Analysis: Executive Order 9835

Date: March 21, 1947

Author: Harry S. Truman

Genre: government document

Summary Overview

At the end of World War II, tensions ran high between the United States and its former ally, the Soviet Union. The two powers disagreed on plans for the future of Europe, and the United States' possession of atomic weapons and refusal to share this technology drove a further wedge between them. As US fears of Communism grew and the Soviet Union pursued its own development of an atomic weapon, some in the US government warned of the threat posed by spies and traitors whose ideological ties to the Soviet Union could lead them to leak sensitive or dangerous information.

President Harry Truman's Executive Order 9835 was designed to root out this alleged subversive element in the federal government. This order required that all federal employees be screened for loyalty as a matter of national security. The effort to expose Communists prompted the widespread influence of the Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations (AGLOSO), which identified groups whose members could allegedly be suspected of anti-American sympathies. These measures led to a precipitous decline in civil liberties as ever more aggressive investigations sought to uncover Communist plots.

Defining Moment

Even before the end of World War II, the US government had begun attempts to screen its employees for loyalty by banning individuals with ties to Fascist, Communist, or other political groups seen as antidemocratic. The Hatch Act of 1939 led to the creation of a committee to investigate the possibility of subversive activities, as well as a secret version of the AGLOSO that identified groups whose members posed a potential threat. After the war, tensions with the Soviet Union quickly began to rise. Dramatically opposed ideologies between the two nations, an imbalance of power (the Soviet Union had not yet developed nuclear weapons), and economic trouble within the United States led to a highly charged atmosphere of suspicion and distrust.

As the Soviet Union became directly opposed to US foreign policy, rumors circulated that there were extensive Communist spy networks in the United States, including within the government. The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), created in 1938 and made permanent in 1945, was in charge of anti-Communist investigations. The Soviet Union's increasingly hard line views and the discovery of several actual spies in the United States further fueled an obsession in the United States with internal subversion. Some political and cultural leaders, particularly religious and political conservatives, saw this “Red Scare” as a political opportunity, and the Republican Party adopted the threat of Communism and the perceived weakness of the Democrats under Harry Truman as a major issue in the congressional elections of 1946.

In 1946, the HUAC investigated several alleged Communist groups, and concluded that the security of the country was threatened by the employment of anyone with questionable loyalty. Boosted by the argument that Democrats were soft on Communism, the Republican Party gained control of both houses of Congress and demanded action to identify and eliminate subversives in any federal position. According to most accounts, the Truman administration did not view Communist subversion as a major problem, but it felt the political pressure to provide some response to the issue. In November 1946, President Truman established the President's Temporary Commission on Employee Loyalty (TCEL) to study how to best determine the loyalty of federal employees.

The TCEL investigation was based on testimony from various government agencies and officials. Attorney General Tom Clark and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under director J. Edgar Hoover helped push the TCEL's final report to recommend the creation of a strict federal loyalty program. Truman followed this recommendation by signing Executive Order 9835 on March 21, 1947, which mandated that all current federal employees as well as all applicants for federal jobs be investigated to determine their loyalty.

Author Biography

Harry S. Truman was born in Lamar, Missouri, in 1884. He served in the National Guard during World War I, aiding in the formation of his regiment and eventually becoming a captain. Thanks to his political connections, Truman was appointed or elected to a series of minor public offices before being elected to the United States Senate in 1934. Truman's strong reputation in the Senate led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to select him as a running mate in the 1944 presidential election, and Truman won the vice presidency.

When Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, Truman became the president of the United States. He oversaw Germany's surrender and made the decision to drop two atomic bombs on Japan. After World War II, Truman helped establish the United Nations and the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, and was narrowly reelected in 1948. His later initiatives included the Fair Deal domestic policy program and the containment of Communism, including the Korean War. Truman did not seek reelection in 1952, and retired from politics. He died in 1972.

Document Analysis

Executive Order 9835 begins by laying out the premise for testing the loyalty of all federal employees. It acknowledges that though most—in fact, “by far the overwhelming majority”—of employees are loyal, the possibility of any “disloyal or subversive” people anywhere in public service constitutes a threat to the entire nation. Since the United States needs protection against any possibility of infiltration, it is necessary to investigate all current and potential employees. Truman also states that these investigations will also protect employees against false accusations.

The body of the order lays out the structure for performing these investigations. New applicants for positions will be screened thoroughly by the Civil Service Commission (CSC), and multiple aspects of their lives, including schooling, former employers, and any other records deemed relevant, will be examined. Any indication of disloyalty will be followed by a full investigation. Current employees are to be examined according to a system set up by their department heads, who are held responsible for removing any disloyal individuals serving beneath them. Departments are required to set up loyalty boards, which are to investigate employees to the standards set by the order. If employees are found to be disloyal, they have the right to defend themselves in a hearing. The accused will be given adequate time to prepare their defense, but only as “security conditions permit,” and the identities of any informants against them will not be revealed. When a loyalty board recommends the removal of an employee after a hearing, the decision may be appealed by the employee in question.

Truman declares that an overarching Loyalty Review Board is to be established in the CSC to hear appeals and coordinate information sharing between the loyalty boards of individual departments. It will also run the internal management and dissemination of the list of subversive foreign or domestic organizations to be provided by the attorney general or the Department of Justice. The basic standard for disloyalty is laid out; in addition to spying and espionage, reasons for dismissal include membership, affiliation, or “sympathetic association” with any of the organizations on the attorney general's list. All employees' names are given to the FBI for checks against its own records. The heads of the armed forces are given the task of ensuring that they will “continue to enforce and maintain the highest standards of loyalty within the armed services.” All information gathered in the federal investigations will be kept in a master index.

Glossary

adjudication: the act of a court in making an order, judgment, or decree

derogatory: tending to lessen the merit or reputation of a person or thing; disparaging

endowed: to furnish, as with some talent, money, faculty or quality; equip

expeditiously: characterized by promptness; quickly

whereas: while on the contrary

Bibliography and Additional Reading

Gaddis, John Lewis. The Cold War: A New History. New York: Penguin, 2007. Print.

Goldstein, Robert Justin. “Prelude to McCarthyism: The Making of a Blacklist.” Prologue Magazine 38.3 (2006). Web. 20 Feb. 2015.

Storrs, Landon R. Y. The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2013. Print.