So far as his future status is concerned, I think both he and I would not care to make public commitments. I think Mr. Peurifoy has no concern about his future.

Do you wish me to go further? Does that throw light on the matter?

Senator VANDENBERG. I think it throws light on the matter. Obviously the specific fundamental inquiry is whether you will have a concern to persist in identifying any subversive or disloyal activities. in the Department such as are alleged in respect to some of these gentlemen, and whether or not your interest is to legitimately continue that sort of screening for the purpose of totally protecting the loyalty character of the State Department.

I almost hesitate to ask you the question, lest it carry the inference that you would not be interested.

Mr. ACHESON. I think the simplest way to dispose of it is to say, of course I would be interested in continuing it.

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, you do not now, and have not in the past, wanted any disloyal or subversive characters in the State Department.

Mr. ACHESON. That is true, Senator.

Senator VANDENBERG. But, Mr. Secretary, without prejudging the Alger Hiss matter, it does develop, does it not, that things have happened in respect to State Department personnel which have been totally dumfounding to many officers of the Department, so that we are put on notice that everything always isn't quite as happy as it seems upon the surface?

Mr. ACHESON. Senator, I agree with you that neither you nor I should comment in any way upon the matter of Mr. Alger Hiss, which is now before a United States court. I agree with you that the matters of security are of first importance, and that there is no step which should not be taken in order to make secure the State Department in its conduct of foreign affairs.

Senator VANDENBERG. That is a perfectly satisfactory answer. The CHAIRMAN. Are there any other matters, Mr. Acheson, on the publicity side of this hearing that you care to touch upon?

Mr. ACHESON. No, sir. I desire to answer any question that the committee may wish to ask me, but I have no statement to make of

my own.

Senator VANDENBERG. If the Senator wishes to pursue further inquiries from the table, I have one or two questions I would like to ask the Secretary. I do not want to interrupt your continuity.

The CHAIRMAN. I was going to turn it over to questions by the members now.

Senator George?

Senator GEORGE. No; I have no questions.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Vandenberg?

Reference to Law Firm

Senator VANDENBERG. Mr. Acheson, I want to inquire further into this problem of your law firm, because I think it is very important for your sake as well as ours that the record should be totally clear.

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When a member of your firm is registered with the Department of Justice as the agent for a foreign interest, apparently he is registered in his personal name. Does that mean that it is a personal account with him, or is it still a firm account?

Mr. ACHESON. I do not know what the significance of registering an individual as against a firm is. I am just not familiar with that. I assume it is in order to be as specific as possible, since that, I imagine, is what the purpose of the law is, and not to have the matter hidden under the cloak of anonymity of a firm name, but to know exactly who the people are who are doing the work.

It would be a firm employment, and the proceeds of that would go to the partnership and not to an individual partner.

Senator VANDENBERG. Will you state whether, under that hypothesis, your firm, during your active connection with it, has represented any other foreign governments?

Mr. ACHESON. Yes, Senator, I shall be glad to go into that. I should like to make clear at the outset of this discussion that this firm, which is now 30 years old, was founded by Judge Covington and Mr. Burling on January 1, 1919. Throughout that 30 years it has had a very considerable amount of foreign business. That foreign business sometimes consisted of the representation of foreign governments, sometimes in the representation of foreign private interests. It is not by any means the major part of the firm's business. I state this because it has nothing to do with my presence in the Government of the United States. The first foreign case they had I believe was in the year 1920, and I hardly know of a time when they have not had some business. During my 18 months there have been, so far as I know, the following connections:

Long prior to my return, to be specific in March 1946, Mr. John Lord O'Brian and Mr. John Laylin were retained by the Government of Iran to represent them or to help the Government of Iran in proceedings which were then going on before the Security Council growing out of a complaint filed before the Council by Iran against the Soviet Union. Mr. partners, who were not then my partners but who are now, Mr. O'Brian and Mr. Laylin, continued that work until early in 1948. They filed proper documents, whatever they were, under this act to which Senator Vandenberg has referred. If anybody is interested in what they were paid, I have it here and shall be glad to tell you. Perhaps I had better do it, so that nobody will suppose they were made unduly rich.

For some 22 years' work of a rather responsible nature, they were paid $25,000.

The CHAIRMAN. For representing Iran?

Mr. ACHESON. That was for assisting the Iranian Ambassador in matters which came before the Security Council growing out of their troubles with the Soviet Union.

Senator TYDINGS. When you say "the Security Council," you mean of the United Nations?

Mr. ACHESON. Yes, sir.

Senator VANDENBERG. That was not an operation which involved any direct interest of the Government of the United States, as I understand it?

Mr. ACHESON. No. Mr. Byrnes, as Secretary of State, was attending that meeting, taking a position on behalf of the Government of the United States. That position was wholly consistent with the one that my present partners then took in supporting Iran.

In July 1941, at a time when, as I stated, I had no connection with this firm, Mr. George Rublee, who is now retired, was retained by the Danish Ambassador, who at that time, as I recall, was cut off from his Government, to look out for the interests of Danish shipowners whose ships had been requisitioned by the United States in order to prevent them from falling into the hands of Germany. This retainer was for the purpose of obtaining, by negotiation if possible and by lawsuit if necessary, just compensation for the use of the ships or for the title to the ships in case they were to be kept by the United States.

That matter is still proceeding. There are cases in the courts, in the Court of Claims of the United States. There is one suit pending in the Supreme Court of the United States which has to do with the various elements which should go into determining what is just compensation.

Senator VANDENBERG. The decisions in those cases are judicial decisions and not State Department decisions?

Mr. ACHESON. They are judicial decisions and they have not yet been rendered.

The total amounts paid to the present time total $165,000, from 1941 to the present time.

In December 1945 one of the members of that firm-I unfortu nately do not have his name here was retained to represent the owners of nine Finnish ships. This is not a Government representation, but representation of private people. The ships belonging to these nine Finnish owners were taken over by the United States and the same question of determining just compensation arose, and for the past 4 years that litigation has been going on and the fee paid over that period of time has been $50,000.

On February 8, 1947, at a time when I had no connection with the firm, Mr. John Laylin, a member of the firm, was retained by the chargé d'affaires of the Greek Government to give the Ambassador and Greek officials help and advice in connection with proceedings before the United Nations in connection with the difficulties on the border, and to take such action from time to time as might be necessary in filing applications for loans with the Export-Import Bank, or with the International Bank. That is a continuing representation; in fact, Mr. Laylin was in Paris at the last meeting of the United Nations General Assembly to assist the Greeks in any problems which they have there. The total fee paid over the entire duration of that employment was $40,000.

In December 1946 some member of the firm-I do not have the original member who was retained; the member of the firm who is now handling their account is Mr. William Graham Clayton-was retained by the Royal Swedish Air Board in connection with purchases of aircraft and materials which the Air Board had made in the United States. There is some legal controversy about those purchases. I think some of the planes were lost in transit, and there are

claims against insurance companies. There is also a claim that the Swedish Government has in connection with purchases made by it from the United States. There is a claim on one side or the other that there is an overpayment. I am not clear here whether the Swedes claim they overpaid the United States or what it is. It must have been that, because they made the purchases.

Here the representation is entirely in a legal matter, trying to straighten out tangles of that sort.

In November of 1947, at a time when I was a member of this firm, Mr. Laylin was retained by the Republic of Colombia. He represented the Republic of Colombia, six departments, and two municipalities. They have worked out an arrangement by which new bonds are to be substituted for defaulted bonds of these departments and municipalities. The new bonds bear the guarantee of the Republic of Colombia. We have been working out with the fiscal agent any legal matters involved in this transfer.

There is one other matter here which I have seen referred to in the press. In December of 1946, at a time when I was not connected with the firm, Mr. Ellison and Mr. Shorb, partners, and two assistants under them, were retained by the Arabian-American Oil Co. in connection with a tax matter which it was hoped would be acted upon by the Congress. This memorandum tells me that there is in the tax law some provision by which American companies operating in the western hemisphere are relieved from the surtax. This oil company retained these gentlemen to try and draw briefs and papers and make arguments before committees of Congress to have that privilege extended to American companies operating elsewhere in the world. It is a technical tax matter about which I know nothing.

Three of the men involved dropped out of the work. Mr. Ellison carried it along. It was finally concluded, and he rendered a bill for $7,500, which was paid.

I think that completes the story, Senator.

Senator VANDENBERG. In that entire inventory, I find nothing which might be called lobbying employment.

Law Practice

Mr. ACHESON. No, Senator, you have not, and if you would permit me to make one statement, I should like to have this very clear. I have been twice in the Government of the United States, and twice returned to private life. It seemed to me mandatory on me that I should take no employment and engage in no activity which did not have the fullest possible publicity. I also felt that I should take no employment in which I had any relation with former colleagues, either in the department in which I was engaged or in any other department. That left only one resource for a lawyer, and that was to take cases which were before the courts. I did that in 1933, and I did that in 1947.

...It seems to me that there, everything that I did or said was a matter of complete public knowledge under the supervision of a judicial officer, and although no one can ever be protected from criticism, at least you can be sure that the criticism is not just.

Policies Toward Soviet Russia

Senator VANDENBERG. Mr. Acheson, I do not know whether it is appropriate to answer this question or not. I agree with the chairman's initial injunction that matters of foreign policy obviously cannot be canvassed in a forum of this charcter in any detail. Furthermore, I recognize the fact that you cannot speak for American foreign policy for the future. It is the President's primary responsibility. Yet you are well aware of the fact that underlying this whole discussion is a rather universal debate respecting our policies toward Soviet Russia. I am wondering whether, within the chairman's injunction, and within your own highly acute capacity to differentiate for yourself, you can draw on your own past record in making some sort of a statement to the committee on the general subject I have submitted to you.

The CHAIRMAN. You are to decide whether you want to make this answer now or in executive session.

Mr. ACHESON. I think Senator Vandenberg's question was so generously put that I can deal with it perhaps without getting into matters which should not be discussed publicly.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you want this memorandum which I have about your past expressions on this subject?

Mr. ACHESON. I have not seen it, Senator. I do not think I need it. As Senator Vandenberg has said, the determination of foreign policy is a matter for the President of the United States. The President himself has stated in most categorical language that he does not contemplate any change whatever in the foreign policy of the United States.

I think perhaps the concern to which Senator Vandenberg refers has to do with something a little different than that. I think it has to do with the worry, the regret of many people, that the President must lose the powerful help and support of General Marshall. I think the country feels, with the President, that he is the great figure, as the President has said, of the war period. I think the country agrees with every word that the President wrote in his letter to General Marshall. It seems to me utterly clear, and no amount of words can have any bearing upon this matter, that no one can take General Marshall's place. I can only add one or two things to that. Although no one can take his place, someone who has worked under him can do his best, with the strength and ability which is given to him, to follow General Marshall's example. That any successor of his would have before him. I think I can add this, also. The policies which President Truman has followed since he took office have been evolved with the help of two Secretaries of State. I served under both of them as their Under Secertary. I think I know something of the circumstances and the problems which the President's actions were designed to meet. I think I know something of the need in American foreign policy for steadiness and continuity.

During these years, and the 4 years preceding during which I was Under Secretary, I served under two other Secretaries of State, Secretary Hull and Secretary Stettinius. I think during all of this period I learned something about the function of an adviser to his chief; that