MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1952
OPENING STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
The subcommittee met at 2:45 p.
m., pursuant to call, in room 1305, United States District Court
Building, Foley Square, Senator Homer Ferguson presiding.
Present: Senator Ferguson.
Also present : Robert Morris, subcommittee
counsel, and Benjamin Mandel, director of research.
Senator FERGUSON. The committee will come to
order.
The Internal Security Subcommittee of the
Senate Committee on the Judiciary is now in session.
We are here today to take testimony relating
to subversion in our educational process. The training of our youth
today determines the security of the Nation tomorrow. The nature of
this inquiry will be national in scope and will seek to determine
whether or not organized subversion is undermining our educational
system.
We shall endeavor to sketch a broad general
picture, leaving the determination of individual cases to State and
local authorities.
The subcommittee gives full recognition to
the fact that education is primarily a State and local function. Hence,
the subcommittee has limited itself to considerations affecting
national security, which are directly within the purview and authority
of the subcommittee. The Internal Security Subcommittee of the Senate
Judiciary Committee was empowered on December 31, 1950, under the terms
of Senate Resolution 366 of the Eighty-first Congress, to make a
complete and continuing study and investigation of, first, the
administration, operation, and enforcement of the Internal Security Act
of 1950; secondly, the administration, operation, and enforcement of
other laws relating to espionage, sabotage, and the protection of the
internal security of the United States; thirdly, the extent, nature,
and effect of subversive activities in the United States, its
Territories, and possessions, including but not limited to espionage,
sabotage, and infiltration by persons who are or may be under the
domination of foreign government organizations or organizations
controlled by the world Communist movement, or any other movement
seeking to overthrow the Government of the United States by force and
violence.
This authority was subsequently extended
under Resolution 7 of the Eighty-second Congress until December
31,
1952.
