Divided Counsel

In 40,000 words, the United States Supreme Court last week spoke its divided mind on two phases of the Government's loyalty program.

P: The court held, 5-3, that the Attorney General may not list.an organization as subversive without a hearing. This was in the case of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, Inc., and the International Workers Order, Inc., all tagged as Communist-front groups. Justice Harold H. Burton, writing the majority opinion, held that the Attorney General's listing was "arbitrary."

P: In the second case, the Court split right down the middle--4-4. The question was whether a Government employee has a right to confront the accuser in a loyalty hearing. The employee involved is 40-year-old Dorothy Bailey, an $8,000-a-year training officer in the United States Employment Service. She had been called Communist by undisclosed FBI informants. Since the Court couldn't reach an agreement, the lower court's verdict stood: that Miss Bailey had no right to face her accusers, had been properly fired.

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