THE SECURITY OFFICER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000300210060-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 2, 2000
• Sequence Number: 60
• Content Type: NSPR

FOIAb3b
Approved For Release 2000/05/24: CIA-RDP75-00001 R
The Security Officer
B S. A. G'O dsmit
FOIAb3b
SOME of my best friends are security officers. I
asked one of them to put down on paper his side
of the security story. He had no desire to be drawn
openly into a controversy and declined my request,
Even my threat to write something myself along
that line left him unperturbed.
Since I have had some experience with clearance
procedures-in the AEC, I thought myself qualified for
suchaan assignment. I realize now that I am sticking
my neck out and shall probably lose not just some
but many of my best friends after they have read
what follows.
W HO are our security officers? The few I know
about are lawyers who drifted into the security
game`;Yia war service in military intelligence and
counterintelligence.
Others may have had experience with the FBI or
other law enforcement agencies. They have seen
the seamy side of life, as a policeman observes it.
The experienced security men have a way of seeing
thru your soul so that it is impossible to hide any-
thing from them. They are practical psychologists,
but I doubt whether they ever studied psychology.
These are the good ones.
The poor ones are those who like their job, not
for its constructive, but for its destructive, qualities.
They enjoy the power of helping to decide who
can and who can not be employed, tho they really
are not responsible for this nor do they have the last
word. They relish the collection of derogatory in-
formation; their job is an outlet for their frustrate
hatred of men. They are biased against intellectuals
and anyone who reads a book.
The first and most natural reaction of the security
officer when he meets a case that has some derog-
atory information is to ask, "Why don't you hire
someone else and save a lot of trouble?"
But by now he has learned that this does not g
over well with scientists. It has become clear t
him that scientists are a rare commodity, that each
has a particular quality making him almost unique
for the contemplated job and that in science, only
a pooling of all new ideas can lead to progress.
Thus, in practically all cases, the security office
will be asked to investigate further and see what
he can do to get the scientist cleared even if it take
a year or more. Sad indeed are the few cases when
CPYRGHT
First of three articles reprinted from a
piece thru the courtesy of the April Bulletin
of thtlm,Atomic Scientists. Dr. Goudsmit is a
distinguished. physicist who not only has
made a profound contribution to the science
of nuclear physics (he is co-discoverer of the
so-called "electron spin") but he served also
as Chief of a Scientific Intelligenbe Mission
in 1944-45, the purpose of wfii,cli was 1o ferret
out what the Germans might have accom-
plished in the field of nuclear fission during
the war. He therefore is familiar not only
with the problems of the scientist, but also
the practical problems of the security officer.
himself and - get cleared.
investigating services. The staff scans the repo s
carefully, placing a blue mark in the margin it
favorable and a red mark at unfavorable statement
is marked as unfavorable may depend upon tle
opinion of the scanner and is certainly influent d
To determine which of the red-marked informaticIn
is significant is not an easy task. Very seldom do 4s
CPYRGHT
are so many. In days of fear and outbreaks of i
vestieations" we find among the derogatory sta
normal times.
* * *
to speed up the case, he often has no other choice
tion which he himself feels may be erroneous
irrelevant. It is this circumstance which makes so
terous, but it ca.i ultimately be clarified.
Approved For Release 2000/05/24: CIA-RDP75-00001 R000300210060-6