McCARRAN ACT AMERICANS QUESTION THEIR SECURITY LAW

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26672, 5 March 1952, Page 6

McCARRAN ACT AMERICANS QUESTION THEIR SECURITY LAW

[Bv 0 New York Stag Correspondent of the “Sydney Morning Herald") (Reprinted by Arrangement)

America’s controversial McCarran Internal Security Act hai barred so many eminent scientists and other intellectuals from the United States in recent months that pressure is growing in Washington for its modification or repeal. . . ft was because of the provisions of the McCarran Act that the State Department last year failed to grant the necessary entry permit to Professor M. L. Oliphant, Professor of Nuclear Physics at the Australian National University, Canberra, in time tor him to attend an important meeting m Chicago. . > , , State Department officials admit that the United States’ prestige abroad i» being damaged by the application of the act. The recent case of the famous British author, Graham Greene, has served to intensify opposition to the act in spite of the fact that Mr Greene was eventually granted a special dispensation to enter the country after first being denied permission The Government acted quickly, when it became obvious that the vision of the novelist as a threat to American security was too absurd to stand up before American public opinion. Mr Green's only sip was that as an Oxford undergraduate in. 1923 he became a member of the British Communist Party for four weeks, as “a prank.”

Many Complaints A deluge of complaints from foreign embassies in Washington has descended on the Government. Embassy officials have been outspoken in making clear that liberals throughout the world are shocked by the manner in which renowned and respected people have been denied entry visas without explanation. Some diplomats have privately expressed the belief that the international publicity arising from the situation has been providing Russia with perfect propaganda about Americans own “iron curtain." The McCarran Act —or Anti-Com-munist Act as it is also called — was passed overwhelmingly by the House and Senate in September, 1950, over the objections of President Truman. Two days later, the President vetoed the act and sent a 500-word message to Congress explaining why. This message was one of the most emphatic - and fervent statements ever written by the President, who said that the law would not hurt the Communists, but would help them, that it would actually weaken the existing internal security measures and “make a mockery of the Bill of Rights and of our claims to Stand for freedom in the world." The veto was applauded by many influential newspapers, by numerous church leaders and by officials of the American Federation of Labour, who said they considered the act a terrible mistake. Nevertheless, Congress promptly overrode President Truman's veto and the act became law.

Aiqied at Communist* It was aimed almost entirely at the Communists, although under its provisions Nazis and Fascists could also be excluded. Among other things, it required the registration of Communist organisations and forbade the employment of Communists in defence work.

The section dealing with aliens was designed primarily to exclude subversive elements from the country, but it also excluded members affiliated at any time with totalitarian groups, and anyone Whose presence in the country would not appear to be in the interests of security.

The Congressional passage of the legislation could not be described as panicky or hurried. Congressional committees had investigated for nearly three years what laws could be enacted to deal with the Communist menace and had abandoned the idea of outlawing the Communist Party after warnings that such a step would only drive them underground. The bill that emerged came from

the Senate Judiciary Commit!*, headed by Senator Pat McCam. after whom the act was named. Ev., Senator McCarran admitted aft» < new law was applied that it “harsher” than he had expected. Withi 24 hours of its enactment, hundrtffl travellers en route to the United State, were ordered to return to their honu lands and get their visas reconsidemj Celebrities Barred Many failed to obtain new visas and scores who had already been in th* United States were deported n! great majority admitted that they had joined “youth movements” at one time or other in Italy, Germany, or Spain but protested that it was involuntan membership. } World figures who have been denied permission to enter the United State include Dr. Ernst Chain, Nobel Prize winner and co-discoverer of penicillin Professor Adolf Petersen, the noted Danish scholar, Michael Polanyi a prominent British educationist and Professor Vallarta, Mexican atomic physicist. Under pressure of public protest. Congress last year amended the Me Carran Act to permit the entry of per' sons who had been members of Nazi or Fascist organisations under the ate of 16 or had been forced to join to get food or work. This amendment lifted the barrier for an estimated 50,000 Europeans who had been awaiting a chance to mike their home in America. It did not however, remove many other stringent provisions of the act, under Which eminent scientists and others h eve been compelled to abandon planrfor attending important meetings in th» United States. The ‘‘New York Times,” referriM to the difficulty encountered by Gra* ham Greene in meeting the non-Com. munist test required, declared that it illustrated “to what depths of pueril. ity our immigration laws have been allowed to sink—the rigid barriers set up have played directly into the hands of our enemies.”

Representative Emanuel Celler chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has announced that it is his intention to study possible amendment to the act in order “to give it some semblance of decency ana sens#,” Some members of Congress who voted for the measure in 1950 probably will throw their weight behind Mr Celler’s attempt, on the ground that the act “punishes more severely than was originally believed to be necessary," Adamant Senator Senator McCarran and his supporters, however, are adamant in the face of criticism. Their answer to critics is that ostensibly harmless political associations have sometimes turned out later to be real associations in “conspiratorial Communism.” They also argue that a test of a few months is not sufficient to give the act a fair trial, that the control of subver. sion is admittedly a ..complicated and difficult process, and that all meh efforts fundamentally have to be eg a basis of trial and error. These answers are proving far from satisfactory, however, to scientific, cultural, and other groups in the United States. Unless the McCarran Act is repealed or modified in time, for instance, for the International Congress of Psychology, Which is expected to hove 2006 delegates, the congress will be held either ip Canada or Brazil. The International Astronomic Union ana Joint Commission for Spectroscopy has already decided to transfer its meeting place from the United State to Italy, and the International Red Cross Convention will be held in Canada later this year instead of the United States because it is feared that some delegates from abroad might encounter visa difficulties if the convention is held in New York. Even the UNESCO conference on the freedom of artists has abandoned plans to meet in the United States,