), it was the Executive Branch of the Government that wielded the most influence over the development of McCarthyism. It stimulated concern about national security and established the main mechanisms through which anti-communist campaign was to operate." This was borne out when in early 1947 President Truman issued a draconian, anti-communist Executive Order.
TRUMANS EXECUTIVE ORDERS
On March 12, 1947, President Truman addressed a Special Session of Congress and sought aid for Greece and Turkey in his bid to ensure that the USA support "free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." At the domestic front, on March 22, 1947, he issued Executive Order No. 9835 in which the procedures for the administration of an employee Loyalty Program in the Executive Branch of the Federal Government was outlined. It stipulated that a loyalty investigation of every person entering any Department or Agency of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government had to be done. As for those already employed, the Order authorized investigations. All personnel, who were found to be "disloyal," were to be dismissed by the Head of their Agency or Department.
Loyalty Boards were established throughout the Federal Government. In practice, it became a witch-hunt as increasingly information on personnel was submitted by the FBI. That Agency prepared secret files that were compiled from unknown informants. The major concern was to verify if any federal employee was a member of the CP or had any association with any acquaintance who might have been a party member. Accusations of direct or indirect connections with the CP could not be contested or disproved by employees since they were denied due process. Informants identities were kept secret. During the period when an employee was being investigated, he or she was suspended from work. But it was not only the CP which was on the blacklist as a subversive organization, but also a number of other organizations which the Attorney General arbitrarily had compiled without giving those organizations an opportunity to contest their inclusion on the list. As the persecution intensified and the purge got into full swing, President Truman in April 1950 issued another Executive Order which was even more stringent as it specified that employees should be dismissed if an investigation led to the conclusion that "there is reasonable doubt as to loyalty." This meant that an employee was considered guilty unless he or she could prove their innocence, but of course without a proper trial. The new Executive Order led to the reopening of 565 cases which were already resolved, since it was felt that in light of the new Order, there was doubt. The entire operation was Gestapo-like, arbitrary and despotic.
UNCONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE ORDERS
William J. Schrenk Jr. published a critique of the Executive Order 9835 in the Michigan Law Review in 1948. He pointed out "admitting the likelihood of the programs legality, it is still open to question on the general ground of wise governmental policy. The serious implications of allowing "guilt by association" with a group denominated as subversive by the Attorney General, and of denying the accused any opportunity of confrontation or cross-examination of witnesses are pointed out eloquently in a recent statement by a group of prominent legal educators." Another critic John Lord OBrian published his views in the 1948 Harvard Law Review condemning "guilt by association" as a travesty of justice. He also pointed out that the first line of defense against communism was faith in the democratic institutions of America. The National Bar Association of Indiana in 1949 condemned the Order and highlighted that the "Loyalty Order" had operated "to establish guilt by association, to abolish the axiom that all men are innocent until proven guilty and to set up extra legal Boards with decisions not subject to judicial review."
A moral indictment of the Order was also done by A. L. Pomerantz, senior trial Counsel in the prosecution of Nazis in Nurembu