McLeod Backs Security Rules, Evening Star (Article, February 1954)
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McLeod Backs Security Rules, Denies Injuring Foreign Service
R. W. Scott McLeod, security administrator of the State Department, said today it is "not valid" to contend that new security procedures have lowered morale of the United States foreign service.
"We are gradually cleaning up the 'mess' in the State Department." Mr. McLeod said in a copyrighted interview with the magazine U.S. News and World Report. But he insisted that it was being done without harm to the effectiveness of the department.
Mr. McLeod also said Senator McCarthy, Republican, of Wisconsin, had "absolutely nothing to do with his appointment to his present job, and he characterized as "ridiculous" reports that a man may be fired because his superiors do not like his choice of reading matter.
Quizzed About Letter
Mr. McLeod said that last year the department dropped from the payroll about 300 persons about whom there were unresolved security questions. The department employs about 11,000 persons. He said the number might include some who resigned before their security clearances had been completed.
He also said that since 1947, when the department started keeping totals, more than 500 homosexuals had been dropped. He said he did not regard this as "an unusual percentage" in comparison to the general population but that it was "an intolerable percentage in a sensitive agency."
Mr. McLeod, former FBI man who was administrative assistant to Senator Bridges, Republican, of New Hampshire before he took his present job, was asked about a letter in which five former career diplomats complained last month that the foreign service was being dangerously weakened.
The five--Norman Armour, Robert Woods Bliss, Joseph C. Grew, William Phillips and G. Howland Shaw--said in a letter to the New York Times that this was true because of attacks from "outside sources" and because the department itself was subordinating "normal personnel administration to considerations of security."
"In my judgment," Mr. McLeod said, "the morale in the foreign service is pretty high, considering all the factors involved. The claim that security procedure here is lowering morale is not valid."
Denies Misuse of Reports.
Mr. McLeod was asked whether it is true that foreign service officer's reports from abroad may sometimes be used in security cases against them.
"I know of only one case where the security office has ever gone to the trouble of examining an officer's reports," he said. "In that case they found the reports quite objective and not an issue in forming a security judgment."
Mr. McLeod said he is aware that he has been the subject of much criticism, due in part, he said, to "the generous [endorsement] my friend Joe McCarthy gave me right after my appointment." He said that he never worked for Senator McCarthy although the Senator "used to call me up and ask my advice, but I know of no single instance where he ever took it."
Asked whether it is accurate to call him a protege of Senator McCarthy, Mr. McLeod replied:
"It burns me up to be called his stooge, because I'm human enough to think I'm no man's stooge."
