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That March, in a bid to steal the [[GOP]]'s thunder,<ref>[[#refOlmstead02|Olmstead 2002]]: 114</ref> Truman enacted a "[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/executiveorders/index.php?pid=502 loyalty program]"—despite which, according to [[State Department]] security files, there were still [http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page62.html 108 cases] there the following autumn.
That March, in a bid to steal the [[GOP]]'s thunder,<ref>[[#refOlmstead02|Olmstead 2002]]: 114</ref> Truman enacted a "[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/executiveorders/index.php?pid=502 loyalty program]"—despite which, according to [[State Department]] security files, there were still [http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page62.html 108 cases] there the following autumn.
Even before the [[#refBentleyGJ|grand jury]] convened, the [[FBI]] learned that the [[Harry S. Truman|Truman]] administration, acutely aware that "an untimely public disclosure about Hiss could easily have torpedoed Truman's hopes for the 1948 Presidential election,"<ref>Charles Stuart Kennedy, [http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?mfdip:2:./temp/~ammem_GoLZ:: Interview with Thomas L. Hughes], Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, July 7, 1999</ref> was planning to subvert the grand jury process in order to cover up the [[USSR|Soviet]] penetration problem.<ref>One FBI memo would report that [[Harry S. Truman|Truman]] [[Department of Justice|Justice]] wanted the FBI to interview the [[Elizabeth Bentley|Bentley]] suspects, with an eye to “presenting the evidence to a grand jury with the idea of letting them [http://www.answers.com/topic/no-bill no bill] the case. Further that in the event [http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=T000175 Congressman Thomas] of the [[HUAC|Un-American Committee]] should ever [http://clerk.house.gov/art_history/highlights.html?action=view&intID=169 raise a question], it would be possible to answer by saying that the grand jury had considered the evidence and it had not deemed it sufficient to justify criminal action.” (FBI file: Hiss-Chambers, Vol. 96)</ref> The grand jury sat for nearly a year (July 22, 1947 to July 20, 1948), during which the Justice Department never called Whittaker Chambers to testify. Without his testimony, the grand jury had no corroboration of Bentley. As a result, it did not indict a single federal employee for espionage; instead, Truman Justice obtained indictments of the open leaders of the above-ground [[Communist Party]]—not for espionage, but for violations of the [[Smith Act]].<ref>[[#refEvans07|Evans 2007]]: 171, fn</ref>
Even before the [[#refBentleyGJ|grand jury]] convened, the [[FBI]] learned that the [[Harry S. Truman|Truman]] administration, acutely aware that "an untimely public disclosure about Hiss could easily have torpedoed Truman's hopes for the 1948 Presidential election,"<ref>Charles Stuart Kennedy, [http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?mfdip:2:./temp/~ammem_GoLZ:: Interview with Thomas L. Hughes], Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, July 7, 1999</ref> conspired to subvert the grand jury process in order to cover up the [[USSR|Soviet]] penetration problem.<ref>One FBI memo reports that [[Harry S. Truman|Truman]] [[Department of Justice|Justice]] wanted the FBI to interview the [[Elizabeth Bentley|Bentley]] suspects, with an eye to “presenting the evidence to a grand jury with the idea of letting them [http://www.answers.com/topic/no-bill no bill] the case. Further that in the event [http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=T000175 Congressman Thomas] of the [[HUAC|Un-American Committee]] should ever [http://clerk.house.gov/art_history/highlights.html?action=view&intID=169 raise a question], it would be possible to answer by saying that the grand jury had considered the evidence and it had not deemed it sufficient to justify criminal action.” (FBI file: Hiss-Chambers, Vol. 96)</ref> The grand jury sat for nearly a year (July 22, 1947 to July 20, 1948), during which the Justice Department never called Whittaker Chambers to testify. Without his testimony, the grand jury had no corroboration of Bentley. As a result, it did not indict a single federal employee for espionage; instead, Truman Justice obtained indictments of the open leaders of the above-ground [[Communist Party]]—not for espionage, but for violations of the [[Smith Act]].<ref>[[#refEvans07|Evans 2007]]: 171, fn</ref>
The [[Republican]] Congress responded by opening its own investigation of espionage suspects including [[Lauchlin Currie]], [[Harry Dexter White]] and Hiss. The [[Democrat]] Truman stonewalled, issuing a Presidential Directive that cut Congress off from all access to FBI and other information on loyalty or security cases:
The [[Republican]] Congress responded by opening its own investigation of espionage suspects including [[Lauchlin Currie]], [[Harry Dexter White]] and Hiss. The [[Democrat]] Truman stonewalled, issuing a Presidential Directive that cut Congress off from all access to FBI and other information on loyalty or security cases: