have been responsible, for seeing that he was not taking any stuff out of that file room. Apparently they had a poor inventory system or accountability system, and it was not detected. Mr. SOURWINE. What was the nature of the mental quirk you spoke of? Mr. OTEPKA. He liked to collect books, pamphlets, all kinds of literature and publications. Mr. SOURWINE. It had nothing to do with the presence or absence of certain documents from certain files? Mr. ОTEPKA. No. Mr. SOURWINE. He just took the stuff home because he was collecting- WHY WORRY ABOUT THE FUTURE? Why should the fear over what happened in the past spread into the future? 9 Mr. SOURWINE. Well now, I want to find out why these instances make you worry about the files today? The man who collected the files and other types of reading material is out of the State Department. The people who dumped these files in the basement where you found them I presume are no longer in a position where they can do the same with the 14 file cabinets, are they? Mr. OTEPKA. I do not believe so. Mr. SOURWINE. And the people who were concerned with your third instance, the carelessness which led to the burning of the 300 files, they are gone, too, aren't they? Mr. OTEPKA. Not to my knowledge. Mr. SOURWINE. They are still around? Mr. OTEPKA. Yes. Mr. SOURWINE. Are they in a position where they could cause loss or damage or careless misplacement to your 14 file cabinets? Mr. OTEPKA. I do not know where these individuals are placed at this time. Mr. SOURWINE. I see. Was it ever determined who was responsible? Mr. OTEPKA. Yes. Mr. SOURWINE. Were they properly disciplined? Mr. OTEPKA. I do not know what action was taken. Mr. SOURWINE. Anyway they are still with the Department or some of them? Mr. OTEPKA. I believe so. * * * * * Mr. SOURWINE. Your concern then is not with the threat that any particular person might willfully destroy these files or otherwise remove them but with the fact that, so far as you know, there is nobody who has the affirmative duty of protecting them or interest in protecting them. If that is wrong, correct me. Mr. OTEPKA. I am always concerned, Mr. Sourwine, with so-called efficiency experts who are always going in and saying, "Well, what are you doing with all of these files? Aren't these just duplications? Aren't they just working papers? What value do they have?" If somebody isn't there to put up a stiff protest with respect to their plans for their destruction, they are going to be thrown out. Mr. SOURWINE. Well now, insofar Mr. OTEPKA. Because, Mr. Sourwine, these files are in such a deplorable condition, they are not too well organized, somebody is just going to say, "Get rid of this mess." Mr. SOURWINE. You didn't organize them during all the time you had them? Mr. OTEPKA. I organized as many as I could as time permitted. I at least did this: I picked up the bulk of these files off the basement floor. I at least sorted them out by years, and I gave them, the file cabinets, a label so I knew precisely what was in them. But believe me, they-it was just the worst mess I have ever experienced in my Government service concerning the care of classified security files. Mr. SOURWINE. What I am trying to get at, Mr. Otepka, is whether you have any reason in your recent experience to fear that the persons now in charge State Department Security hearings, pt. 20, pp. 1788-1789. 65-860-67-pt. 4- -5 of these files or having custody or access to them will treat them carelessly or negligently or in any other way that is wrong. Do you? Mr. OTEPKA. Well, I think I gave you one reason. That was that these files could simply be declared again as surplus, and the other reason is the history of carelessness in the handling of such files. I don't want that repeated. 2 THE PROBLEM OF HOMOSEXUALITY Though some State Department officials shied away from the subject, the problem of sexual perversion among employees was frankly admitted by others. It was termed a major problem, and a continuing one, calling for constant vigilance because of the risks of blackmail, coercion, and entrapment by subversive agents. From some officials, testifying before the subcommittee, came what seems to be a new recognition of the dangers and even a declaration of new emphasis on correction of the problem.1 All this was encouraging but was read against the documented use of waivers and other shortcuts taken in the hiring of officials and in handicaps thrown in the way of evaluators and others who wanted to stick to the security regulations. Performance would test the policy. But there it was: A firm-sounding though broadly stated declaration of policy that seemed to betoken an advance in this phase of security work. It was enunciated September 16, 1964, by William J. Crockett, Deputy Under Secretary for Administration. Here's how it went: Mr. SOURWINE. Do you consider homosexuality a major problem? 2 Mr. CROCKETT. It certainly is a major problem in the State Department. I suppose it is in all Federal employment, particularly overseas. But it is one of our major problems. And most particularly, I think, Mr. Sourwine, when these people, unbeknownst to us, get behind the Iron Curtain, I think this is an added risk. Mr. SOURWINE. Not only there, but in any sensitive job, they are a risk, as Mr. McLeod so well explained before he died. Mr. CROCKETT. This is without question. So we are giving our people more information on this and I talked to them the other day that, to the extent they let one of these fellows slip through, they are failing in their jobs. And we have to be more careful on this one. Mr. SOURWINE. Of course, that is a very difficult area. What you say is of considerable interest. Mr. Schwartz,3 as I recall, told us he didn't know of any problem of homosexuality in the Department and was satisfied there weren't any in the Bureau of Security and Consular Affairs? Mr. CROCKETT. I suppose if you ask any supervisor, Mr. Sourwine, he would say the same thing. Mr. SOURWINE. I don't know how a man would know. Mr. CROCKETT. He doesn't. Mr. SOURWINE. I would think any supervisor or deputy assistant secretary in the security grade would know this is a problem, and that the only way you can be sure of such a person is to catch him and have him confess, and that is a matter for constant vigilance. Mr. CROCKETT. It is constant. Mr. SOURWINE. As the CIA says: "We don't know of any infiltration, but we have to assume there has been some." I think that would be true of people of this unfortunate proclivity. We must assume there are some. Mr. CROCKETT. Well, I don't know 1 See State Department Security hearings pt. 1, pp. 14-17; pt. 11, pp. 773-774; pt. 13, pp. 953-969 and pp 978-984; and pt. 19, pp. 1612-1617 and pp. 1649-1650. State Department Security hearings, pt. 13, pp. 1021-1023. 'Abba P. Schwartz; then Administrator of the Bureau of Security and Consular Affairs, since resigned. some. Mr. SOURWINE. Because every year you report 40, 50, 60 discovered. Mr. CROCKETT. That is right, and I would say I even assume there may be I don't know them, but I know there may be some. But the time to get them is before they get in. And, therefore, this is the kind of pressure that we are putting on our security agents around the country and try to give them some understanding of the problem, deeper understanding, and some techniques that they can use, perhaps to be vigilant. Another thing that we are doing in this regard is fairly basic. Maybe I shouldn't even mention it, perhaps, and take your time, but one of the things I have been concerned about is any equivocation, any rationalization on employment. This is a time to get your cleanest possible guy, when you are employing a person. That is the time to look at everything and not make any compromises. Now, after you get an employee and he has been on the rolls for a while and he gets into this trouble or that trouble, maybe, then we owe him something and he owes us something. You have to take many things into consideration. But when he is just an applicant, you don't owe him anything. Mr. SOURWINE. A man has no rights to Government employment. Mr. CROCKETT. That is right. Mr. SOURWINE. Once he is on the roll, as you pointed out so well, it is a problem to get rid of him. He then has rights. Mr. CROCKETT. And you have responsibilities both ways. I mean you have to consider his rights and you have to weigh those against the national security and your own risk. But as you say, an applicant has no rights. And this is a sort of new philosophy that we are injecting into the investigative processes and evaluation processes, that we don't have to compromise on this; why stretch our judgment at all when a man is just an applicant? Sure, we need certain experts and certain high-grade intelligence and ability and all this. But they are not overriding in terms of security. Mr. SOURWINE. What you are saying is that you simply want the best men available, but you are not considering, as available, men who are potential security risks? Mr. CROCKETT. Right. Mr. SOURWINE. I respectfully suggest an amendment to what you just said. I don't think this is a new proposal or a new basis, but if the State Department is now adopting it, that is new. Mr. CROCKETT. Right. Mr. SOURWINE. It is one of the things that has been fought over in Government for a good many years. Mr. CROCKETT. One thing I want to say is-I want to amplify this record by saying I don't think in the past there was any policy of hiring security risks. I don't think that at all. All I am saying is that, in the past there might have been a tendency to say: "Well, this guy has a little problem, but we believe it is not too important and he will outlive it; or we can live with that blemish, whatever it is." Mr. SOURWINE. But isn't it true that over many years, the policy has been that if you couldn't establish by at least a preponderance of the evidence that there was this tendency, you didn't block the man out because of it, and that was the or in many cases was given as the-application of the policy of "a man is innocent until he is proven guilty." Mr. CROCKETT. Right. Mr. SOURWINE. The other line is that the interest of the Government is paramount and security is of sufficient importance that if there is doubt, it should be resolved in favor of the Government. And that means: don't employ a man about whom there is any doubt at all. Mr. CROCKETT. That is right, and especially, and I say this most especially to our younger people that are coming in. I think I could not say that, on the employment of a senior officer or transfer of a senior officer from another agency, that it was in the national interest that you wouldn't have him because there was any miscellaneous allegation against him. I don't mean this at all. But I mean this is really applicable to our FSO-8 program: young officers who are going to make their career in the Service. There isn't any sense of getting people in that have any problems at all. Mr. SOURWINE. But the policy now is and will be, as far as you know, in the future, that the State Department at least is not going to employ anybody where there is any question of security risk involved? You are not going to try to adjudicate those cases in advance of employment, as you would have to if it arose in the case of a man who had already been put on the payroll? Mr. CROCKETT. Exactly right. Mr. SOURWINE. That is a real and forceful application of the principle that employment must be clearly in the interest of the Government; not merely, as it used to be for some years, that it had not been shown that employment would be contrary to the interest of the Department? Mr. CROCKETT. That is right. William O. Boswell, for a time the Director of the Office of Security, agreed (Feb. 17, 1963) that there was always a problem of homosexuality, but he sought to minimize it.* Mr. SOURWINE. During your tenure as Director, was there any problem of homosexuality among the employees of the Department? Mr. BOSWELL. Yes, always problems of that. Mr. SOURWINE. This was a substantial amount? Mr. BoswELL. Not-these things are comparative. Compared to a number of years ago I would say, no, it was not substantial. I don't recall the figures but every year when we go to Mr. Rooney's Committee on Appropriations, we give the figures there. Mr. SOURWINE. It is a continuing thing, isn't it? Mr. BOSWELL. It is a continuing thing. I think in proportion it is considerably less than it was some time ago. Mr. SOURWINE. It takes a lot of time and a lot of effort is put into it to continue to try to weed these people out? Mr. BOSWELL. Yes, sir. Mr. SOURWINE. And you get a substantial number each year? More than 1? More than 10? More than a dozen? More than 20? Mr. BoswELL. I think in my time it ran around 20, 25 employees. Mr. SOURWINE. You don't recall any of the figures for 1959, 1960, 1961? Mr. SOURWINE. May the order be that the figures be inserted for that year? (In a letter dated March 5, 1964, addressed to Senator James O. Eastland, as chairman, Mr. Frederick G. Dutton, Assistant Secretary of State, reported that the number of employees separated from the Department after indications of homosexuality were disclosed, were, for the years requested: 1959, 18; 1960, 16; 1961, 24.) Mr. SOURWINE. What would you think of a Foreign Service officer of some years' experience who stated that he had no knowledge of any homosexual problem in the Department? Mr. BOSWELL. He might not have any personal knowledge of it but he certainly should know that there is a problem. Everyone knows. There has been enough publicity about this. Mr. SOURWINE. If he has been a security officer, he should have had personal opportunity to know it. Mr. BOSWELL. Most security officers have an opportunity. Not all. Mr BOSWELL. Oh, yes. Many posts where it is not-let me put it this way: it is not an active problem. It is a problem, always one of concern. * Harris H. Huston, former Deputy Administrator, Bureau of Security and Consular Affairs, (Aug. 21, 1957-January 1961) said he thought the use of the polygraph might prove helpful in checking on job applicants. Mr. SOURWINE. What can be done to prevent the employment of homosexuals by the Department of State? Mr. HUSTON. I can only address myself to the situation as of the time I left. Mr. SOURWINE. Well, you dealt with the problem at that time, and you must have given it considerable thought. Mr. HUSTON. And as of that time I felt that, in that particular area, we were probably more effective than we were in many others. In other words, I think we had a better chance of preventing a homosexual from coming into the Department than we would a Soviet agent. Senator MCCLELLAN. Are they easier detected? It is easier to establish their practices than it is the philosophy of someone who may be following Mr. HUSTON. That is right. *State Department Security hearing, pt. 13, p. 1009. |