VI.

Our vast world responsibility accents with urgency our people’s elemental right to a government whose clear qualities are loyalty, security, efficiency, economy, and integrity.

The safety of America and the trust of the people alike demand that the personnel of the Federal Government be loyal in their motives and reliable in the discharge of their duties.  Only a combination of both loyalty and reliability promises genuine security.

To state this principle is easy; to apply it can be difficult.  But this security we must and shall have.  By way of example, all principal new appointees to departments and agencies have been investigated at their own request by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Confident of your understanding and cooperation, I know that the primary responsibility for keeping out the disloyal and the dangerous rests squarely upon the executive branch.  When this branch so conducts itself as to require policing by another branch of the Government, it invites its own disorder and confusion.

I am determined to meet this responsibility of the Executive.  The heads of all executive departments and agencies have been instructed to initiate at once effective programs of security with respect to their personnel.  The Attorney General will advise and guide the departments and agencies in the shaping of these programs, designed at once to govern the employment of new personnel and to review speedily any derogatory information concerning incumbent personnel.

To carry out these programs, I believe that the powers of the executive branch under existing law are sufficient.  If they should prove inadequate, the necessary legislation will be requested.

These programs will be both fair to the rights of the individual and effective for the safety of the Nation.  They will, with care and justice, apply the basic principle that public employment is not a right but a privilege.

All these measures have two clear purposes:  Their first purpose is to make certain that this Nation’s security is not jeopardized by false servants.  Their second purpose is to clear the atmosphere of that unreasoned suspicion that accepts rumor and gossip as substitutes for evidence.

Our people, of course, deserve and demand of their Federal Government more than security of personnel.  They demand, also, efficient and logical organization, true to constitutional principles.

I have already established a Committee on Government Organization.  The Committee is using as its point of departure the reports of the Hoover Commission and subsequent studies by several independent agencies.  To achieve the greater efficiency and economy which the Committee analyses show to be possible, I ask the Congress to extend the present Government Reorganization Act for a period of 18 months or 2 years beyond its expiration date of April 1, 1953.