TESTIMONY OF ERNEST ANGELL, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS, AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION

Mr. ANGELL. We have sent down in advance today a rather lengthy statement which first, in general terms, expresses the convictions of the American Civil Liberties Union about the issue which your committee is considering and then goes into very careful analysis of the two resolutions now before the Senate, introduced by Senator Bush, No. 253, and Senator Kefauver and the others, No. 256.

I think I would consume an undue amount of time of the committee, even if you were so indulged, to read the whole statement. I trust it will be read more at leisure than in an open session such as this affords.

Let me comment upon the principal points of it as I go along and, of course, be open to any questions that seem pertinent at the moment. First, I would like to read the opening portions of the statement. My name is Ernest Angell, and I am appearing today on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union. I have been a member of its board of directors for 11 years, since 1942, and chairman of the board of directors since 1950.

I am a New York attorney, and until very recently practicing for many years in Wall Street.

I have had much experience in the problem of ferreting out Communists, and I have had a considerable experience in the handling of investigative processes.

One time, for 2 years, I was the head of the New York office of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and there we conducted constantly investigations, of course, within the area of operations of those statutes, namely, the brokerage and stock security issues.

From 1948 until 1950 I was Chairman of the Federal Loyalty Board for the Second District, comprising the States of New York and New Jersey, and in that capacity gave a good deal of time to investigations of loyalty under the old pre-1953 procedures for the Federal Govern

ment.

Senator CARLSON. Mr. Angell, may I ask if that Loyalty Review Board you were Chairman of from 1948 to 1950 was appointed by the Civil Service Commission, or where did you receive your appointment?

Mr. ANGELL. Yes, Senator; by the Civil Service Commission. This was not, of course, the Loyalty Review Board itself, the top appeals board, of which I was a member and Chairman, but the district board, so to speak.

Senator CARLSON. Thank you.

Mr. ANGELL. We were all acting as citizens and not, excepting in that limited capacity, as officials of the Federal Government. We were not regular employees of the Federal Government, but there in that capacity we had occasion to examine into the loyalty records of literally hundreds and hundreds of Federal employees in varying degrees of detail, and wherever there was any substantial doubt to hold hearings which were always executive hearings, confidential, not open to the public.

The committee might also be interested in knowing that I am a regularly registered member of the Republican Party and at times active in the affairs of that party.

Now, the Civil Liberties Union, the organization of whose board I am chairman, is a national nonpolitical, nonpartisan organization of some 30,000 members all over the country, which welcomes the support of all those, and only those, whose devotion to civil liberties is not qualified by adherence to the Communist, Fascist, Ku Klux Klan, or any other totalitarian doctrine.

The sole purpose of our work, the preservation of civil liberties, is anathema to the Communists. We are violently opposed to Communist totalitarianism, as well as to all forms of it.

At this point I would like to hand to the committee copies of the statement adopted by our board of directors on March 15, 1954, which deals generally with the issue of communism, and to point out, so far as we are aware, our organization was the first to exclude members of the Communist Party from our governing bodies and staff, a step which we took in 1940, 14 years ago.

Senator CARLSON. Without objection that statement will be made a part of the record.

Mr. ANGELL. Yes; I have the copies of it here, sir. (The statement referred to is as follows:)

AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION, STATEMENT OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

ADOPTED MARCH 15, 1954

On February 15, 1954, the board of the ACLU unanimously adopted a statement asserting its intention "to defend the civil liberties of any person, however unpopular that person or his views may be, and regardless of any political party, organization, denomination, race, or nationality to which that person may belong." At the same time, the ACLU reasserted its policy to have no board or committee or staff member, national or local, "who does not believe in civil liberties or who accepts the discipline and control of any political party or organization which is under the control or direction of any totalitarian government, whether Communist or Fascist, which itself does not believe in civil liberties, or, in practice, crushes civil liberties."

The board recognizes the dual nature of the operations of the Communist movement in the United States at the present time. While that movement seeks to give the appearance of being primarily a political instrument of agitation and propaganda, it is actually an international conspiracy to seize power— political, social, economic-wherever it can.

At the meeting of February 15 the board directed the appointment of a special committee to study and report its recommendations regarding policies of the American Civil Liberties Union. Now, until such committee report is available, and for the information of the public as well as for the continuing guidance of its staff, the board reiterates its considered opinion that the facts regarding the American Communist movement are well established. The American Communist movement, in sharp contradistinction to other American political parties, is subject to the dominance of the rulers of a foreign nation. In theory it rejects all the concepts of civil liberty which the ACLU exists to defend and in practice it crushes every assertion of individual dignity and freedom which may conflict with the party's commands. In thus reasserting its considered judgment on communism, the board of the ACLU is following its established practice in assessing responsibly the character of organizations like the Ku Klux Klan and the pro-Nazi Bund.

Like all patriotic citizens the board of directors of the ACLU expects the Government diligently to seek out and punish lawbreakers, especially those guilty of treasonable acts against our country; and to provide for the integrity of Federal employment. But we hold it to be an ominous violation of our own heritage and principles to condemn or punish, politically, socially, or economically, any person, Communist or other, without due process of law and procedure. The ACLU's defense has everywhere and always been, not of organizations or ideologies, but of the civil rights to which all persons under the jurisdiction of the Government of the United States are entitled by the Constitution.

49144-54-Pt. 4

Mr. ANGELL. Let me state at the outset that we yield to no one in our recognition of the importance of congressional investigations.

We realize full well that if Congress is to legislate intelligently it must have before it full information on the subject matter about which it proposes to legislate.

We know and understand that an investigating committee of Congress, whose purpose is to develop legislation, must have a sufficiently broad scope of inquiry, subject only to restriction upon its scope only insofar as that may be necessitated by certain rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights.

We recognize further that Congress has a right to investigate the operations of the executive branch, especially in connection with the appropriation function of Congress, though we are fully aware that the limits of that right are not yet, and perhaps may never be, fully delineated.

Both of these rights may be very important to our freedoms.

We think this point needs emphasis, for while much of the opposition to congressional investigations in recent years has doubtless been because their legislative purposes or procedures have been considered repressive, there are and will be many occasions wherein the legislative purpose is not repressive, but directed toward an expansion of freedoms.

Whatever one may think of the current scope and operations of congressional investigations, we are fully aware that the historic right of Congress to investigate must be preserved.

One of the reasons for our concern over improper procedures by congressional committees has been the inevitable discrediting of the investigative process by unfair methods of investigation.

The importance of the congressional investigative power can be blurred or lost to the public when investigations are not properly pursued.

An additional concomitant of such loss of respect for the process is loss of respect for the laws that may result from a particular investigation.

No law can be welcomed by all our people when it is the result of investigations that are unfair in their procedures.

The Civil Liberties Union has long had a deep concern for fair procedures. For example, in 1936 we criticized the Senate Lobby Investigating Committee, under its chairmanship of Senator Black, for certain practices for issuing blanket subpenas to obtain from the telegraph companies copies of telegrams sent or received by corporations or individuals without notice being given to the senders or receivers. We stated that "such practices necessarily strike at the foundations of American liberty."

In 1938 we protested to the Senate Committee to Investigate Lobbying Activities, whose then chairman was Senator Minton, because of its intended use of income-tax returns which we thought indicated the committee's intention to make retaliatory use of information against witnesses.

In 1939 we protested to Senator O'Mahoney, chairman of the Temporary National Economic Committee, with respect to one part of a subpena issued to the Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. demanding production of all correspondence, telegrams, et cetera, of its officers,

directors and employees, as inquiring into the views of the corporation and its officers and employees.

Fair procedures, so essential to the preservation of and respect for the legislative investigative process itself, are vitally necessary for the protection of the individual subpenaed to appear before a congressional committee.

The average citizen who thus appears before a congressional committee has no protection against improper procedures, other than the self-restraint of the congressional committee, a self-restraint which has all too often been, in our belief, sadly lacking.

The citizen who appears before an executive agent and is unfairly treated, or believes that he has been, has a right to go to the courts. and seek relief; the citizen who has been unfairly treated by a lower court has the right to seek relief from the higher courts, including the writ of habeas corpus; but a citizen who appears before a congressional committee has no recourse to the courts to redress his grievances against such a committee based upon a claim of unfair procedures. His only access to the courts is if the Congress cites him for contempt. If Congress does not so cite him, he has no recourse. If Congress does so cite him, he cannot complain of unfair procedures to the court, for up to the present time the only contentions which he can raise in court, according to the courts themselves, are that the committee possibly exceeded its scope-a protection too often illusory when the committee's scope may itself be virtually unlimited-and a right to a hearing on a possible plea of the fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination; but he has no right at all to test whether the procedures that were used against him have been fair in the particular circumstances. Even if he does establish that the committee went beyond its scope or that he validy raised the privilege against self-incrimination, or even in cases where the committee has not cited him for contempt, he may find, of course, that his reputation has been ruined as a result of unfair procedures practiced; and then there is no attorney on earth who can suggest to him any course of action by which he can vindicate his good name.

In short, congressional committees operate-this may seem like a strong statement, Mr. Chairman, but I think it is a fair statementalmost wholly in a legal vacuum, except insofar as they are restrained by their own sense of self-restraint, and that has been woefully lacking in many instances. There should be a rule of law applicable to this important procedure of one of the branches of our Government. An American citizen-indeed, all persons within our boundaries— are entitled to better treatment than that. While such treatment may not be required under the strict rule of due process of law, the spirit of the rule of due process demands that such protections be extended. So does simple justice.

Now, to a discussion of the two resolutions before you-Senate Resolution 253, introduced by Senator Bush, and Senate Resolution 256, introduced by Senator Kefauver for himself and 18 other Senators: In broad summary, we strongly prefer the Resolution 256 introduced by Senator Kefauver, and I will endeavor to develop those

reasons.

Taking up first, however, Senate Resolution 253 of Senator Bush: We commend the purpose of it. We think it does no go far enough and spell out the rights with sufficient particularity. Its most serious defects are that it does not provide for the right of crossexamination, except through written interrogatories; it does not provide adequate insurance that a person may testify on his own behalf or subpena witnesses, nor does it sufficiently protect the person who may be named adversely. Some of the features of the Bush proposal, however, are excellent and, in our judgment, indeed preferable to those of the resolution No. 256. We think they should be added to or used as a substitute for the corresponding provisions of Senate Resolution 256. For example, in the Bush proposal, section 1 would require the resolution authorizing investigations to state the need for such investigation, and we commend that very strongly. This is a fine proposal which might do away with unnecessary and duplicatory investigations, but this only applies to investigation of the particular subject matter, thus permitting evasion by authorizing general investigations. The requirement that only "the general object" of such investigation need be stated may operate against that specificity which is so essential if the witness is to tell whether the particular question addressed to him is relevant.

Section 3 would do away with a one-man committee holding a hearing when a witness under subpena objects to the presence of only one member. We approve that, but we think it does not go far enough and that there should be at least two members of the committee present. even when friendly witnesses are being interrogated, in order to insure that individuals mentioned in testimony shall not have their reputations adversely affected, and preferably that one member of each party should be required to be present.

There are certain confusions which seem to us may result from the form of the wording of this measure in section 5 and section 14.

Section 5 would make the rules of the committee the rules of the subcommittee so far as applicable.

Well, does this mean that the limited prohibition of one-man committees does not apply to subcommittees ?

The language is not sufficiently clear to give a definitive answer, it

seems to us.

In subsection 14-that subpenas be issued only by authority of the committee and signed by the chairman, and so forth. Does this mean that a subcommittee has to get the authority of a full committee and that the subpena would have to be signed by the chairman of the full committee?

The language is not clear.

We urge that the issuance of subpenas should be limited by requiring the subpena to state in reasonable detail the matters about which a witness is to be interrogated, so as to advise him as fully and reasonably as possible in advance, and the subpena should be served in sufficient time before the hearing to enable him to get a lawyer and consult with a lawyer. There may be a genuine need of it.

Many persons appearing before official bodies, whether it is a court or a committee, becomes very nervous, even when there is nothing to fear on their part. They are just not accustomed to that. They want, wisely or unwisely perhaps, a lawyer at hand and it is often difficult to find a lawyer unless you give a witness a reasonable time,