Owen Lattimore

What ought to be the essential difference between us and a country like Russia

is that Russia aims at having a highly developed

government intelligence service and a very limited public

knowledge of what is going on. Things can't work that way in a democracy

in a democracy and intelligent government policy and an intelligent

and understanding public opinion inseparably go together.

That was the actual voice of Owen Lattimore defendant in the most

publicized security loyalty case of our time. You'll hear Mr. Latta

more now on the ninth program in this series. Security and Civil Rights

produced by the University of Minnesota radio station KUNM very grants from the

Educational Television and Radio Center in cooperation with the National Association

of educational broadcasters and the University of Minnesota Law School.

What does it mean to be charged as a communist sympathizer to be assumed

disloyal. What was the result of the letter more case was more

cleared. Does this case have any significance for you. These

questions will be answered now on security and civil rights. This series is

presented in the hope that an authoritative review of the various issues involved

in the field of security and civil rights will help to clarify some of the

distinctive features of a free and democratic society. Out of

conflict and controversy. In come a greater understanding and appreciation of

that unique fundamental which we Americans too often take for granted. This is the

exercise of constitutionally guaranteed methods by which the people of a

democracy express their differences and solve their problems without violence.

The purpose of this series is not just to present the various cases or different sides

we wish to emphasize the means and the methods that are unique to the American way.

And now security and civil rights presents a first hand authoritative report

on what it means to be charged and cleared as a security risk. The

interview with Owen Lattimore will be conducted by Sheldon Goldstein. But first

to introduce our topic and special guest. Here is the consultant and commentator for

security and civil rights month med polis and professor of law at Columbia

University.

Professor Paulson. The most celebrated security loyally case.

I suppose is the case of Mr. Owen Lattimore. Indeed.

You'll remember that the latter more cases the one upon which Senator McCarthy

once said that his whole case would stand or fall.

Mr. Lott Amar was accused of lying when he told a government

congressional committee that he was not a follower of the Communist party

line and that he was not a communist sympathizer. The case.

Was pending for a very long time in the courts. And before we hear

an interview with Mr. Latimer himself. We will bring you a

portion of the opening in Judge Lewis or young.

In the latter more case.

The charges here serve only to inform the defendant that his sworn statements are to be

tested against all his writings point chance parallelism with our

indirect support of communism regardless of any deliberate intent on

his part. They demonstrate that the government seeks to establish that at some

time in some way in some places in all his vast writings over a

15 year period L'Amour agreed with something it cause and

personally defines as following the communist lying and promoting

communist interests. Jury inquiries would be limitless.

No charge by the court could embody objective standards to circumscribe and guide the

jury in its determination of what the witness might have meant regarding words he

used with so sweeping an indictment with its many vague

charges and with the existing atmosphere of assumed an expected loathing for

communism. It would be neither surprising nor unreasonable where the jury is

subconsciously impelled to substitute its own understanding for that of the

defendant to require a defendant to go to trial for perjury under

charges so formless and obscure as those before the court would be unprecedented

and would make a sham of the Sixth Amendment and a federal rule requiring specificity of

charges. The indictment will therefore be dismissed.

That was a portion of Judge Luther young Gauls opinion in the law to Mark case.

One of the dimensions of a security loyalty program is of course the problem of

what is the impact upon the individual who is accused and who is

tried. We have in this series discussed a great many different problems

including the question of what is the impact of the security loyalty system

on the whole government employment.

Today we should like to point up the individual's problem no

report on our national security program would be complete without the first hand

comments by the man who many once viewed as the number one security

risk. Mr. Owen Lattimore author teacher and expert on the far

east. The first question one might ask of Owen Lattimore is what about the extreme

charges made against you. Did any of these accusations stand up as

recently recorded in Washington D.C.. Here are Mr. Owen Lattimore and his

answer.

You see the original charges were that I was a spy or that I

was a top Soviet agent and that kind of thing. As soon as they tried to

follow it up they found less and less and less and consequently

an effort was made to manufacture an appearance of

being a very dangerous man. They ran up various other blind

alleys and finally they were left with nothing but a vast

amount of vague allegations. Then as time went on

and the hysteria grew less Senator McCarthy had thoroughly discredited

himself before our Senate I want Ken's Committee. It was politically

less dangerous to drop the charges and the government which had

long ago discovered that the. Security was an

absurdity in itself but had been politically afraid to drop it

took that opportunity to get out from under Mr Latham or I

think that most of us remember the original charges which were quite extreme.

And as you point out were dropped but the charges upon which you were brought to trial

I think were something that could have happened to anybody they were charges involving your sympathies and

your attitudes. We tend to remember only the

extreme original charges. I wonder if you tell us a little more in detail about the

specific charges under which you were actually bought or brought to

trial.

The original charges of course were completely dropped almost at the beginning.

Senator McCarthy had begun by saying that I was a Soviet spy

and a top Soviet agent. McCarthy fell flat on his face. Then an

attempt was made by Senator McCarron to rehabilitate McCarthy.

But this also misfire had an attempt was made for instance

to show that I was the mastermind of the State Department's policy in China.

This petered out when it was found that I never had worked for the State

Department and had had no influence whatever on the State Department. So finally

they got around to trying to concoct. A

method of convicting me as a communist sympathizer

and promoter of communist interests in order to do this. They took

a few instances where my memory after a lapse of 15

or 20 years had led to inaccurate statements on my

part. And these instead of being allowed as

lapses of memory were treated as perjury when all this was the sort of thing to

which I was referring.

Now you say that you had lapses of memory in terms of incidents that went back

15 years or more. Wondering if you could give us a

specific example of their having lunch with the Russian

ambassador.

Ski in 1941 just before I went out to China as

advisor to Gen. Kai shek. I was asked in an

executive session about this lunch and I

thought that it had probably taken place about the end of

June. The committee counsel Mr Morris then said

in a conversational tone of voice. That was after the

German invasion of Russia wasn't it. And I assuming of course that he was stating a

fact said yes. Well months. In the public

hearings I was asked about this again because they already knew that my memory on the

subject was wrong. Then I was accused of perjury because the meeting

with elements key had actually taken place before the German invasion of

Russia. Now why should this be so important or why should it be

pretended to be so important. The obvious answer is that they were going to make out

that any American who saw the Russian ambassador before the

German attack on Russia could only have been seeing him because he was a

pimp sympathizer. Maybe after the Germans attacked Russia then it was alright

for an American to see the Russian ambassador when Elvis succeeded in completely

bypassing the important facts of the case. You see I was going out to China to

work for junk I shake under nomination by President Roh. Was about at

that time we were not yet in the war. The Russians

were supplying China and by China I mean junk I checked they were

supplying junk I checked with airplanes and munitions. So were we.

But at the same time relations between America and Russia were bad. Now

one of junk concerns was that he wanted to keep the friendship of

America. And he did not want to have it receive Russian aid.

On a scale that would imperil his political and public relations in the United

States. So obviously when I got to king of all the foreign embassies

in Washington the one that would be most likely to ask me about would

be the Russian embassy. The status of the ambassador the status of relationships

and all that kind of thing. Therefore it was not only a sensible

thing but. Fulfilment of my proper duties

as advisor to junk I seek to acquaint myself with

what the Russian ambassador was doing and

thinking in Washington just before I went out to Chongqing to work for John question.

When Mr Latham or this gives us some idea of how a lapse of memory on the

precise date of a luncheon 15 years earlier could be

construed as perjury although quite understandably the courts

found that this was a pretty farfetched kind of charge that had no real legal

validity. But what about an example of the even more

abstract charge you fees that of being a communist sympathizer

and promoting communist interests. I find it hard to

believe that one could be charged for sympathies or interest that would strike me that a person

is free to have any kind of sympathy or interest. But you actually did

face a fine and imprisonment for your sympathies and interests. How

did this come about.

Well it was obvious that the matter was dealt with were so

unimportant and trivial that they couldn't possibly be material in order to

make the material a shotgun charge.

Sympathizing and promoting in order to do this they listed

a series of topics. Referring to things that I had

written and published over a period of some 25 years.

Anybody reading the topics might easily be misled

into thinking that the topics were serious.

So my wife and I went through everything and collected the

original texts of what I had actually said. Let me give you

just one example. They said for instance that I

represented the Chinese Communists as democratic. Well what I actually

said in the course of a newspaper article in

1947 was the greatest strength of the Chinese

Communists today lies in their liberationist claims. The claim that

in the territory they control the liberated people have on average

more rights and more property to defend than the mass of the people in a woman dung Tara

train. Well now at about the same time a.

As my newspaper article a report had been made by Brigadier General

Peabody of the United States intelligence military intelligence

and this report is actually reprinted in the accounting committee's report and what

General Peabody had to say on the same subject goes as follows.

Practically all impartial observer has emphasized that the Chinese Communists

comprise the most efficient politically well organized disciplined and

constructive group in China today. This opinion is well supported by

facts. It is largely because of their political and military skill and superior

organization and progressive attitude which has won for them a popular

support. No other party or group in China can equal that they have been extending

their influence. Now this I think shows us pretty well what

is at issue. If you can succeed in setting up

a government censorship of opinion so that exactly the

same thing can be said by somebody that you like and no attention

is paid. But but if it is said by somebody whom you don't

like or whom you have a need to turn into a political victim

then you can go after him as a man somebody seems to have gone

after.

How does Owen Lattimore personally feel about this experience now.

I don't. Think that my comments

on the personal side at this time would

be Pharaoh's silage wisdom.

After you've gone through five years of this kind of

thing your home or private life has been

disrupted and old friends have been lost. There is a

compensation of course and many wonderful new friends made earlier

are ordinary personal relationships

have been through the storm with you and when the attorney

general glibly says that the

government doesn't feel it has a chance of proving anything and is going to drop the

case that doesn't automatically put you in a position to

look back on what has happened with detachment.

Extreme charges were made against Owen Lattimore with a flourish almost equal in our

time. Owen Lattimore was found guilty of nothing however and all charges

against him were quietly dropped. How does he feel about this.

Well I think really the only adequate comment

on that is to adapt a quotation from T.S.

Eliot. This is the way Brown now ends. This is the way

Brownell ends. This is the way Brownell ends not with a bang

but a whimper.

There's On lot of more feel that his experience in our nation's security loyalty program was

purely personal and political. Or does he feel that there are ramifications and

meanings to his experience that might apply to certain fundamentals of freedom.

I think the freedoms that are involved are pretty obvious as a

result of the. Yes we have been through

although the pressures are less now than they were a year or two ago. The

effects of those years of the height of the crisis are still quite

visible through colleges and universities and

private research in this country. There is a tendency to keep

away from difficult problems to keep away from problems that might prove

controversial so that even if a problem is very important

even if there ought to be a well-informed American public

opinion about it even if the only rational way to

arrive at an informed and sensible public opinion

is to discuss the matters and flush them out. Nobody dares to.

This is related both to the general question of public freedom

of inquiry and speech but specifically to academic

freedom of research freedom of opinion and freedom of publically

expressing the opinion. You see. What ought to be the

essential difference between us and a country like Russia is that Russia

aims at having a highly developed. Government

intelligence service and a very limited public knowledge of

what is going on. Things can't work that way in a democracy in a

democracy and intelligent government policy and an intelligent and

understanding public opinion inseparably go together.

For one thing the government cannot recruit the kind of

men that are needed for government research and

intelligence and policy making activities unless it is able

to recruit them from Americans who have been raised in the

American way of going after what they are interested in

finding things out for themselves forming their own opinions casting their

opinions by debate with other people who have other opinions

making mistakes in the process of learning how to be

right how to form a right opinion. And only if you have an atmosphere of.

An embarrassed freedom of this kind can the government obtain the kind

of personnel it needs.

How does Owen Lattimore account for the years of investigation charges and

countercharges in which he was involved in Mr lot of Moore's own words.

I suppose this crisis over Far Eastern policy has been

far reaching and long lasting than almost any

similar instance in our past history. But we do have other

instances at one time for instance it was so unpopular to advocate

the recognition of Russia but it never went beyond certain limits even

at a time when it was politically unpopular to advocate recognition

of Russia. It was perfectly safe for great American corporations

to engage in contracts with the Russian government. Later when the

situation developed in which we and Russia were on the same side in the war our

cordial feelings toward Russia were quite legitimate. In the case of China things went much

further and I suppose it is always an

ironic sort of danger in times of crisis and

high emotion namely that nothing makes you so

unpopular as being too right too far

in advance of other people.

I know this question of being right or being wrong is

one I think that has not been sufficiently

made clear by recent discussion. Many people have taken a

sort of middle attitude and they say round I think the man's wrong

but I think we ought to defend a man's right to be wrong. But

what has frequently been at issue in the discussion of China problems

is the right to be right. Take for example the case

of Mr. John Davies who was fired from the State Department because he

had written some memoranda long ago prophesied saying that junk I checked

was going to be defeated giving his reasons for thinking that John Kai-Shek was going to be

defeated and prophesied the victory of the Chinese

communists. Now it happens that Mr. Davies was right and he lost his job

because he was right at a time when it was unpopular to be right. And

as far as I'm concerned and for years I have searched out my

own data form my own opinions and stated them in public and I believe in

my right to be wrong but I believe still more in my right to be right. It's

ironic that because of the fear which has resulted in so much and such

fantastic rewriting of the recent theory of China. Recent

history of China and our relations with China my rightness has in

recent years received much less consideration than my alleged wrongness. But the

most fantastic thing of all is that the one thing on which I was really wrong was

either never mentioned at all or are perverted into its exact opposite. I

mean my slowness in realizing that sex palace God and His

own increasing megalomania had pulled him down from the high place that he had once

occupied as the symbol of China and a great figure of freedom in Asia that

as the Chinese put it he was losing the mandate of heaven. That's a senator

reminder. That's really what all this case has been about.

That there is often more danger of being stabbed in the back by hired assassins

than of honorable wounds inflicted in battle. If that's a fact of life

I think we ought to take it as a fact of life and face it. But. Tell us

the rule of honor remains the same. We cannot keep on trying to be right.

That was Mr.. Owen Lattimore Johns Hopkins faculty member and

authority on the far east. Which a lot of Moore's case not only

gives us some insight into the human problems of an individual who has been charged with

disloyalty but points up some more of the legal problems which

arise when we enact new laws to deal with new problems and new

situations. For example Dr Lattimer was charged with lying

when he said that he was not a communist sympathizer and a promoter

of communist interests. As a lawyer I would be very interested to

know how one proves that one is a communist sympathizer or a

promoter of communist interests. These are exceedingly vague

charges. It is awfully difficult to know exactly what it is

that the ECU's are means when he makes such charges. New criminal

laws by and large create problems of this sort. We should expect that any

time new legislation of any sort including security legislation is enacted that

problems of definition problems of vagueness are

created. These are constitutional problems for us in the Anglo-American

tradition because we believe firmly that a person before he is tried or before

a disadvantage is visited upon him that he shall know precisely what he has

done wrong. And indeed he should know exactly what is expected of

him before he does anything wrong. Our right to have specific

charges before we are punished in a criminal court. Is guaranteed to

us by the due process clause of the 14th Amendment and the Fifth Amendment.

The problems created by the new security legislation in the view of lawyers not

only the problem specificity of charges but all kinds of other legal problems

will form the basis of our next program entitled abuse of lawyers in

security loyalty cases.

That was Professor mom Ed Paulson a member of the law faculty of Columbia University.

Professor Paulson is the consultant and commentator for this series security and civil rights.

Today's program featured on Latham on as recorded especially for this series in Washington

D.C. next week at this same time security and civil rights will bring you the

views and the voices of several attorneys for recent security loyalty cases from

Washington D.C. You will hear Joseph a finale counsel for the defense in the famous

scientist X and Abraham chess in all cases. The latter case was written up in Look

magazine from a tense 1055 in which Mr. finale was described as quote

an aggressive Harvard trained lawyer and former special assistant to the attorney general.

And that he had successfully defended several persons involved in the old Truman loyalty program.

And now he enjoys interesting cases. He lowers his fee for them. And that the double

cases pay for them he said with a grin. Unquote. In addition to

Joseph finale next week's program will feature Legal Counsel for the

scientists and engineers of America. Then there'd be the attorney in several

passport denial cases brought before the Supreme Court of the United States. And Paul Porter

and William Rogers members of the law firm of Arnold fortress and Porter counsels

for the defense of Owen that Amar and Dr. John P. Peters two outstanding

scholars who were cleared of disloyalty charges. This

series as presented in the hope that an authoritative review of the various issues

involved in the field of security and civil rights will help to clarify some of the

distinctive features of a free and democratic society out of

conflict and controversy can come a greater understanding and appreciation of that unique

fundamental which we Americans too often take for granted. This is the exercise of

constitutionally guaranteed methods by which the people of a democracy express their

differences and solve their problems without violence. The purpose of this

series is not just to present the various cases for different sides. We wish to

emphasize the means and the methods that are unique to the American way.

Security and Civil Rights has been produced by the University of Minnesota radio station

KUNM under a grant from the Educational Television and Radio Center.

This series is distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters.

The narrator on today's program was Sheldon Goldstein. Security and

civil rights is edited and produced by Philip go.

Your announcer Charles Brin the preceding tape recorded

program was the presentation of the end E.B. Radio Network.