(The prepared statement submitted by Mr. Patterson follows:) STATEMENT OF WILLIAM D. PATTERSON, ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER, THE SATURDAY REVIEW, IN DEFENSE OF THE FREEDOM OF ACCREDITED AMERICAN NEWSMEN TO TRAVEL AND REPORT ABROAD Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is William D. Patterson. I am associate publisher of Saturday Review, a national weekly magazine published at 25 West 45th Street, New York City, and circulated throughout the country. Our current circulation is averaging well over 165,000 a week. As a magazine concerned with ideas, opinions, comment, critical analysis, and timely reporting on basic trends and events at home and abroad, we are obviously concerned with freedom of access to world news. There is, first of all, the specific case of the three accredited and reputable American correspondents who, in defiance of a State Department ban, entered Red China to obtain firsthand information for the American people from an area where events of great importance to this country are transpiring without adequate coverage and about which the United States public is not being properly informed. This ban is intolerable. The Saturday Review, even recognizing the delicate diplomatic problems that Red China has confronted our Government with, is opposed to the State Department's ban. The Saturday Review believes these correspondents and the publications they represented should be congratulated for serving the American public, rather than be penalized for rendering such a service. The Saturday Review's position with respect to the public policy behind the State Department's present actions is that: 1. The State Department should stop imitating Soviet Russia and Red China in blocking the free flow of news. 2. The State Department should frankly admit it has made an error in instituting the ban, and should lift it immediately. 3. The State Department should desist from any further punitive action, such as revocation of passports, against the three American correspondents involved. The principles at issue were well stated by Dean Edward W. Barrett, of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, formerly Assistant Secretary of State and editorial director of Newsweek magazine. In an editorial in the March 9, 1957, issue of Saturday Review (attached) Dean Barrett wrote: we appear to the world as opposing a free flow of information which the Red Chinese now profess to favor. To some, we and they seem to have battled our way into each other's shoes *** *** "On balance the State Department's new policy appears clearly ill advised. The sound course obviously would be for the Department to announce simply that any reporter entering Red China does so at his own risk, with no right to claim official United States protection ***. "It is time for a highest level clarification of whether the right of citizens to roam the globe and the obligation of the press to pursue news everywhere can be used as pawns in a diplomatic chess game, however important the match. "The founders of the Nation believed deeply that truth could stand against all comers in the market place. They wove the principle of an unimpeded flow of information into our constitutional fabric. Throughout most of the cold war our Government, including President Eisenhower, impressed the world by stoutly opposing Iron and Bamboo barriers to the flow of information. The principle is basic. It is doubtful that even the highest minded official should be permitted to use a fundamental principle as an item of bargaining in international negotiations." What Dean Barrett is saying, and the Saturday Review believes, is that the United States should not isolate our country and the American people behind a curtain of our own making just because we strongly and correctly disapprove of Iron and Bamboo Curtains. Because we dislike Russian and Chinese suppression of civil liberties, we should not infringe our own liberties, beating ourselves over the head, so to speak, because the Red Chinese have angered us. We trust that this committee will be able to recommend action which will not only clarify, but safeguard the freedom of accredited, responsible newsmen to travel this troubled world without let or hindrance by our own Government in quest of the news and information the American people so urgently need to make up their own minds about the vast and intricate problems confronting this Nation in every corner of the globe. Let us not turn ourselves into pawns in a Red Chinese chess game. Senator O'MAHONEY. Mr. Collis. STATEMENT OF JOSEPH F. COLLIS, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN NEWSPAPER GUILD Mr. COLLIS. My name is Joseph F. Collis. I am assistant managing editor of the Wilkes-Barre (Pa.) Record and president of the American Newspaper Guild (AFL-CIO-CLC), a labor union representing more than 30,000 newspaper men and women in the United States and Canada, and having more than 200 collective-bargaining agreements with newspapers, news magazines, news services, and other publications in these 2 countries, including the Afro-American newspapers and Look magazine. With me is Ellis T. Baker, director of research and information for the guild. One of the stated constitutional purposes of the guild is— to guarantee, as far as it is able, constant honesty in the news (and) to raise the standards of journalism. Accordingly, in the 25 years since its founding in 1933, the guild has sought, whenever it could, to assist in maintaining and extending the people's right to know, which is so vital to the efficient functioning of a democracy such as ours. The guild, therefore, welcomes this opportunity to appear before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights in connection with the subcommittee's inquiry into the State Department's ban on entry into Communist China by United States newsmen. As members of the subcommittee may know, the international executive board of the guild considered the problems raised by the State Department's action at its quarterly meeting last month, and I think I can best present the guild's thinking on the matter by reading to you a resolution unanimously adopted by the international executive board at that meeting. RESOLUTION ADOPTED BY THE INTERNATIONAL EXECUTIVE BOARD OF THE AMERICAN NEWSPAPER GUILD, FEBRUARY 13, 1957 Whereas the Department of State has forbidden news correspondents and reporters from the United States to travel in Communist China in quest of factual information in the performance of their duty to the public; and Whereas William Worthy, of the Afro-American newspapers, and Edmond Stevens and Philip Harrington, of Look magazine, have, nevertheless, entered Red China for just such a purpose; and Whereas the State Department, upon their return, has moved to revoke their passports and has threatened further punitive action; and Whereas Joseph F. Collis, president of the American Newspaper Guild, has protested the State Department's action as a refusal to recognize the special status of news reporters in seeking out the truth; and Whereas the Newspaper Guild of New York also has criticized the travel ban as a restriction on free, democratic reporting; and Whereas further protests have come from Editor and Publisher, the industry's trade publication; from many of the Nation's newspapers; from the American Civil Liberties Union, and from such organizations of the press as the American Newspaper Publishers Association and the Overseas Press Club; and Whereas Senator Hubert Humphrey, of Minnesota, has termed the State Department's action "an unwarranted abuse of the right to travel and an intolerable interference with the right to read," and has called for a Senate hearing on the ban: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the International Executive Board of the American Newspaper Guild (AFL-CIO-CLC) at its regular quarterly meeting February 13, 1957, hereby adds its voice to those protests and considers the State Department's interdiction an offensive intrusion against the people's right to know and an unnecessary hindrance of reporters in the pursuit of their duties; and be it further Resolved, That the various contradictory and confusing reasons for the ban advanced by Secretary of State Dulles in no way justify this stringent restriction on reporters in their function as information gatherers, thus penalizing the people of the United States in their right to such information; and be it further Resolved, That the suggestion by Secretary Dulles that reporters admitted by Red China would be handpicked by the Communists, and the implication it contains that these newsmen would somehow be suspect, is a mean and gratuitous slur against the character and intregrity of those newsmen invited to Red China and of the entire American Press; and be it further Resolved, That the IEB supports Senator Humphrey in his bid for a full hearing on the matter by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; and be it finally Resolved, That the IEB hereby calls on the State Department immediately to revoke its ban on travel in Red China by news correspondents and to drop any punitive action against the three newsmen who have not complied with this ban. Senator O'MAHONEY. May I ask about the meeting of the executive board on February 13? Was this fairly representative of all the members of the board? Mr. COLLIS. This was a meeting of the complete board representing union members from Boston to San Francisco. Senator O'MAHONEY. Were they all there? Mr. COLLIS. They are all there. And this resolution was passed unanimously. Senator O'MAHONEY. How many members of the board are there? Senator O'MAHONEY. How about the members of the guild? Senator O'MAHONEY. Yes. Mr. COLLIS. Individual locals have spoken, particularly the New York local, which has a membership of some 8,200 persons representing roughly about 28 percent of the total membership, and individual locals beyond that also have made similar expressions. Senator O'MAHONEY. So that represents the view, not only of the board but of the membership of the guild? Mr. COLLIS. We think so. Senator O'MAHONEY. Have any protests been filed? Mr. COLLIS. To my knowledge, none, and this matter has been in the public print since late in 1956. Senator O'MAHONEY. Very well, sir. Mr. COLLIS. Since our international executive board adopted its statement 6 weeks ago, two actions it called for have taken place: Secretary Dulles has said that the Government will not prosecute the three newsmen who went to Communist China in defiance of the State Department's ban and Congress has undertaken to review the State Department's policy. But the vital step-the all-important step necessary to implement the people's right to know in the decisive area of our foreign relations still remains to be taken. That step, of course, is the revocation of the State Department's ban on entry by newsmen into Communist China and the public acceptance by the State Department of the right of newsmen in a democracy to follow the news at their own risk, if necessary-wherever it may lead them. It is true, of course, as the Supreme Court has said, that publishers in their business operations "have no special immunity from the application of general laws." The guild has worked hard to sustain this principle, and we would oppose with all the strength at our command any departure from it. It also is true that publishers, by repeatedly attempting to utilize the first amendment to the Constitution as a means of avoiding their legal obligations as employers-and thereby turn a constitutional privilege to their business advantage-unfortunately, have tainted any resort to the first amendment with the suspicion of self-interest. But it is equally true that, as conceived by its authors and elaborated by the courts, the first amendment is intended to protect the press against Government interference in its pursuit and presentation of the news, and that, as some Members of Congress have said, the State Department ban clearly violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the first amendment. Thomas Jefferson once said that if he had to make a choice between government without newspapers and newspapers without government, he would choose the latter. Senator O'MAHONEY. Of course, the conclusion is clear, since you have mentioned the first amendment, if Congress should attempt to pass a law saying that newspaper correspondents could not enter Red China, or could not go to Soviet Russia, or could not even go to Hawaii, that would be in violation of the first amendment directly and specifically. Congress can't do this, but the executive arm of the Government attempts to do it. That is your issue, is it not? Mr. COLLIS. That is right. We think that this thing resolves into an administrative matter, the matter of judgment. Senator O'MAHONEY. Well, I think it is clear, from the constitutional point of view, that the Executive cannot do what the Congress is forbidden to do, because Congress is the source of law. It may be that the President, as Commander in Chief, and as the negotiator of treaties, will find governments may not be restrained by Congress, but outside of that, I know of no action that the executive branch of the Government can take which the Congress is forbidden. But I think it is a fact few Mr. COLLIS. May I conclude, Mr. Chairman? It may be that he overstated the case. would now deny that our form of government cannot function in the way we rightfully have come to expect it to without a press free from Government interference, for it is only through the free exchange of information and ideas, and criticism, that the citizen's participation in his Government becomes meaningful and real. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator O'MAHONEY. Do you have any questions, Mr. Slayman? Mr. SLAYMAN. No, Mr. Chairman. Senator O'MAHONEY. Mr. Collis, does this complete your statement? Mr. COLLIS. It does. Mr. Chairman. Senator O'MAHONEY. Thank you very much. (The text of Mr. Collis' prepared statement follows.) STATEMENT OF JOSEPH F. COLLIS, PRESIDENT, THE AMERICAN NEWSPAPER GUILD (AFL-CIO) My name is Joseph F. Collis. I am assistant managing editor of the WilkesBarre (Pa.) Record and president of the American Newspaper Guild (AFL-CIO, CLC), a labor union representing more than 30,000 newspaper men and women in the United States and Canada and having more than 200 collective bargaining agreements with newspapers, news magazines, news services, and other publications in these two countries, including the Afro-American newspapers and Look magazine. With me is Ellis T. Baker, director of research and information for the guild. One of the stated constitutional purposes of the guild is "to guarantee, as far as it is able, constant honesty in the news [and] to raise the standards of journalism." Accordingly, in the 25 years since its founding in 1933, the guild has sought, whenever it could, to assist in maintaining and extending the people's "right to know" which is so vital to the efficient functioning of a democracy such as ours. The guild, therefore, welcomes this opportunity to appear before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights in connection with the subcommittee's inquiry into the State Department's ban on entry into Communist China by United States newsmen. As members of the subcommittee may know, the international executive board of the guild considered the problems raised by the State Department's action at its quarterly meeting last month, and I think I can best present the guild's thinking on the matter by reading to you a resolution unanimously adopted by the international executive board at that meeting. RESOLUTION ADOPTED BY THE INTERNATIONAL EXECUTIVE BOARD OF THE AMERICAN NEWSPAPER GUILD, FEBRUARY 13, 1957 Whereas the Department of State has forbidden news correspondents and reporters from the United States to travel in Communist China in quest of factual information in the performance of their duty to the public; and Whereas William Worthy of the Afro-American newspapers and Edmund Stevens and Philip Harrington of Look magazine have, nevertheless, entered Red China for just such a purpose; and Whereas the State Department, upon their return, has moved to revoke their passports and has threatened further punitive action; and Whereas Joseph F. Collis, president of the American Newspaper Guild, has protested the State Department's action as a refusal to recognize the special status of news reporters in seeking out the truth; and Whereas the Newspaper Guild of New York, also has criticized the travel ban as "restriction on free, democratic reporting"; and Whereas further protests have come from Editor & Publisher, the industry's trade publication; from many of the Nation's newspapers; from the American Civil Liberties Union, and from such organizations of the press as the American Newspaper Publishers Association and the Overseas Press Club; and Whereas Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota has termed the State Department's action "an unwarranted abuse of the right to travel and an intolerable interference with the right to read" and has called for a Senate hearing on the ban: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the International Executive Board of the American Newspaper Guild (AFL-CIO, CLC), at its regular quarterly meeting, February 13, 1957, hereby adds its voice to those protests and considers the State Department's interdiction an offensive intrusion against the people's right to know and an unnecessary hindrance of reporters in the pursuit of their duties; and be it further Resolved, That the various contradictory and confusing reasons for the ban advanced by Secretary of State Dulles in no way justify this stringent restriction on reporters in their function as information gatherers, thus penalizing the people of the United States in their right to such information; and be it further Resolved, That the suggestion by Secretary Dulles that reporters admitted by Red China would be "handpicked" by the Communists, and the implication it contains that these newsmen would somehow be suspect, is a mean and gratuitous slur against the character and integrity of those newsmen invited to Red China and of the entire American press; and be it further |