Employes With Loose Morals, Evening Star (Article, February 1954)
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[Employees] With Loose Morals
Kennan Urged Government Not to Be So Preoccupied With Problem; McLeod Cited Risks of Blackmail
George Kennan, chairman of the State Department's policy planning staff under the Truman-Acheson administration, has expressed himself in criticism of the way the Government has been handling the cases of those in Government employ who are charged with loose morals. Because of the controversy that has arisen about the discharge of "security risks" from the Government and the frequent references in print to morals cases, what Mr. Kennan has to say is of current interest.
Mr. Kennan's speech before the annual Christian Conference on the Relevance of Religious Belief to Problems of Everyday Living was originally delivered last December off-the-record at Princeton Alumni Weekly, however, it is stated that Mr. Kennan reconsidered and allowed his address to be printed. The section of Mr. Kennan's speech dealing with criticism of the Government is as follows:
"Let us, for the love of God, keep out of the ranks of the finger-pointing holier-than-thous--the people who sublimate their own sex urge in the peculiarly nasty and sadistic practice of snooping on others and exploiting the failures and embarrassments of others in this most excruciating and difficult of problems.
"In particular, let us not fall into the sort of immature Philistinism that seems to have taken possession of our Government in its latter-day pre-occupation with the morals of the public servant. What has gone on in Washington in these recent months in this regard has brought the greatest dismay and disgust to many of us older civil servants not only because it seems to rest on a very faulty understanding of human nature, but because it implies the existence in our midst of a race of angels, disguised as security officers, equipped to pass judgment on the sinful remainder of mankind. Surely nothing could be more un-Christian than this."
In another passage, Mr. Kennan discusses the attitude of present-day Christians toward sex problems and says:
"It seems to me that the greatest sin to which Christians are susceptible in questions of sex is really the sin of intolerance and lack of charity. Whoever make other people's personal problems more bitter and more hopeless by forgetting the cruelty of the conflict and by holding those people up to ignominy and censure for their failures and stumblings--he, in my opinion, is the man whose conscience should really burn him. He is the man who has the most to fear for the safety of his soul. He is guilty of the deadly sin of pride, and I suspect that there is none deadlier in the eyes of Our Maker."
The problem of loose morals among Government [employees] was discussed by John Peurifoy, Deputy Undersecretary of State, on February 28, 1950, before a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee, when he disclosed that 91 persons had been eased out of the Department of State in the Truman administration in cases involving morals, including homosexuality. In this category of "security risks" he placed "a habitual alcholic or a person who has any other physical or moral defect which could be preyed upon or which might be used by somebody who was attempting to penetrate into the department."
R.W. Scott McLeod, top security officer in the Department of State in the Eisenhower-Dulles administration, discussed the same subject in a copyrighted interview in U.S. News & World Report, in its February 12, 1954, issue, as follows:
"Q: Does the average person, when he is told he must leave for one reason or another, carry that any further--does he ask for the right to appeal, or just resign and accept it?"
"A: I think that probably the ratio would be quite similar to the number of people charged with crimes who plead guilty as against those who stand trial. As you know, in a preponderance of cases the fellow pleads guilty. I don't think there is a single exception in the homosexual cases. The investigation usually terminates in an interview, and the interview elicits a confession which results in a resignation."
"Q: Did sex perversion turn out to be a problem, after all the talk?"
"A: Since 1947, when they started keeping figures on them, there have been more than 500 homosexuals terminated in the department.
"Q: Isn't that unusual, [percentage-wise], for that number of human beings?
"A: I don't think it is an unusual percentage if it were compared to the general population, although I know of no reliable statistics on which to base that comparison, but it certainly is an intolerable percentage in a sensitive agency.
"Q: Is it your feeling that homosexuals would be susceptible to blackmail?
"A: Well, that seems to me to be self-evident.
