Cahalan, Sally Papers

Researcher into the case of John Stewart Service

The papers of Sally Cahalan consist of State Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation reports related to John Stewart Service, a Foreign Service officer discharged as a result of State Department loyalty investigations in the 1950s. Ms. Cahalan compiled this material during research for a dissertation.

[Administrative Information | Biographical Sketch | Collection Description | Series Descriptions | Folder Title List]

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ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION

Size: 1 linear feet, 9 linear inches (about 3,200 pages).
Access: Open.
Copyright: Sally Cahalan donated her copyrights in these materials to the United States of America. Documents created by U.S. government employees in the course of their official duties are also in the public domain. Copyright interest in other documents presumably belongs to the creators of those documents, or their heirs.
Processed by: Jan Davis, Tammy Kelly, Sharie Simon, and Randy Sowell (2008).

[ Top of the page | Administrative Information | Biographical Sketch | Collection Description | Series Descriptions | Folder Title List ]

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Sally Cahalan was a Ph.D. student at Georgetown University in the 1980s when she gathered these materials related to John Stewart Service, partly through Freedom of Information Act requests.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
John Stewart Service

1909 (August 3)		Born in Chengtu, China to American parents
1920-1924		Student, American school, Shanghai, China
1925		Graduated, Berkeley, California high school
1931		A.B., Oberlin College
1931-1932		Post-graduate student
1933		Married Caroline E. Schulz; Foreign Service Clerk, Kunming, China
1935-1951, 1957-1962		Foreign Service Officer
1935-1938		Language Attaché, American Embassy, Peiping, China
1938-1941		Vice-Consul, Shanghai, China
1941-1943		Third Secretary of Embassy, Chungking, China
1943		Second Secretary of Embassy, Chungking, China
1943-1945		Political officer attached to staff of General Joseph W. Stilwell,Commander of U.S. Army Forces, China-Burma-India
1945		Duty at Department of State, Washington, D.C.; Arrested for connection to the Amerasia Case
1945-1946		Executive Officer to U.S. political adviser, Supreme Commander for Allied Powers, Tokyo, Japan
1946-1948		First Secretary, American Legation, Wellington, New Zealand
1948-1951, 1957-1959		Duty at Department of State
1952-1957		President, Sarco International Corporation, New York City, New York
1959-1962		American Consul, Liverpool, Great Britain
c. 1960s		Resident China Scholar, University of California at Berkeley
1999 (February 3)		Died

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COLLECTION DESCRIPTION

The papers of Sally Cahalan consist of reports, interview transcripts, articles, and other items related to John Stewart Service. Ms. Cahalan gathered this information during research for her Ph.D. dissertation, which was not completed. The collection is arranged into a single Subject File, arranged alphabetically by folder title.

John Stewart Service worked for the State Department in the 1940s in China. In 1945, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Service for allegedly distributing classified information regarding China to a reporter. He admitted that he had given classified documents to a reporter, but a grand jury refused to indict Service. In 1950 Senator Joseph McCarthy accused Mr. Service of Communist sympathies. In 1951, the Loyalty Review Board investigated Mr. Service and discharged him, and Service sued to be reinstated. After he won his suit in 1957 (Service v. Dulles, et al, 354 U.S. 363), the State Department reinstated Service. In 1958, the State Department reviewed and readjudicated Service’s case under Executive Order 10450 of April 1953, and interviewed Service over the course of several days. The transcripts of these interviews are included in the collection, along with the investigatory material compiled by the State Department.

Much of the collection is composed of copies of the original Federal Bureau of Investigation reports regarding Service, and his activities and movements that led to his arrest in 1945 and the Loyalty Review Board investigation. The Bureau initiated the investigation in 1948, and interviewed Mr. Service’s associates regarding the 1945 incident and current questions regarding his loyalty. Ms. Cahalan obtained this information through Freedom of Information Act requests. The bulk of the reports are declassified; some pages have been sanitized in part or in their entirety.

In addition to information from the State Department and the FBI, Ms. Cahalan obtained material directly from Mr. Service. This includes a copy of his oral history interview with the University of California, journal articles regarding the Service case and events in China during the 1940s, and a Congressional report on the Service case from 1970.

Other information relating to the Service case or Senator McCarthy’s accusations of communism in the U.S. government can be found in other collections at the Truman Library. Information about the Service case can be found in the papers of John Stewart Service and Charles Rhetts. This collection contains information about Service’s legal challenges to his dismissal, and reports from hearings before Congress about his case. General information on McCarthyism is located in a Student Research File entitled “President Truman’s Confrontation with McCarthyism.” The Confidential File of the White House Central Files of the Harry S. Truman Papers contains information on Truman’s creation of the Loyalty Review Board itself. Information pertaining more particularly to Service and the Loyalty Review Board can be found in the oral history interviews of John Stewart Service, Arthur S. Flemming, Donald Hansen, Walter H. Judd, Stephen J. Spingarn, and Dr. Arthur N. Young.

[ Top of the page | Administrative Information | Biographical Sketch | Collection Description | Series Descriptions | Folder Title List ]

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