ANOTHER SECURITY SCANDAL

Document Type: 
Collection: 
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP75-00149R000600040072-6
Release Decision: 
RIPPUB
Original Classification: 
K
Document Page Count: 
1
Document Creation Date: 
November 11, 2016
Document Release Date: 
December 15, 1998
Sequence Number: 
72
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
February 15, 1964
Content Type: 
MAGAZINE
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PDF icon CIA-RDP75-00149R000600040072-6.pdf71.96 KB
Body: 
Sanitized,- Approved For Relea Iqq~~RR 11-Oi~IA.N EVENTS r i 1 '196Q i;other Socurii The majority of the papers barely mentioned it, but last week probers on the Senate Internal %,,:urity subcommittee unearthed another major :urity scandal which rocked the highest echelons the State Department -hat had alarmed the subcommittee was new iufon..ation it a.t 800 potential security risks-some o them possibly spies-might stall be in the State Depart nicait, even at the policy-mak- inn level. Sources close to the sub- committee revealed that Otto Otepka, the top-line security officer fired by thedepartment last year, had been relieved from a supersensitive security job in early 1961. That job was to screen carefully the records of some 800 potential security risks, 250 of them considered `serious" cases. The evidence now indicates that the Kennedy Administration, after stopping Otepka from work- ing further on the special list of 800, pigeonholed the entire project actually elevating many on the list to important jobs. Thus, as a result of a deliberate Democratic policy, many of these potential security risks are in the top ranks of government today. A highly placed authority tells Human Events that at least one of the "potentials" has been form- ing policy for the JFK-LBJ Administration on both the Congo and, more recently, Zanzibar. The State Department has acted in a way to con- firm the authoritative reports. A key department official last week, for example, refused to divulge to members of the Senate subcommittee just how many of these potential risks might still be on the depart .hunt payroll in strategic positions. f.ie original list of 800, with accompanying report, had been drawn up as far back as 1956 under the late Scott McLeod, then administrator of the Office of Security. McLeod had urged special attention to the list for fear one of the names was another "Alger Hiss." Because of legal complications, the Eisenhower Ad- ministration didn't go full speed ahead on the list until October 1960, when Otepka was assigned to screen the original names plus some additional ones. A breakdown of the derogatory data by the secur- ity office in 1956 revealed that the 800 included 648 with Communist activities and associations three suspected of being spies and 94 considered homosexuals. A sizable number, said McLeod, are in "critical intelligence slots in the department" or on "top level boards and committees." FOIA CPYRGHT CPYRGHT One of the few reporters to comment last week on this affair, Willard Edwards of the Chicago Tribune, noted that the McLeod reportwas, ironically, prepared 18 months after the" Senate condemnation of the late Sen. Joseph R McCarthy of Wisconsin, who had been stirring the nation for four years with his charges of Communist infiltration in the State Department" 3b Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000600040072-6