ALLEGED SPY DISPUTE

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27201, 19 November 1953, Page 11

ALLEGED SPY DISPUTE

Evidence By F. 8.1.

Director

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

(Rec. 9 p.m.) WASHINGTON, November 17. The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Mr J. Edgar Hoover) testified today that he had never approved any agreement to keep the late Harry Dexter White in United States Government service while he was being watched as a suspected spy for the Soviet Union.

Mr Hoover said that the watch on White was made on former President Truman’s orders.

Mr Hoover was testifying before the Senate Internal Security Sub-Committee on the charges by the AttorneyGeneral, Mr Brownell, that White was promoted from Assistant United States Treasury Secretary to the representative on the International Monetary Fund, although F. 8.1. reports on him had been sent to the White House.

In February, 1946, Mr Hoover said, he told Mr Tom Clark, then the Attorney-General, that it would be unwise to let White remain in the Government service. White’s promotion to the <fund made it more difficult to keep him under surveillance, said Mr Hoover.

This was because the premises of the Monetary Fund had extraterritorial status and as a result F. 8.1. agents had no right to follow White on the premises.

Mr Hoover commented that his agents also were similarly hampered in the surveillance of persons attached to the United Nations headquarters.

Neither Mr Clark nor the then Secretary of the Treasury (Mr Fred Vinson) had liked the plan to put White in th* Monetary Fund job.

Mr Hoover said that Mr Clark had told him in February, 1946, that he (Mr Clark) had seen the President and that an effort would be made to remove White, although Mr Clark expressed doubt if it would work out. Mr Clark had stated that the President was interested in continuing the surveillance.

The Attorney-General' Mr Brownell, today challenged Mr Truman’s contention that White was allowed to take the International Monetary Fund post because it was hoped to trap White’s associates.

Mr Brownell asserted that if the idea was to use White as bait for other spies, to accomplish such an end would have required infinite and detailed care if the national interest was to have been protected. He said that the highest Government officials should have been forewarned of the reputed trap and great care should have been taken to make certain that “these spies” did not affect the decisions of the United States Government.

In point of fact, he said, the records failed to show that anything was done which interfered with the continued functioning of the espionage ring of which White was a part. “Simple, Reasonable Tests” “If we apply simple and reasonable tests io how other members of the espionage ring named in the F. 8.1. report were treated there is considerable doubt that anything was done to protect the national interest,” he said. Mr Brownell handed to the Senate Internal Security Sub-committee a letter from Mr Hoover to the White House in November. 1945, warning that Harry Dexter White and others, including a White House assistant, were leaking information which reached Soviet spies. A confidential communication was addressed to General Harry Vaughan, who was military aide to Mr Truman and had been designated to receive F. 8.1. reports of subversive activities. Mr Brownell said it had been said that he implied-in his Chicago speech of November 6 the possibility that Mr Truman was disloyal. “I intended no such inference to be drawn,” Mr Brownell said. “When this sub-committee completes its investigation I believe you will conclude,; as I did. that there was unwillingness on the part of Mr Truman and others around him to face the facts, and there was a persistent delusion that Communist espionage in high places in our Government was a red herring, and I believe you will conclude that this attitude and this delusion may have resulted in great harm to our nation.”

Mr Brownell said he had promised when he assumed office that “he would expose evidence of Communist infiltration of the Government and of corruption. “I shall not be deterred from carrying out my duty by personal abuse,” he said.

New Laws Recommended The Attorney-General recommended two new laws to Congress. One would permit the use of evidence obtained by wire-tapping in espionage cases.

He said the Government was unable to present all information it had on White to the New York grand jury which considered his case because some of it was obtained through wiretaps [the grand j,ury did not indict White].

The second would let the Government grant immunity to witnesses to obtain their testimony for use in tracking down “higher-ups” in conspiracies to overturn the Government by force and violence.