Speech #850245007

The Secretarys action clearly must be held authorized by Congress if the requestedinformation is relevant to any ground upon which the Secretary might properly refuse to issue a passport. The Court purports today to preclude the existence of such a ground by holding that the Secretary has not been authorized to deny a passport to a Communist whose travel abroad would be inimical to our national security. As the dissenting opinion in the Kent and Briehl case points out. at the time the Immigration and Nationality Act was passed in 1952. "a national emergency proclaimed by President Truman on December 16. 1950. in response to the Korean conflict. was--and still is todayin existence." And as the dissenting opinion goes on to point out. the opinion of the Court in the Kent and Briehl case was not only in error in denying the existence of precedent for peacetime denials bf passports for security reasons. butAn even more serious error of the Court Is its determination that the Secretarys wartime use of his discretion is wholly irrelevant in determining what discretionary practices were approved by Congress in enactment of section 215. In a wholly realistic sense there is no peace today. and there was no peace in 1952. At both times the state of national emergency declared by the President In 1950. wherein he stated that "world conquest by Communist imperialism is the goal of the forces of aggression that have been loosed upon the world" and that "the increasing menace of the forces of Communist aggression requires that the national defense of the United States be strengthened as speedily as possible." was in full effect (Pros.