Service, John Stewart and Rhetts, Charles Edward Papers

United States Foreign Service Officer, 1935-1951, 1957-1962

The papers of John Stewart Service and Charles Edward Rhetts include a wealth of materials relating to and documenting John S. Service's experiences with loyalty investigations during the 1950s. The collection also represents the work of Charles E. Rhetts, Service's attorney during his loyalty hearings and in the aftermath of his discharge from the U.S. Foreign Service. The collection's one series, a Subject File arranged alphabetically, includes documentation accumulated by Service and Rhetts during Service's loyalty hearings, his dismissal from the U.S. Foreign Service, and the ensuing court cases seeking reinstatement and correction of Service's record. Principally, the collection contains copies of Service's and Rhetts's correspondence, legal and government documents, and newspaper articles pertaining to the Service case. Other documents found in the collection are memoranda, press releases, transcripts, printed material, handwritten notes, and various publications relating to the Service case.

Size: 1.6 linear feet (approximately 3,200 pages).
Access: Open.
Copyright: Mrs. Ruth F. Rhetts, wife and heir of the late Charles E. Rhetts, and John S. Service donated their copyright interest in any unpublished writings in this collection to the United States Government. Documents prepared by United States Government employees in the course of their official duties are also in the public domain. Copyright interest in documents which do not fall into the above categories is presumed to remain with the writers of their documents, or their heirs.
Processed by: Erwin J. Mueller (May 1977)
Updated by: Marcia Kottemann (2004) as part of the Truman Library Internship Program.
Supervising Archivists: Randy Sowell and Amy Williams.

The Papers of John Stewart Service and Charles Edward Rhetts document John S. Service’s experiences with loyalty hearings, his dismissal from the U.S. Foreign Service, and the various court cases which ensued. Following his involvement in the Amerasia incident of 1945, Service underwent a series of investigations by the State Department, all of which pronounced Service to be a loyal U.S. Government employee. Accusations from Senator Joseph McCarthy, however, incited another hearing before the Loyalty Review Board in 1951. The Review Board ruled there was “reasonable doubt” concerning Service’s loyalty and he was subsequently discharged in late 1951. Following this action, Service and Rhetts appealed the State Department’s decision to dismiss Service in Service v. Bingham, et al. (also entitled Service v. Dulles, et al.). The men fought for Service’s eventual reinstatement into the Foreign Service with back pay and benefits. In 1957, Service was reinstated as a Foreign Service officer as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Service v. Dulles, et al.

The Papers of Service and Rhetts thoroughly document the men’s legal activities during Service’s loyalty investigations and the appeals process. During this time, Service and Rhetts accumulated many materials pertaining to the Service case, including correspondence, legal and government documents, newspaper clippings, memoranda, press releases, transcripts, printed material (primarily articles and editorials), handwritten notes, telegrams, transcripts of Service’s hearings and court cases, and various publications. The collection includes correspondence with prominent liberals such as Edward F. Prichard, Jr. and Joseph L. Rauh, Jr. (who assisted Service and Rhetts in their legal efforts), and information concerning donations to a fund that was established to help pay Service’s legal expenses. The majority of the correspondence and legal documents are carbon copies of originals.

The collection spans the period from Service’s involvement in the Amerasia case in 1945; through Senator McCarthy’s original accusation of Service’s disloyalty in 1950, basing his claim on evidence from the Amerasia incident to infer that Service was pro-communist; through Service’s retirement from the Foreign Service in 1963. Most of the documentation, however, falls between 1950 and 1957, detailing the loyalty hearings and the Service v. Dulles, et al. appeals case. The collection measures 1.6 linear feet (approximately 3,200 pages). The entire collection is organized into one series, a Subject File, which is arranged alphabetically according to folder title.

One of the most notable features of this collection is the high concentration of newspaper clippings concerning the Service case as well as documents connected to Service and Rhetts’s legal activities. The newspaper clippings, gathered as the Service case progressed, are useful in understanding public reaction to the Amerasia incident, Service’s loyalty hearings, and the rash of communist accusations associated with McCarthyism. The bulk of these newspaper clippings date from 1950 and 1951. Similarly, the collection contains a good deal of relevant legal and government documents, including transcripts of Service’s 1951 hearing before the Loyalty Review Board and the later appeals case, Service v. Dulles, et al. before the Supreme Court. Additionally, Service and Rhetts collected and compiled all pertinent sections of the Congressional Record, which can be found in several locations within the collection. As a result, much of the official documentation of the Service proceedings is centralized and easily accessible.

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. 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 Arthur S. Flemming, Donald Hansen, Walter H. Judd, Stephen J. Spingarn, and Dr. Arthur N. Young.