Professor's Comments

Professor J. M. Bertram, who spent several years in the Far East as a correspondent and Press Attache, had this to say about Security.

"People accept the fact that there are intelligence services under present world conditions. The question is: are they operated responsibly? In wartime they are, but in peacetime sometimes not."

He explained that the chief concern is a wartime system carried on into peacetime. Files exist, he said, compiled during wartime from very many and varied sources. A military or Department chief in wartime will generally handle them with sense and care, always checking on information. But in peace when these files may be handled by a busy or careless bureaucrat under various political pressures, there is risk and danger and the system can be abused.

The Professor thought that McCarthyism in America was an example of this, He said that charges made by an irresponsible demagogue could wreck the careers of men like Owen Lattimore and John Service, and that McCarthyism was far from dead today. Its effects on the U. S. Sate deportment and foreign were still obvious, he said.

Professor Bertram explained that any foreign national had dealings with the Security police of the country where he was working, and they in turn knew about him. He felt it a pity that Security police did not always inspire confidence, It seems to him a risk that wartime flies are accessible to peace time allies. This situation, he stated, can cause concern.

"In the present state of world affairs, we can't do entirely without the Security police'," said Professor R. H. Brookes, of the Political Science department. "How ever, it there are to be Security police, their investigations should be intelligent, rather then indiscriminate."

The professor said that the work of the Security police was extremely difficult, as inquiries had to be conducted "in the dark", without the knowledge of the public