Out the Window

The one chance for a calm non-partisan examination of our internal security problem has been lost. It vanished last Saturday when President Truman regretfully accepted the resignation of the Nimitz Commission. This group of nine outstanding civilians headed by Admiral Chester Nimitz was to study our crazy-quilt security program and make recommendations for uniform standards and procedures. It was sabotaged by a single senator, one who makes a practise of subordinating the nation's interest to his own.

Because several members of this commission had recently held government positions, they required exemptions from the 'conflict of interest' statutes. These statutes, designed to prevent ex-government employees from becoming influence peddlers, forbid men who have left the service within two years from dealing with government agencies. Members of the Hoover Commission, Selective Service, Defense Production and Civil Defense Agencies receive exemptions from the statutes with no trouble. But Senator Pat McCarran, head of Senate Judiciary Committee, refused to exempt the Nimitz Commission. Senator McCarran felt that the Security question is sole property of the Internal Security Subcommittee, headed by Senator McCarran, which supervises enforcement of the McCarran Bill.

Senator McCarran has his reasons for quashing an examination that would jeopardize his position of ringmaster in the anti-subversive circus. His subcommittee has merely relit the old McCarthy charges against the State Department, and the result has been smoke rather than light. By eliminating the Nimitz Commission, Senator McCarran prolongs the security confusion in the best interests of Senator McCarran.