretariat in New York. The cries of "U.N. smear" and "persecution," which had greeted the first investigations, faded away. Secretary of State Dean Acheson agreed that the situation was a "black eye" and a "blow" to U.S. "national interest." U.N. Secretary General Trygve Lie acknowledged that he had been concerned for years about U.S. subversives on his staff. In Washington a House Judiciary subcommittee, chairmaned by Kentucky's Frank Chelf, turned full attention to the next inevitable question: How could the Administration knowingly allow such an appalling situation to exist under its nose right up through most of 1952?

For its principal witness the committee summoned Dean Acheson, who reveled in legalisms and implied time & again that the problem had really not been worth his attention until recently. Acheson made it elaborately clear that he was in no way responsible for hiring & firing anybody in the U.N. secretariat. Back in 1946, said he, Secretary of State Jimmy Byrnes decided that the State Department should not recommend people for the U.N. staff. Byrnes felt that "we would be flooded with all sorts of tasks which we could not perform," surmised Acheson.

Word of Mouth. This Byrnes policy jogged along unchanged until 1949, when Assistant Secretary of State John Hickerson, a conscientious, old-line Foreign Service officer, was assigned to U.N. Hickerson worked out a secret system for State Department checkups on Americans in the U.N. At U.N.'s specific request, a group of State's "evaluators" would check each name against FBI, Central Intelligence, and other security files. Then Hickerson, by word of mouth, would convey the findings to Lie's office in reports of one or two words. Suspected subversives were ranked in terms of "suspicious," "highly suspicious" and "reject."

Who were the State Department's all-powerful evaluators? asked the committee. The New York grand jury had pressed the same question last fall when the jurors discovered that State frequently took 18 months to make its evaluations and once took three years. (Hickerson called the three-year delay a "mechanical slip.") Moreover, three U.N. employees passed by the evaluators refused, on grounds of selfincrimination, to testify under oath whether they were Communists. Acheson, drawing up his well-worn cloak of martyrdom, refused to tell the committee the names of the evaluators because a presidential order forbade it. Asked New York's Representative Kenneth Keating: "The President's decision was based on advice you gave him?" Replied Acheson: "I assume that it was. Yes, sir."

News for the Secretary. In most appearances before congressional committees, Acheson takes immense pride in being completely briefed on all questions. This time he stressed his ignorance. He made the surprising statement that not until last fall did he learn of Hickerson's 1949 "evaluation" arrangement with U.N. Hickerson once had to interrupt Acheson's testimony to tell the Secretary that State's evaluators are now being rechecked for loyalty and competence. Acheson reacted as though this was news to him. At the reaction, even Good Soldier Hickerson was obviously embarrassed.

Said Keating to Hickerson: "That fact was never known to the Secretary of State until this morning when you informed him right here before us?" Replied Hickerson, under oath: "I am not sure, sir, whether that is correct or not." California's young Congressman Pat Hillings, like Keating, was stunned by Acheson's repeated shrug-off of the U.N. problem. Asked Hillings: "Is it not true that some of these American Communists in the U.N. have access to large amounts of money which will be spent across the world under their control and direction, and which if they so desire could be used for purposes opposed to the principles which make up the position of this country?" Replied Acheson: "I do not know who those people are or what their positions are. I would rather have Mr. Hickerson answer that question." Pressed Keating: "In the light of hindsight is it your feeling that anything should have been done . . . since the decision of 1946?" Acheson: "Well, it was done in 1949." Keating: "You had no knowledge of what was done in 1949, am I correct?" Acheson: "That is correct, yes, sir ... I may say that my hindsight is sore at this point."

Clarity & Fuzz. Acheson broadly hinted that the U.S. might have done more about subversives in the U.N. if U.N.'s Trygve Lie had asked for more help. This triggered Lie next day into a 3,500-word formal statement which placed the burden of procrastination and delay right back on the State Department. Lie's statement was not entirely forthright either (e.g., he intimated that a routine 1948 request for passports for his staff was a farsighted request for security clearances).

However, Lie made some telling points:

P: Most of the U.S. pro-Commies came directly to the U.N. from U.S. Government service "without adverse indication from any governmental or other source."

P: The U.S. never furnished any evidence to support its evaluations, because of "restrictions of secrecy by which the State Department felt itself bound."

P: In only one instance was a job applicant employed "after receipt of adverse comment," and he was later fired. "Reports are still awaited regarding more than 50 applicants, some of the requests dating back more than a year." (But the U.N. still has eleven staff members hired before State Department evaluation began--who later drew adverse comments.)

The more the conflicting claims, the shrugs, the protests of legalities tended to fuzz up the record, the more they clarified it too. U.S. Communists and fellow travelers were allowed to congregate in the U.N. secretariat because no top-ranking official thought the matter very important. It was, indeed, a case of "mechanical" slippage. Neither Acheson nor Lie did much about it until the New York grand jury began taking testimony and the congressional investigations made the matter headline material--to the infinite damage of U.N. prestige in the U.S. (and vice versa). Never had the case for public investigation of Communist infiltration been more eloquently proved.

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