Provisions
The order set out a wide scope for the Federal Employee Loyalty Program. The order itself allowed the FBI to run name checks on 2 million federal employees. In the ten-year period between the implementation of the order and 1958, the bureau ran name checks on 4.5 million people, not including 500,000 new federal applicants annually. EO 9835 allowed for full field investigations by the FBI if "derogatory information" was found in the initial name check; 27,000 such investigations were launched from 1948-1958. The results of said investigations were disseminated to 150 loyalty boards, and an employee could be fired if "reasonable doubt" existed concerning their loyalty. Provisions allowed no appeal of these decisions beyond the loyalty board, and no permission was granted to confront confidential informants, as the government termed them.
Besides those officially terminated as a result of investigations, around 5,000 federal employees offered voluntary resignations in light of the investigations. Most of the resignations took places at hearings conducted by Congressional committees. Only 378 federal employees were dismissed for spying as a result of the loyalty program. Later, Truman introduced another executive order to keep the results of those investigations secret and undisclosed to the Congress.
The text of the EO provided specific powers pertaining to employee loyalty. First and foremost among these was that "there shall be a loyalty investigation of every person entering civilian employment" in any facet of the executive branch of the U.S. government. Much of the rest of EO 9835's content simply reinforced policy surrounding the first statements on loyalty investigations, as well as seeking to establish a manner in which to go about with the loyalty investigations. As such, Part II of the EO provided the power to the head of each department or agency to appoint one or more loyalty boards. The boards' express purpose was to hear loyalty cases. In addition, Part V of the EO outlined criteria and standards for the refusal of (or removal from) employment for disloyalty. Disloyalty for these purposes was defined in five categories. These included:
- sabotage, espionage, spying or the advocacy thereof
- treason, sedition or the advocacy thereof
- intentional, unauthorized disclosure of confidential information
- advocacy of the violent overthrow of the U.S. government
- membership in, affiliation with or sympathetic association with any organization labeled as totalitarian, fascist, communist or subversive
Read more about this topic: Executive Order 9835
Famous quotes containing the word provisions:
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—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“Drinking tents were full, glasses began to clink in carriages, hampers to be unpacked, tempting provisions to be set forth, knives and forks to rattle, champagne corks to fly, eyes to brighten that were not dull before, and pickpockets to count their gains during the last heat. The attention so recently strained on one object of interest, was now divided among a hundred; and, look where you would, there was a motley assemblage of feasting, talking, begging, gambling and mummery.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)