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From Labor Action, Vol. 14 No. 26, 26 June 1950, p. 8.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
About two weeks ago the American Boardcasting System delved into a subject which most might regard as controversial for a documentary radio program – the federal government’s loyalty purge.
It was intended as an elaborately prepared justification for current official policy, but to this listener it boomeranged. By trying dramatically to present the ostensible reasons for the loyalty probes, the script succeeded in revealing how shallow were those reasons.
It was cast as a series of episodes around the life of a fictitious character named Harry Bradley, assistant chief of a nonexistent Washington bureau. Trying to make their message most effective, the story made Bradley a very sympathetic person. There was, in fact, something close to the American ideal about him – active, alert, intelligent, witty, nonchalantly courageous.
Bradley had been a CP fellow traveller during the Popular Front days. He had been so militantly anti-fascist that he was willing to sell Stalinist literature that took a minimum line. In his testimony before his agency’s loyalty board he announces, without qualification. that in a similar situation he would probably do the same. The board is apparently impressed by his honesty and courage in so testifying, and the listener is likely to agree with his agency’s security officer’s statement that Bradley only appears to he a “loyal American” but also a “swell guy.”
By the time of the narrative, he had broken with Stalinist fellow traveling for some time – since the Stalin-Hitler Pact. He describes Stalinist Russia as a huge “company town.” and believes the loyalty program is necessary to weed out the “Commies." But he gets himself into trouble by an innocent meaningless remark shouted to a boorish hostess at a boring Washington cocktail party. If stretched into a possible code signal, the remark could be a reference to the date of some secret operation in which Bradley’s bureau is concerned. An anonymous phone call informs the FBI of this.
The G-men have a plant in the Russian espionage system who knows that there is a source of secret information in the bureau. Bradley’s cryptic remark plus his earlier record is combined to make him the “logical" suspect. One morning he is suddenly informed that he is to appear before the loyalty board for investigation.
Whether planned by the writers or not, the torment of this easily liked man becomes a personal experience for the listeners. The terror of not knowing what they “have on him,” who has been reporting him, etc., provides a set of anguishing experiences that would make anyone wonder if its worth while to work for the federal government.
His hearing before the loyalty board sounds like a third degree, even though the inquisitors are frequently very polite and thank him for his testimony and his cooperation. As has been pointed out, his brave defense has impressed them with his integrity and his probable innocence of “subversion.” But that innocent remark at the cocktail party remains to be cleared up.
While the board is deliberating, in good old melodramatic style the real culprit is exposed. The FBI plant in the Russian espionage system, by the very ordinary technique of getting fingerprints, finds the actual spy in the Bureau. He is Harry’s chief and presumed good friend, who also turns out to be the anonymous telephone informant. An epilogue gives a dialogue between Bradley and his bureau’s friendly security chief, who tries to assure him that, despite the ordeal he has undergone, he must understand the “other side.” That other side is summarized in the title of the broadcast – a cynical paraphrase of Justice Holmes – that there is now a “Clear and Present Danger” in the cold war and the Russian use of espionage agents as part of that war.
There are many sidelights to the story, but we have presented its essence. Does it impress the previously unconvinced? We doubt it. The loyalty program is supposedly designed to ferret out spies. Yet all it does is hound an innocent man and a “swell guy” while the usual police methods of counterespionage expose the real culprit, the result of the loyalty investigation thus appears all bad and none good – that is, if exposing foreign agents is assumed to be the genuine motivation.
It is not our job or our interest to teach the American government how to capture spies. But we do concern ourselves when the announced hunt for spies is used to intimidate opposition of any sort. That is the favorite gimmick of the Stalinist countries. The accused in their “treason trials” are never accused of mere opposition – the main indictment is always spying. The federal loyalty program is not too different in kind. Few of the actually tried or indicted spies have been active politicos of any sort. That is understandably the way espionage activities are organized; you generally don’t recruit those who are likely to be suspicious on past record.
The loyalty program works subtly to terrorize political opposition, to make such divergence and dissent more and more unpopular. It is primarily directed against Stalinists, but need not and has not stopped there. When a legless veteran who is a member of the Socialist Workers Party gets fired from a clerks’ job in the Veterans Administration one must ask: What possible secret information is thus being protected? The Kutcher case is not an accidental aberration of the loyalty program. If strictly enforced, such situations are inherent results. A rule by secret administrative processes is produced, which has already shown itself in such events as the refusal of Central Intelligence to hire a long time “trusted” government employee for reasons never stated, the refusal to admit a German war bride to this country on unspecified grounds, the firing of AMG official Samuel Wahrhaftig by the U.S. Army in Germany, which took a vigorous ruckus in Congress to change into complete “exoneration.”
The federal loyalty program is not planned to and will not capture spies; it will mainly harass the Harry Bradleys. The ABC broadcast unwittingly makes this point and no other, certainly not that of a “clear and. present danger.”
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