SECURITY OVERHAUL URGED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000100280091-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 1, 1999
• Sequence Number: 91
• Publication Date: March 15, 1955
• Content Type: NSPR

SCI MAR a i
M()izecT- Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00001
Harvard Dean Testifies
Security Overhaul Urged
_!pecial to The Christian Science Monitor
Far-reaching criticisms of the
gyovernment security program
.arid a recommendation for its re-
vision were made today by
McGeorge IiQtly,, dean of the
fiZeFuTty `of arts. And sciences of
Harvard University. said. "Against them we need
delivery today before the sub-
committee on reorganization of
the Senate Committee on Gov-
ernment Operations in Washing-
ton, Mr. Bundy charged that the
united States "created needless quoted a distinguished Harvard
confusion and fear, spreads physicist, J. H. van Vleck: "The
suspicion far beyond the range moment we start guar in our
of reason, and tends to discour- toothbrushes and our diamond
age that confident and eager rings with equal zeal; we usually
sense of partnership which has lose fewer toothbrushes but more
so often distinguished the rela- diamond rings."
tionship between American", "The program has become in
t'
scholars and their governmen
since the days of Benjamin
Franklin."
He emphasized be was speak-
ing for himself and not Harvard
University.
The program needs "drastic
improvement," he said. "A thor-
be confused with a general.ef-
fort to safeguard everything
against everything."
"Those who had tried to bend
national policy from places of
trust and "those who had re-
ported real secrets to the enemy
high fences vigilantly guarded."
But he emphasized that "this is
special work and can only be
done well if confined to those
few places where policy is made
scholars to and from the United
States-to such a degree that
great international meetings are
seldom held, he said.
The general impact of the
security program has produced
among scholars a distinct re-
luctance to engage in govern-
ment work. The harrassments of
the program make it quite sim-
ply not worth while, he,added.
Deep in all the` "niggling"' of
the program are the false and
dangerous notions that all natu-
ral science is full of secrets and
that communism is as catching
as the plague. "This is the day
totalitarians think, but it is not
fitting for free men. The fact is
that most of science is an open
book-hard reading, but open.
"And the fact is, further," he
went on, "that in 1955 very few
effect no program at all," said
Mr. Bundy. It has become a 1 beguiled by party-line absurdi-
ti
It i
hi
h ti
f
t
es.
s
g
me
or us
o
patchwork of the individual
judgments of men who too often recover from a timidity which
seem to have only a fragmen- has eled s us to give a worldwide
tary understanding of what they uselves it is time do for not us' trust
are doing. Even when prose- prove 11 again that .When we speak
ougn review of our poncres `111a results have frequently been so
procedures in the field of secu- unreasonable as to suggest that
-city is not only desirable but something is deeply wrong.
urgent." "The national interest is riot
He called for an "open and served when the security ro=
searching study" of the United gram becomes an instrumen of
States security program con- insecurity and mistrust among
ducted by "citizens of the high- men of good sense and high
est reputation." He warned that character."
it must be "nonpartisan, sober, What is true of the security
and careful" and added: "We program is true of some other
should not leave it to the secu- government activities, he added.
city officers to investigate them- Restriction of mailing of Soviet
selves; if the program is to have
the proper public confidence it
must be based on the judgment
of men who have no axe to
grind."
The crux of Mr. Bundy's crit-
t(asrr-t was contained in his state-
rn+:nt; 'Fieal protection of a
we really mean it."L
Earlier, outlining official Har-
vard. ',,policy Mr Bundy told the
subomitte tat the univer-
sity avoided engagement in
secret government research and
did not accept responsibility for
administration of security clear-
ances. This was intended to
make the greatest possible con-
tribution to the advancement of
knowledge and the welfare of
documents, he continued, does the nation.
not protect anybodq from "any- "The real scientific strength of
thing but boredom," yet it is a the country is in free minds.
boon to the 'party-line propa- tr ' q4 by. free teachers, and the
gandist and ' hampers serious ~ natI ial defense of the future
students of the Soviet Union. I rests on the depth and strength
Narrow. administration of of open inquiry in.many fields,"
narrow ,lpcislation has greatly, he said.
FOIAb3b
CPYRGHT
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00001 R000100280091-7