Executive Order 9835 Establishes Federal Loyalty Program - 5 Million Screened, Guilt Presumed

President Harry S. Truman signs Executive Order 9835 on March 21, 1947, nine days after announcing the Truman Doctrine, establishing the first general loyalty program in United States history designed to root out Communist influence in the federal government. The order mandates loyalty investigations of every person entering civilian employment in any executive branch department or agency, and provides for removal of “disloyal” employees. Though Truman initially resists such a program fearing threats to civil liberties, Republican congressional gains in the 1946 midterm elections and growing anti-Communist hysteria pressure him to act.

The Civil Service Commission receives responsibility for conducting investigations of current employees and working with agencies to form loyalty boards. Investigators gain full access to FBI files, military and naval intelligence records, criminal files, House Un-American Activities Committee materials, academic transcripts, and records from past employers. Between 1948 and 1958, the FBI conducts initial reviews of 4.5 million government employees and runs annual screenings of another 500,000 applicants for government positions. During the loyalty-security program’s peak years from 1947 to 1956, over five million federal workers undergo screening, resulting in an estimated 2,700 dismissals and 12,000 resignations.

The program proves uneven and subjective rather than objective, often forcing individuals to prove innocence in the face of assumed guilt - reversing the fundamental American legal principle of presumption of innocence. Executive Order 9835 becomes the main impetus for creation of the Attorney General’s List of Subversive Organizations (AGLOSO), which becomes central to the Second Red Scare known collectively as McCarthyism. Both the order and AGLOSO are established more than two years before Senator Joseph McCarthy’s first allegations of Communist infiltration in early 1950.

The loyalty program expands federal surveillance capabilities and establishes the precedent that government employment requires political conformity and ideological screening. This framework enables systematic purging of liberal and left-wing voices from federal service, weakening labor advocates, civil rights supporters, and critics of corporate power within government. Truman later admits the Loyalty Program was “a sound idea that spiraled out of control during the midst of the Second Red Scare.” The program demonstrates how national security rhetoric can justify mass surveillance and suppression of political dissent, establishing patterns that persist through COINTELPRO, post-9/11 surveillance expansion, and contemporary security clearance processes.