How Britain Deals with Communists

...Their story is notably vague with respect to practice...

...The Government should never have announced its program or given any of the details of its procedure...

...its procedures have few safeguards and continually provoke complaints??some of them from responsible quarters...

...With removals connected with the Federal loyalty program in this country ranging into the many thousands, it is remarkable that only 148 British civil servants, out of a total of more than one million, have been suspended in the course of enforcing security measures in the Government, and that almost half of these have been transferred to non-secret work and 28 others have been reinstated as "perfectly loyal and reliable...

...Finally, this little volume is disturbing because it claims to be what it plainly is not...

...Messrs...

...Wilson and Glickman are even more pleased with the way the Communist issue has been dealt with in the schools...

...While it well may be that the "devoted small-fry Communist" who is asked to spy is "unlikely" to turn up information of value to an espionage organization, why should this aspect of national security be left to calculated risks...

...They accept as reasonable the greater concern shown for possible pro-Communist bias in the secondary schools than in the universities, where, they note with satisfaction, the "whole problem of handling controversial subjects is relegated to the individual judgment of each teacher...

...While they deplore the spectacular tendencies of the daily press, they find it on the whole a source of strength...

...Nor, indeed, is an attempt even made to measure success in dealing with such threats...

...If internal security is the real concern of such an inquiry as this, it would be important to ascertain the extent to which membership in the Communist party means an acceptance of subversive intent...

...But this kind of consideration, involving as it does a determination of the facts on which an internal-security policy should be based, is not the concern of the authors...

...In final evaluation, one may consider the whole conception of security in a democratic state...

...If, on the one hand, our Government had been faultless in its prompt and accurate appraisal of its own security problem, or, on the other, had inspired public confidence with the methods and procedures which it has used, this suggestion might seem rational (if not realistic...

...It seems never to have occurred to the authors that, once won over, the student can be directed into less approved or less innocent activities...

...In this statement, the authors indicate their major criticism of the British policy and suggest the major emphasis of their proposals...

...Reviewed by Paul Y Hammond Instructor in government, Harvard University THE FAILURES of British security measures represented in the names Fuchs, May, Pontecorvo, MacLean and Burgess have led some Americans to believe that the British Government has failed to appreciate or adequately deal with the internal menace of Communism...

...It is now necessary for employes in sensitive jobs to demonstrate a positive orientation in their loyalty to the Government, and earlier affiliations are now given more weight, according to Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, formerly British Home Secretary and now Lord Chancellor...

...They find the efforts of business firms to eliminate Communists from their payrolls not supported by public opinion...

...Labor-union troubles with Communist leadership are assumed to be entirely self-corrective, as though rank-and-file apathy toward union leadership had never been demonstrated...

...Similarly, the problem of the indirect influencing of students in secondary schools by their Communist teachers is dismissed on the ground that what these teachers are instructed by the party to do in order to gain their students' good will is itself praiseworthy...

...Throughout it, the implication of comparison with the United States is present...

...By its title and in the breadth of its conclusions, it claims to have described the problem of internal security in Great Britain and to have appraised the methods of dealing with it...

...To be sure, the great trust and respect bestowed upon civil servants by the British public, and the discipline which the major political parties can impose upon errant or erratic elected members, are cited as reasons why in Britain the civil service has not been so open to suspicion as in this country, and why anti-Communism has not been taken up successfully by irresponsible political adventurers...

...The theater, the BBC and the professions have effectively protected their left-wing members from any serious professional handicaps...

...With all its secrecy, the British anti-Communist policy has not been secret enough...

...They conclude: "Those who govern [Britain] today are sufficiently astute as political analysts to know that neither the Communist nor the fascist party constitutes any threat to the British constitution...

...In the labor movement, which the authors term the "key battleground" with the Communists, they find the hurly-burly of anti-Communist tactics less pleasing than methods used elsewhere...

...But no attention is given to determining the nature and magnitude of the threats to British national security...

...This book generally fails to appreciate the full stature of the problems of controlling domestic Communists...

...Since neither condition is present, the conclusion is inescapable that the authors consider the effects of public notice and concern in the Federal loyalty program to have been largely or wholly negative...

...and these procedures have become more and more stringent...

...Measuring what they observe in Britain against these assumptions, and contrasting what they find there with their version of the American scene, in which "testimony of professional ex-Communists, charges of the politically ambitious, or accusations of paranoid right-wingers" seem to be proof of illegal action, the authors survey the way the British have dealt with Communists in the Government, in education, in the labor movement and in other phases of British life, such as business and entertainment...

...H. H. Wilson and Harvey Glickman have made a very different appraisal of the situation...

...Another assumption which might have been better examined before being used as the basis for appraisal of British anti-Communist policies is the claim that there is so little connection between party members and espionage that control of the former would have no significant effect on the latter...

...Other elements in this study are also disturbing...

...But Wilson and Glickman are overly reassuring in their appraisal ??indeed their depiction??of the Government's security program, and of the other phases of the Communist problem in British life...

...But the authors' failure to give serious consideration to any further methods of controlling internal subversion, and to the nature of the internal threat of Communism, has kept them from dealing with the real issues of internal security in Britain or the United States today...

...But here also they are pleased to find "a realistic appraisal of not only the possible dangers of Communism, but the equally possible dangers of hysteria and the crushing of democratic practice which are resident in a fanatic, overzealous approach in a society which places ultimate value on the individual...

...It is extremely doubtful that a publicly announced program is either necessary or desirable...

...They know that, barring the total disaster of war or prolonged depression, the British people are unlikely to be impressed by the appeal of either group...

...On the basis of what they could observe of the security program in the Government, they have concluded, with only minor reservations, that it "demonstrated an efficient and responsible approach to the problem," and agree with a British comment that "it's the best of a nasty business...

...Moreover, the serious but impotent member may be an important part of an organization which recruits the clever and effective spies...

...With respect to the Government program, for instance, its work is done in secrecy the extent of which would terrify Americans...

...No doubt, the British have maintained a temper in the handling of their loyalty and internal-security problems which justifiably inspires respect, and the authors of this short study have sketched the broad outlines of that approach with some care...

...A proper security system does not require publicity...

...It is well to remind ourselves of the value of the traditional methods for dealing with espionage through prosecution for overt acts...

...Such differences could be used to discount the British experience as not particularly relevant to American problems...

...is quite unrealistic...

...While they recognize that the British Communist party is not just "an autonomous, purely local political organization, whose policies are the result of the views and intentions of its British members," and they concede that this circumstance has some bearing on the employment of Communists in Government, they insist that "only the possibility of espionage" can be established...

...But to conceive of a completely secret loyalty or security program as a serious possibility in the U.S...

...Their different conclusion can be attributed to their views concerning Communism and its believers, for they insist that the "reality of the Communist challenge" is that "Communism as a political movement" must be distinguished "from Communists who serve the Soviet Union by engaging in espionage...

...It is generally agreed that the British have not yielded to a fear of subversive Communism, but some Americans regard this as a failure, while Wilson and Glickman consider it a commendable achievement...

...Certainly the most difficult problems with which they are concerned are raised in the Government's security program, but, like other students of British Government administration, they were unable to make much headway beyond official statements of policy and general descriptions of procedures...

...This suggestion may appear to have been possible in Great Britain, where the Government can so effectively withhold information which it does not wish made public...

...Their attention is given, rather, to what infringements of traditional civil rights and political freedoms have occurred in the name of internal security...

...In business, the professions and mass communications, the authors find notable restraint in dealing with Communism, particularly since 1950...

...But the authors apparently did not intend to do that, and their final conclusion ignores the differences...