Hearings

Also present: Boris S. Berkovitch, counsel to Subcommittee on Rules; W. F. Bookwalter, chief clerk of the Committee on Rules and Administration; and Judge Robert Morris.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order.

Congressman Keating is here. Will you be sworn to testify, sir. Do you swear that the testimony given in this hearing will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Mr. KEATING. I do.

The CHAIRMAN. We very much appreciate your taking the time to come here for the purpose of testifying on this very important matter. We know that you are a very busy man.

Mr. KEATING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed with your statement in your own fashion.

TESTIMONY OF HON. KENNETH B. KEATING, A REPRESENTATIVE

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK

Mr. KEATING. Mr. Chairman, I have been following the work of this committee with great admiration and close interest; and I appreciate the opportunity of testifying briefly before your committee. So much has been said, here, in your hearings, heretofore, with which I am in full accord, that I shall not burden your record unduly, I hope. Judge MORRIS. Congressman, at this point may I ask you whether it is not a fact that you have served upon many committees, including the House Committee on Un-American Activities and the House Judiciary Committee, which has engaged in actual investigations? Mr. KEATING. Let me just correct that. I am not on the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

Judge MORRIS. But you have been, in the past?

Mr. KEATING. No, I have not. I think you may have that confused with Congressman Kearney, of New York. I was chairman of a subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary to investigate the De

partment of Justice, and, before that, I served as the ranking minority member of that committee.

Judge MORRIS. Congressman, would you please state what investigating committees you have served on?

Mr. KEATING. In the 82d Congress I served as the ranking minority member, and in the 83d Congress, 1st session, as the chairman, of a subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary, set up to investigate the Department of Justice. That is the only investigating committee on which I have served. Some of my colleagues from the House have already testified, and they have indicated to you that we have done a good deal of thinking and working on this problem over there. I have been identified with rules proposals relating to the conduct of committee investigations, in each of the last three Congresses, and long before I was actually a member of an investigating committee.

Needless to say, all of us are highly gratified at the way President Eisenhower and his administration, and the leaders in both Houses here in Congress, are concerning themselves with the matter. On our side, I believe there is a very good prospect of action in the near future, to bring a carefully worked out set of rules to the floor of the House for consideration-with assuredly widespread support and a good chance of adoption. It is rather disturbing to some of us that the House has not moved faster than it has in this matter.

I hardly need stress the point that it would not be proper for me to intrude in these proceedings and presume to give you authoritative advice. But I did feel perhaps there were a few points, based on our studies, that I might note briefly as of possible interest and usefulness to you. Also, I had quite extensive and entirely gratifying experience with a full set of rules of procedure during my service in the Department of Justice investigation I mentioned a moment ago. What I am going to say is based in part on that experience also.

In the first place, I would urge you to weave whatever you finally propose very carefully into the fabric of the existing Senate rules. This is the proper place for them to be, and they will be at the same time more respected, better known, and more easily interpreted and applied if they appear as integral parts of this familiar structure instead of as a separate and unrelated promulgation of each committee.

In support of this point, I would like to observe something that may not have been sufficiently stressed in relation to the broad background of the problems we are facing. Nobody, in all the history of our country, has had any cause to complain about the conduct of either the full House or the full Senate acting as such. No one has been abused in proceedings conducted by all our membership. That is a pretty good record to keep in front of us.

The troubles have started because of the necessity of delegating investigative authority. The further the delegation process has gone, from the senior body to a full committee to a subcommittee and down to one or two individuals, the more dangers of abuse and perhaps instances of abuse-seem to appear.

I stress this because it is helpful to recognize that we are not trying to curb, nor to extend, the investigative powers inherent in Congress. There is nothing wrong with them. All we are trying to do is establish a few standards for the exercise of these powers when they are delegated to groups or individuals who act in the name and by the authority of the parent body and who should reasonably be held to

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