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RULES OF PROCEDURE FOR SENATE INVESTIGATING

COMMITTEES

FRIDAY, JULY 16, 1954

UNITED STATES SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON RULES AND ADMINISTRATION,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RULES,
Washington, D. C.

The subcommittee met at 11: 40 a. m., pursuant to recess, in room 318 of the Senate Office Building, Senator William E. Jenner (chairman) presiding.

Present: Senator Jenner (chairman).

Also present: Boris S. Berkovitch, counsel to Subcommittee on Rules; and W. F. Bookwalter, chief clerk of the Committee on Rules and Administration.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order.

Senator Brewster, will you be sworn to testify?

Do you swear the testimony given in this hearing will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Mr. BREWSTER. I do.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Brewster, have you submitted a prepared statement to the committee?

Mr. BREWSTER. I have, and I have filed it with the committee 24 hours in advance, as requested.

The CHAIRMAN. All right; you may proceed, then, with your testimony.

TESTIMONY OF OWEN BREWSTER, A FORMER UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MAINE

Mr. BREWSTER. As ranking minority member for 4 years of the special Senate committee investigating war expenditures under the chairmanship of Senator Truman and as its later chairman under Republican control and as a member of both the joint congressional committee on the Pearl Harbor investigation and the joint committee of the Senate investigating the removal of General MacArthur, I was impressed with the variety of problems that were presented and the utterly different procedures that were necessarily followed.

Entirely different rules were laid down to cover each situation. In the so-called Truman committee in most cases witnesses were carefully checked by a hearing in executive session and the Departments concerned were then asked to tell their side of the story informally to determine the factual basis for any charges before any public hearing was held; and I think in many instances checks were made with those outside the Government, contractors or others, to make sure that compiete justice would be done.

In the extended hearings on Pearl Harbor the whole case was presented in public hearings with only such preliminary check by the staff as proved practicable. In this case, of course, most of the witnesses were high ranking officers in the various branches of the armed services.

That was a joint congressional committee, representing both branches of the Congress, and commanded very wide interest.

In the MacArthur hearings everything was presented in executive session with carefully censored transcripts released daily to the press. These three committees conducted hearings which commanded very widespread public interest with little criticism as to their methods, although the procedures varied very widely in each case.

The regulations proposed by Senator Ferguson would not have affected in any way the practices that were followed in the Pearl Harbor and MacArthur investigations as the public interest was such that there was never any difficulty about securing attendance at any sessions. The size of the committees assured the representation of every point of view and the most searching cross-examination.

In the Truman committee during World War II the problem of a quorum was presented. At that time a majority was required, and the courts required an affirmative showing of a majority of the committee present in any case where contempt or perjury was involved. This led, I believe, to the modification of the quorum requirement so that one member of the committee would suffice and no serious difficulty was experienced, so far as I know, with this revised rule.

The CHAIRMAN. Did you have one-man hearings then as a result of that revision of the rules?

Mr. BREWSTER. Very late, certainly, because as late as 1947 I recall that I was called into court in a case where a committee had exposed derelictions in a Government department which resulted in a 5-year sentence of a high-ranking officer for either perjury or contempt— I am not sure which-and I had to establish, I remember, in court, and Mr. William F. Rogers was the counsel to the committee at that time, with whom I worked, that there was a majority present at the hearing at which this testimony had been given.

So, as late as 1947 we were still operating under that majority rule. I am not sure when this one-man rule was adopted, but it must have been subsequent to that time.

I do not recall any cases myself where we operated with only one

man.

The point which I would make in connection with that, if I might interpolate, is that such a wide variety of situations is presented that I think the committee must consider very carefully not taking any action which would restrict.

I think Senator Ferguson-I noted in his testimony-pointed out they must be very careful to leave the power of the committees and I accent committees untrammeled as far as possible.

I illustrated that with these three committees on which I served, but when you consider the great variety of problems which is presented before all the committees of the House and the Senate it is almost impossible to anticipate the variety of situations to be presented, coupled with the very great increase in pressure on the members.

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