◆ SpookStack

0-19 (11-22-55) These Days Tilting the Balance. AN IMPORTANT document before me is the “Statement on the Findings of the Conter- ence of Privy Councilors on Security.” Tt : ds not the re- port that was made to the ' British gov- ernment but a ; summary of it issued to the public as a. white paper, U ndoubted- & ly, the ao councilors were appoint- Sokolsky ed to deal with this matter ‘on account of the Burgess and MacLean scandat which can no longer be suppressed. It is now known that these two not only acted as Russian agents in Great Britain and the United States, but that they are now employed by the Rus- [a Foreign Ministry. The conference, “points out that, whereas once the main risk to be guarded against was , espionage by foreign powers carried out by professional agents, today the chief risks are presented by Communists and by other persons who for one reason or another are sub- ject to Communist influence. ; The Comrmnist faith over- rides a man’s normal Joyalties to his country and induces ; the belief thal it is justifiable to hand over secict informa: | tion to the Communist Party or to the Communist foreign power, This risk from Cum- munists is not, however, con- fined to party members, either open or underground, but ex- tends to sympathisers with communism.” THIS HAS BEEN the atti- | tude of American congres- sional committees since Mar- tin Dies and is called by the Communists, McCarthyism. In the last sentence of the quota- tion it is assumed that the; fellow-traveler is as wicked as _the member of the Party and the only way to establish a\ fellow-traveler according to | nearly 20 years of investiga-' tion, has been by association. ° In fact in the sixth para- graph of the report, it is slaled: . erry ‘of the chief-probiems. ae, | of security today is thus to identify the members of the British Communist Party, to be informed of its activities and to identify that wider body of those who are both sympathetic to communism, or susceptible to Communist pressure and present a danger to security. Thereafter steps must be taken to see that secret information Is not han- died by anyone who, for ideo- logical or other motives, may betray it.” While guilt by association always leads to great injus- tices, ft is only right that a gov- rnment should resolve some doubts in its own favor; what NOT FFCOTDED RB AL. Gea. | against our wishes, Ns 4 | By George Soxbt it amounts to Is a decision that ' when In doubt, there should be no employment. \ THIS REPORT was pre- pared by members of both: parties, including Earl Jowitt, ' who wrote a book in defense of Alger Hiss; nevertheless its 15th paragraph contains a statement of the rights of the government over the rights of the individual! which almost amounts to a constitutional change in Britain: “The conference fs of the opinion that in deciding these difficult and often borderline cases, it is right to continue the practice of tilting the bal- ance in favour of offering greater protection to the se- curity of the state rather than in the direction of safeguard. ing the rights of the individual. They recommend that an in- dividual who is living with a wife or husband wholis a Com- munist or a Communist sym- pathiser may, for that reason alone, have to be moved from secret work, and that the same principle should be applied an other cases of a like nature.” The Russians sure have changed our world even No such statement would have ap- peared in an official British re- Port two gencrations ago. iConseie radicate. “ine ‘ 956 Tolson 2 Nichpl¢ 21 8 10 * \ a oni ‘ Mohr Parsons Rosen Tamm Nease Tinterrowd Wash. Post and a) Times Herald Wash. News Wash, Star N. Y. Herald —____ Tribune N. Y. Mirror N.Y. Daily News —— Daily Worker The Worker New Leader . —_—S9rrgaen Date ___? + * 1958