EVEN THE WEARIEST RIVER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000600040155-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 15, 1998
• Sequence Number: 155
• Publication Date: May 9, 1965
• Content Type: NSPR

aMAGO TRIBUNE
Sanitized - Approvedk' Rqlfgff : Cl
FOIAb3b
CPYRGHT Even the Weariest River
The Senate internal security subcommit-
tee is finally approaching the end of the
road, in the long, slow investigation of the
state department's firing of Otto Otepka,
chief of the evaluations division of the
department's office of security. The sub-
committee has invited Secretary of State
Rusk to appear if he has anything to say,
but Sen. Eastland, the chairman, says
that anything Rusk volunteers won't inter-
fere with prompt publication of the sub-
committee's voluminous record.
The Otepka affair-a' major scandal of
the Kennedy-Johnson administration-has
been developing since ,Otepka in 1963 co-
operated fully and frankly with the sub-
committee, recounting sloppy security
practices in the department. His superiors
promptly charged him with "conduct un-
becoming a state department officer"-
namely, we assume, telling the truth.
That the investigation of Otepka's treat-
ment has dragged on so unconscionably is
not altogether the fault of the subcommit-
tee. Department witnesses were not only
evasive but lied and then, when found out,
recanted their falsehoods. When the sub-
committee had its material fairly well in
hand last summer, the White House exer-
cised pressure to keep the facts bottled
up until the Presidential campaign was
over.
The department's behavior toward Otep-
ka and his associates and supporters was
u,ibelievably harsh. His office telephone
as bugged, his wastebasket of material
to he burned for security reasons was
sifted, his secretary was taken from him,
his office and files were closed to him, his
mail denied him, he was ostracized in the
department, and was reduced to useless,
duties equivalent to cutting up paper
dolls. His associates were transferred to
distant and obscure places where their
security experience was stultified.
When the record finally sops the light of
day, it is expected to show'!,that Otepka's
troubles began building up when he ran
into practices originally instituted by Al-
ger Hiss in 1945'. hiss, a New Deal state
department official, was trapped in a
web of lies and convicted of perjury after
the late Whittaker Chambers fingered him
as a soviet espionage agent.
Hiss, who had much to do with the
establishment of the United Nations, cre-
ated a committee and a procedure for
placing American citizens in U. N. posts.
Many of those selected by the Hiss ma-
chinery turned out to be subversives.
When the Kennedy administration came'
along, Harlan Cleveland, assistant secre-
tary of state for international organiza-
tion affairs, began making quickie ap-
pointments under procedures which by-
passed security regulations. Otepka pro-'
tested to his superior, John Reilly, that,
some of the persons appointed were of a!
character he could not approve on securi-'
ty grounds. Reilly responded by tapping
Otepka's telephone.
Even more strange is the report that
Cleveland asked Otepka if' there were
some way that Hiss could be brought back
into government., Otepka coldly replied
that persons convicted of felonies were
not qualified. The matter was dropped,
but Cleveland did not appoint a panel to.
pass on potential U. N. employes, and.
some members were former associates
and defenders of Hiss.
All of this Otepka frankly disclosed to
the Senate subcommittee when it called
him as a vitncss. Senate regulations state
that no federal employe is to be penalized:
for giving evidence to an authorized com-
mittee, but by now the state department'
was doing a burn because of the embar
rassing evidence that it had given jobs to
security risks.
From then on the department's inter,
tion was to destroy Otepka. When he was
fired, and demanded a review, as was
his right, the department was afraid to
allow him a public hearing on the merits
of its ruling, but kept him on, the payroll,
assigned to menial duties, in the apparent
hope of breaking his spirit and inducing,
him to leave in disgust. The story is sor-
did and shameful, and soon the American
people will know the full facts of the ven-
detta. We hope that it will move them to
demand a wholesale housecleaning in the
state department.
FOIAb3b
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000600040155-4