MEMORANDUM ON WATKINS COMMITTEE REPORT ON CHARGES AGAINST SENATOR MCCARTHY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00965R000500040013-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 15, 2004
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: November 4, 1954
• Content Type: REPORT

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V 4 1954
MEMORANDUM ON WATKINS COMMITTEE
REPORT ON CHARGES AGAINST SENATOR MCCARTHY
The Watkins Committee Report on the Senate resolution to
censure Senator McCarthy is of interest to the Central Intelligence
Agency for the emphasis the committee places on the right of
Congress to investigate the Executive Branch and to obtain
information as to operations whether or not such operations are
classified.
I
The Watkins Committee Report deals with two charges involving
the powers of Congress with respect to classified information. One
of these, is that McCarthy incited Government employees to give him
classified information in violation of law and the constitutional
rights of the President under the separation of powers doctrine.
The committee found that McCarthy's invitation to Federal employees
to supply him with information of wrongdoing was sufficiently broad
in its language and necessary implication to include classified
information. The committee also found, however, that his invitation
was "motivated by a sense of official duty and not uttered as the
fruit of evil design or wrongful intent." The committee then went
on to find,
"That were the invitation as made, affirmed, and
reasserted to be acted upon by the Federal em-
ployees, as to classified material affecting the
national security, the orderly and constitutional
functioning of the executive and legislative
branches of the Government would be unduly dis-
rupted and impeded, and this select committee
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warns such employees that such conduct involves
the risk of effective penalties."
In view of this, the committee concluded that McCarthy's failure
expressly to exclude classified documents from his invitation was
conduct which could not be condoned and was improper. In spite of
this conclusion, the committee "preferring to give Senator McCarthy
the benefit of whatever doubts and uncertainties may have confused
the issue in the past, and in recognition of the Senator's responsi-
bilities as Chairman of the Committee on Government Operations and
its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations" did not feel justified
in recommending censure.
The committee then made a recommendation of particular interest
to the Central Intelligence Agency:
"The committee recommends that the leadership of
the Senate endeavor to arrange a meeting of the
Chairman and the ranking minority members of the
standing committees of the Senate with responsi-
ble departmental heads in the executive branch of
the Government in an effort to clarify the mecha-
nisms for obtaining such restricted information as
Senate committees would find helpful in carrying
out their duly authorized functions and responsi-
bilities."
In its discussion of the legal points involved, the committee
made several other statements of interest to the Central Intelligence
Agency concerning classified information. McCarthy had argued that
Government employees not only were permitted, but had a duty, to
give him the information he had requested and that such information
"could not be insulated from exposure by a rubber stamp." In support
of his contention he cited 5 U.S.C. ? 652(d) which reads as follows:
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"The right of persons employed in the civil service
of the United States, either individually or
collectively, to petition Congress or any Member
thereof, or to furnish information to either House
of Congress, or to any committee or Member thereof,
shall not be denied or interfered with."
The committee said it believed that the above section did no
more than affirm that Federal employees do not lose or forfeit any
of their. rights merely by reason of their Federal employment.
McCarthy also cited 18 U.S.C. $ 4 as follows:
"Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission
of a felony, cognizable by a court of the United
States, conceals and does not as soon as possible
make known the same to some judge,or other person
in civil or military authority under the United
States, shall be fined not more than $500 or
imprisoned not more than three years, or both."
The committee concluded that that section applied "only to
persons possessing actual personal knowledge of the actual commission
of a felony, as distinguished from information obtained by reviewing
files."
The committee then considered the general question of the
right of Congress to investigate the executive branch and to be
informed of its operations. After emphasizing that the executive
could in no way interfere with this right and after recognizing
the necessity for a classification system to protect information
involving national security, the committee concluded that Congress
had the right to classified information provided orderly and
formal. application were made to the responsible heads of depart-
ments or to the Presidential office itself. The committee said,
-3 -
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"But the President, we think, cannot (nor do we
believe he has sought by any order or directive
called to our attention) deny to the Congress, or
any duly organized committee or subcommittee
thereof, and particularly the Committee on Govern-
ment Operations of the Senate, any information,
even though classified, if it discloses corruption
or subversion in the executive branch.
"This, we think, is true on the simple basis that
the Congress is entitled to receive such information
in the exercise of its investigatory power under the
Constitution. The Congress, too, is charged with
the responsibility for the welfare of the Nation.
"What the executive branch may rightfully expect is
that the coequal legislative branch, or its authori-
zed committees, will inform the President, or his speci-
ally designated subordinate (ultimately the Attorney
General) of the request, and that the desired informa-
tion will be supplied subject to the protectives
customarily thrown around classified documents by
such committees."
The committee touched lightly on the allegation that McCarthy's
statements were an incitement to employees to violate the Espionage
Act, 18 U.S.C. 1793(d) and (e). The committee said that ? 793 did
not define who is "not entitled to receive" information relating to
the national defense. The committee concluded that McCarthy, as
chairman of the Senate Committee on Government operations and its
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, could not be said to be
"a person not entitled to receive" information relating to the
national defense within the meaning of the Espionage Act.
II
McCarthy was also charged with having unlawfully obtained a
classified document from an executive department and with having
failed to restore it. The committee made no formal findings on the
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"unlawfully obtained" point, but did find that McCarthy offered-to
make the contents of the classified document public in the course of
his defense before the Mundt Committee. In doing this, the Watkins
Committee decided that he committed a "grave error" and "manifested
a high degree of irresponsibility." The committee said that he
should have applied in advance to the Attorney General for express
permission to use the document under adequate safeguards, or he
should have requested the committee to receive the document in
executive rather than open session. Although there is an implica-
tion in the latter statement that classified information may be
introduced in executive session without any request for the
permission of the executive branch, that was probably not the
intention of the members of the committee, in view of their
emphasis on the importance of making such a request to the
cla. sifying agency.
In spite of their views as to the. seriousness of McCarthy's
actions in offering to make public classified information, the
members of the committee did not recommend censure on that ground,
as they found mitigating circumstances in the fact that McCarthy
was under the strain of being investigated by the Mundt Committee
and in the fact that the contents of the document were relevant
to the investigation..
Although the committee said that inherent in the charge was the
possibility that McCarthy was in violation of the Espionage Act,
it did not make a direct statement on the subject. McCarthy's
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conduct was said to be "all the more serious when considered in the
light of the Act of June 25, 195+" (The Espionage Act), "a trans-
gression of authority" and "an assumption of authority which itself
is disruptive of orderly governmental processes, violative of accepted
comity between the two great branches of our Government, the executive
and legislative, and incompatible with the basic tenets of effective
democracy."
The committee reiterated its position that Congress has an
absolute right to classified documents if proper request is made.
After concluding that the document in question was a legally
classified document and that such classification was binding on
all officers and employees of the Government, the committee said,
"Such a conclusion is not inconsistent with the further
view that representatives of the legislative branch have
a complete legal right to obtain access to such docu-
ments by using the methods available to them to get
such information by formal request to the classifying
agency or to the Attorney General or to the President
himself. It is only when such orderly methods are
rebuffed that an issue between two coequal branches
of the Government can or should develop."
Another point that the committee brought out involved the
authority to declassify. McCarthy contended that by deleting
certain material from the original 15-page document, the 2k-page
extract became unclassified. The committee refuted this by saying
that material copied from a classified document retained the same
classification as the classified document and that declassification
could only be effected by a legally constituted authority.
JOHN F. B. MITCHELL, JR.
Assistant General Counsel
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