Time For A Change

If the American people voted for anything besides Ike on November 4th, it was for a change in the State Department. Eight years of bungling and timidity by the striped-pants snobocracy had left state with the lowest reputation of any government organ. So it was with high hopes that we watched the installation of a new Secretary, and listened to his assurances of reform. But last week's amazing revelations of sabotage in the Voice of America division prove the "cleanup" in high places to be a hollow mockery.

The State Department controls the Voice of America, and has resisted Congressional attempts to divest it of this authority. Therefore, it cannot escape blame for the appalling conspiracy which Senate investigators uncovered in the Voice's New York headquarters. For despite the November election, the evidence shows that Communist sympathizers are still free to subvert American foreign policy to Russian interests. One example of such conniving was the recent use of a Communist-endorsed scriptwriter to compile propaganda material. Another was the continual use of the word democracy in Voice broadcasts; for in Russian terms democracy means pro-Soviet.

This whole experience proved that Communist sympathizers can infiltrate any large-scale bureau, regardless of the party affiliation or accent of its Secretary. Therefore, there must be a major change--more than the petty dabbling done so far. The only sure protection is to abolish the Department as it is now and transfer its functions to a small group of men of known loyalty. Fortunately the State Department lends itself to such improvement. Its only proper functions, making policy and telegraphing orders out to foreign governments, could be better performed by a small council anyway.

But for the experiment to be a success, the council's members must be drawn from representative sectors of American life. Following the pattern of the new Administration, we suggest that half the council be made up of men from far-flung agencies of the General Motors Corporation. The remaining half could come from other cultural groups like Chrysler and Ford. It might also be a smart propaganda move to bring in a minority group spokesman, from Nash-Kelvinator. The important thing however is to make this change and set a new example. Time is of the essence.