EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

THE PRESIDENT’S COMMISSION ON THE
HEALTH NEEDS OF THE NATION

WASHINGTON 25, D. C.

August 22.
Executive Secretary, Loyalty Board

Fourth U.S. Civil Service Region
Washington 25, D.C.

Dear Sir,

I enclose my replies to your interrogatories of August 15the

I am attaching to these replies four exhibits which I respectfully request,
the Loyalty Board to consider in determining my loyalty. Since several of these
are my only copies, I should like them returned to me when a determination ia
completed,

If these replies to the Loyalty Board's interrogatories are not deemed
adequate to establish my loyalty to my government, I should like to have a hearing
before the Board.

Respectfully,
Thomas F,Gorman.

Encls:
Exhibit A «- THE READER'S DIGEST »September,1948 issue

Exhibit B ~ Citation as one of Nation's Ten Outstanding Younc Men.
Exhibit Ce Pamphlet ~ "Oklahoma's Problem Children",
Exhibit D ~Pamphlet - "If We Can Love".
Allegation (1) - took an active part in Anti-war rallies sponsored by the
undergraduate Commupist clique at New York University:

I agree that I took part in anti-War rallies at New York University in the 1930's,
but these rallies were not sponsored by the Communist clique. The Communists tried to
get control of the whole undergraduate atudent movement, but they never succeeded.

Along with many other thinking students in the 30's, I was heartily opposed to
the solution of man's conflicts by brutal, killing war. As a liberal Roman Catholic,

I joined with my fellow students from other religious denominations in the idealistic
fight to end war. The leadership of our segnent of the student anti-war movement was
provided by the church and YMCA and YWCA groups. We held our rallies in the Judson
Memorial Church. We followed in the great and noble tradition of the Kellogg-Briand
Pact of 1923 and the fundamental idealian of Woodrow Wilson. Surely, Woodrow Wilson and
Kellogg were not Communists.

It 4s true that the Young Communist League tried, time and time again, to take
over our movement and capitalize on our unsophisticated idealism. Along with my fellow
liberals, I fought them and we kept them fram taking over.

I am very proud of my record in College. In my Senior year, I was one of six
students out of a class of nearly one thousand elected to Sigma, the Senior Honorary
Society of Washington Square College. It chooses its members, not on the basis of
scholarship, but on the basis of character, integrity and service to the entire student
body. I also won several scholarships and fellowships, and was also elected to Phi Beta
Kappa in my Senior year.

What was college idealiam in the early 30's became a different thing when our
country was threatened. I knew all of us must fight the vicious wave of totalitarianism -
Allegation (1) <page 2

there could be no neutral ground,

Right after Pearl Harbor, I enlisted in the U.S.Army as a Private, making no
effort to get a comission, I didn't have to enlist ~my mother was dependent on my
4neome at the time, and I could have been deferred. But I wanted to do my part, and
I was inducted in January ,1942. I was honorably discharged in November,1945.
Allegation (2) -that I stated, in substance: "We now have in our morality a new
frame of reference -that which advances the Communist cause is true and that which
impeaches is fake".

This statement is utterly foreign to every belief I hoa.

I never made such a statement, or anything similar to ite My whole life work
is living proof of my devotion to the democratic way of life. I have crusaded and
given of myself unsparingly to better the lot of the average man, and I am deeply
and humbly grateful that my fellow men have honored me far beyond my worth for
these crusddes.

I have never, for even one day of my life, been taken in by the Communist
philosophy. They were all. around me at New York University, but I knew them for what
they were and are,

Furthermore the statement above, even in substance rather than direct quotation,
4s totally unlike the manner in which I express myself. It has a rigid, dialectical
air which is utterly foreign to my mode of expression. The writings which I enclose

are proof of this.
Allegation (3) - that I forbade my mother to read the New York Journal~American

because it opposed Communism.

This is an evil and completely untrue statement.

In the first place, my mother was an intelligent, independent woman. A
former school teacher in the New York City school system, she was active in the
liberal wing of the Democratic Party in Queens, several times being elected to the
District Executive Board. She read the NEW YORK TIMES in the morning and the NEW
YORK WORLD in the evening. She had no use for the Journal~American because she had
a hearty dislike for William Randolph Hearst and all that he stood for in the way
of cheap, sensational journalism. However, 18 she had wanted to read the
JournaleAmerican, I could not have stopped her.

I think I know whereof this evil statement originated. My mother was very
active in the Roman Catholic Church of our parish. In the early 20's, &
prominent Catholic Priest named Charles Coughlin began to preach ‘vickous hymns of
hate against the Roosevelt era and the democratic way of life. Catholic Social
Action clubs were formed to foment his doctrines. From the first, my mother was an
outspoken fighter against this movexent. Our neighborhood was 95 percent Catholic,
and most of my mother's friends became Social Actionists. Many who had been her
friends for many years refused to speak to her. When one of the Catholic Priests
in our parish began to advocate Social Action, my mother, my brother and I went
to a different church.

During this period, the Journal~American was Father Coughlin's chief supporter
among the New York papers. It is quite probable my mother had some pretty sharp
things to say about the Journal~American,

Finally, I might say that my mother hag better taste than to ever want to

become a reader of a paper which purveyed to the lowest forms of prejudice.
Allegation (4) ~ Expounded ideas that closely followed the Communist Party line and
had all the earmarks of having been thoroughly indoctrinated with Communism.

This is so preposterous that I am at a loss as to how to answer it.

I have never knowlingly followed the Communist Parfy line in any way. In fact ,
I have never known just what the Communist Party line is. In any event, I have
never expressed agreement with the Communist philosophy or program.

I have never been a member of, or sympathetically mam associated with, the
Communist Party or any of its front grovps. In fact, I have never had the slightest
sympathy with the Comminist Party or Communist ideology.
| My remarks have never been indoctrinated with Communism, because my knowledge
of Marxian is quite superficial. As a deeply religious person, I have been strongly
opposed all my life to a doctrine which denies God. I am a believer in the goodness
of the average man. I believe that a Christian society must be judged by the way
it treats its weaker citizens, not its stronger ones. For this reason, I have fought
@ life-long battle for the mentally 111 -they who have been neglected and fallen by
the wayside. I hold closest to my heart the title of one of my mental health
booklets: "If We Can Love -This is the Touchstone". In a world filled with
hostility, we must learn to how to live with, understand and love our fellow man.

If we hate, it is because we are immature.
Page 7 -Interrogatory-

In re my loyalty to the United States-

I am most proud of the fact that I was sélected one of the Nations
Ten O,tstanding Young men for 1948 by a jury composed of Dwight D.Eisenhower,
Harold Stassen, Henry Keiser, Dr. C.W. Mayo and other distingusiehd Americans.

I was chosen, not because I had made a lot of money or been a great baseball
player, but because I had served my fellow Americans by improving conditions for
tiousands of mentally ill] people. I could not have succeeded in this crudade if
I did not have a great love for, and loyalty to, the ideals of tris nation.

I am proud of the fact that Rev. W.H.Alexander, Pastor of the First Christian
Church in Oklahoma City, wrote of me:

" Mike Gorman has raised the whole level of care and treatment in the field
of social and human welfare in Oklahoma. He has made history and in doing so,
has raised Oklahoma to a higher plane among her sister states."

I am proud of the fact that THE READER'S BIGEST condensed my book, "Oklah ona
Attacks Its Snake Pits" not only for millions of Americans, but for millions of
DIGEST readers in all parts of the world. I am proud of the fact that I got
1,200 letters from all parts of thw world telling me that I had brough a new
vision of American democracy to foreign lands,

A man's love of his country is mostly an unspoken thing - it is not something
said every Julv 4th wh le the fireworks go off. Implicit in the continuing crusade
I am engaged in for better health for all Americans is a passionate desire to
extend the bounty of democracy to everyone fortuante enogut to live in our land
today.

If you question my loyalty as an American, you ouestion the very meaning of

the things I have fought and suffered for. I am content to stand or fall with

them.
loyalty-page 2

I am engaged in for better health for all Americans is a passionate desire to
extend the bounty of democracy to everyone fortunate enough to live in our land
today.

If you question my loyalty as an American, you question the very meaning of
the things I have fought and suffered for. I am content to stand or fall with them.
Suitability -Page III

I did not list this arrest on Form 60 becu se I realiy didn't think of it
as an arrest. On November 27,1949, I want out and got quite drunk because of
the sudden death in an accident of a life-long friend of mine. I just couldn't
bear the thought of thinking about it afater 1 got the heart—breaking call from
his wife.

Later that night, quite drunk, I crossed Wilshire Bowlevard against the
light, A policeman stopped me and started to pive me a lecture. Quite mad at the
world, I proceeded to tell him off. When he asked for my address, I refused to
give it to him. He got angry and pushed me in the patrol car. I was booked for the
night and released in the morning.

In the lifetime of a man, an occassional outburst is not too amiss. Inmy
entire life, aside from this one incident, I hate been a go..d citizen and a

friend to my fellow man. I owe no one an apology for one fall from grace.
Suitablity -Page IV

I have not used intoxicating beverages "habitual:y to excess". True, in koe:
ways my twenties when I was a bachelor and in a business which I did not like,
I tied an occassional one on over the week-ends. But I was never an alcoholic
or a problem drinker. I attribute this allegation to the blue-nose Puritans
who lived on our block in Astoria ~ those very smug, Nwkkexr Holier-than-Thou
Cabholics who cut my mother off becau:e she refused to go along with their
vicious Coughlinite prejudices and their Roosevelt-hating venom.

The tremendous production of my writing Life gives the lie to this
charge. If I had used alocholic beberages to excess, how could I have turned out
close to a million words over a seven-year period on behalf of the mentally ill
of America?
I am a moderate drinker ~- I likea highball or two before dinner, period.

I can bring in any number of witnesses, both here in Washington and elsewhere,
who can testify that work is my sole motivating drive and that sobriety is

a necessary condition of the kind of work I do.