THE ADMINISTRATION: Litmus Test

Since Congress put the pressure on it to boot out Communists, the State Department had filtered 3,000 of its employes through its litmus papers for traces of red. Results by last week: 40 men and women had been fired for having what State called “close connections or involvements with foreign governments.”

That sounded as if a nest of superspies had been uncovered. Not so; the 40 were small fry. Furthermore, in at least some of the cases “close connections” meant nothing more ominous than suspicion of being a member of some Communist front organization. In a few cases evidence of disloyalty to the U.S. was found. Among other things, membership in the Communist Party is labeled disloyal.

State had a hot potato to handle; even circumstantial evidence was hard to find, and it did not want to get into a public brawl and be accused of Red-hunting. Its six-man screening committee moved cautiously, marked many dismissals for “incompetence” or other causes. Added to the ousted 40 were 39 others who were dropped because they were aliens or did not meet citizenship requirements. More than 200 others were put down as ineligible for permanent employment.

If there were Communists and fellow travelers at the policy levels, as many Congressmen insist, they were likely to stay there for a while. So far, State had shown no inclination to tackle anybody with influence who might put up a fight.