UNTITLED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP64B00346R000200100016-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 16, 2003
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: February 2, 1956
• Content Type: MISC

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Secondly, the article states, "In February, 19/F8, there was another
hearing, this one on anti-Communist legislation which would. bar Reds Prom
teaching in Massachusetts. .Along with the President of Harvard, Killian
testified in opposition."
Dr. K111ian appeared before the Joint Committee on Education at a
hearing on the Barnes Bill, Document H22~, on February g, 19~$. Dr. James
B. Conant, President of Harvard University,and the heads of other mayor
educational institutions in Massachusetts also appeared in opposition to
the bill. Dr. Killian~s full statement is as follows:
"I am speaking in behalf of the President and Corporation of
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in his absence I wish
particularly to record the opr~osition of President Karl ~. Compton to
Document H22(?.
"In my ~ud~nent, the most important ob~ectibns to the Barnes Bill
arise from its serious violation of the civil liberties which are fundamental
to the American system. I wish in this statement, however, to direct my
remarks to the impossible burden it would place upon the administrative
officers of Massachusetts educational institutions.
`The bill says in effect that the responsibie officer of an
educational. institution should be a person so omniscient that he must be
able (1) to tell a communist when he sees one, or (2) be prepared at any
time to determine what the doctrines of the communist party may be on that
particular day and to determine whether any member of the staff of his
institution, orally ar in writing, has advocated any of these doctrines.
"I submit, gentlemen, that this is not only impossible but
dangerous.
'~It is, I believe, an established fact that members of the
communist party are perfectly willing at times to deny their membership and
in other ways to hide their affiliation. If the prospective employee is
really a communist, the chances are that the administrator would be unable
either by investigation ar by point blank question to establish the fact.
If the man is not a communist, h? might justifiably feel that this
inquisition is an indefensible invasion of his civil rights and refuse to
consider a post at the institution.
~~Ho~r can a college administrator or his board of trustees identify
a communist or a member of the communist party when the tT.S. Government, with
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all its far-flung agencies and resources for investigation, has been
unable to establish the membership or non-membership of certain well-known
public figures In the institution which I serve, we employ, including
part-time student assistants, about 1,000 new people a year. Investigation
of each of these persons as required by this bill would be an almost im-
possible task.
`The bill would require the educational administrator to be able
at all times to state the doctrines of the communist party. You are asking
him, assuming that he could find out what these doctrines are, to refuse
to employ a professor, apart-time student, or a ~ar~itor who advocates
any of these doctrines, whether they be good or bad. I am certain it can
be demonstrated that there are some doctrines of the communist party which
are in accord with American ideals. I refer to communist support of the
United Nations. Under this bill apr~roval by a teacher of the program of the
United Nations might legally be considered evidence of communist sympathy.
The college administrator, however, would have rio power under the bill to
d~ distinguish between the good and the bad doctrines. By the same
token the employee of the educational institution could never be sure
whether he was supporting, orally or in writing, a doctrine of the communist
party.
'`Educational administrators under the law would have to refuse to
employ persons or would have to discharge persons on account of mere suspicion
or uncertainty, since they never could be certain. The result would be that
these administrators would have the principal responsibility for the
enforcement of a criminal statute and, with wholly inadequate evidence to
guide them, would have to perform a function that is proper only for the
state itself to undertake.
``These are some of the impossible duties which the bill would
require of administrators. There are other reasons why the bill would be
harmful. It says that teachers snd mechanics and maintenance employees and
all others employed by an educational institution are sub~eet to certain
limitations in their employment which are not applicable to similar employees
in other organizations. The institution which I serve employs about 3,00
p~?rsons. Only one-third of these are engaged in teaching. The other two-
thirds are carpenters, mechanics, ,janitors, stenographers, plumbers, doctors,
nurses, librarians, electricians, and many other kinds of people whose work
is no different professionally from similar employment in very many other
types of institutions. lathy should this bill be directed at them and not at
others in the same craft and profession?
'~ Finally, even if this bill could be enforced and even if it did
not ask for an impossible performance from educational administrators, it
would lay our colleges and universities open to a very serious weakness,
namely.,. to the impossibility of giving our students any real understanding
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of what communism is (assuming that even the teachers themselves are able
to find this out). It is one of the first principles of warfare that
you must "know your enemy". To operate intelligently against or in
competition with communism, at least some of our educated people must
know soraet~lii~g about what communisr~ really is. This does not mean at all
that we should teach com~ranism in our schools, but it does moan that we are
very lacking in vision and foresight and ~~ndermining our strength if we
should establish a situation in which it would be practically impossible
for our students to learn anything about communism. If the Barnes Bill is
passed, it would be extremely difficult for any teacher in this Commonwealth
ever to tell any of his students anything about communism or to assign them
any reading material other than that which is purely propaganda against
communism. otherwise this teacher and his employer could easily be subject
to the charge of 'advocating communistic doctrine' by persons who did not
really understand what the teacher was trying to do.
'',As the administrative officer of an educational institution, I
certainly would not support the employment of any teacher who advocated the
overthrow of our goverrunent or any other unconstitutional act, but I am
absolutely certain that this Barnes Bill, if it becomes a law, will very
seriously weaken the strength and the value to our society of our institutions
of higher education. We seek no franchise for the propaganda of subversive
doctrines, but we do insist that we must have the right of free inquiry, free
study, free analysis of scientific and social matters, without being
encumbered by the suspicion and fear that any one of our associates may
some time make some statement which some one will interpret as subversive
doctrine under the Barnes Bill, or else we shall lose our vitality and
our ability to help train vigorous, wholesome young Americans to meet their
democratic responsibilities.
~ The Barnes Bill. could create in our educational institutions an
atmosphere of rear and suppression such as that which accompanied the Gestapo
or the oGPU and this would be far more detrimental to our society and. to the
educationa of its youth than would the occasional subversive element which
might creep into our organization under present conditions.
`'To summarize, therefore, I base my opposition to the Barnes Bill
on the ground that it is practically unworkable and that an effort to make
it work would produce results far more damaging than those which it attempts
to cure.'
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