Lamont, Corliss, Freedom is as freedom does

(New York :  Horizon Press,  1956.)

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THE LOYALTY-SECURITY PROGRAM                                                                                     141

after year to tieat the three organizations as if their original list¬
ing were legal and to dismiss employees who were or had been
members of one or more of the groups.

After the case of the National Council went back to the original
Distiict Court, another legal tangle resulted. This was stifl un¬
settled when President Eisenhower, in 1953, issued a new Execu¬
tive Order that purported to establish due process in the listing
of subversive organizations and thus meet the objections made by
the Supreme Court in its 1951 decision. The new procedure pro¬
vides for a hearing, but first requires an organization to fill out a
complex and voluminous questionnaire about its activities and all
of the persons supposedly associated with it. This monstious
questionnaire, carrying the threat of perjury action for answers
contiary to the "testimony" of professional informers, can hardly
be considered an improvement from the viewpoint of due process.

In any event, in 1955 a U.S. Distiict Court decided that the
National Counefl's suit no longer had any legal validity because
Eisenhower's Executive Order had superseded Truman's Execu¬
tive Order, under which the U.S. Attorney General had originally
listed the Council. Thus, after eight years of litigation, the Coun¬
efl's battle to have its name removed from the Attorney General's
subversive list came to nothing. What this demonstiates is that
law-abiding citizens and organizations in America may stiive long
and in vain to secure remedy against fllegal actions on the part
of the powerful United States Government,
  Page 141