ANOTHER SECURITY SCANDAL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• 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
• Publication Date: February 15, 1964
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

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