Meet Mrs. Shipley
posted by Jeffrey Kahn
Is it sensible to analogize between the first decade of the War on Terror and the first decade of the Cold War? What lessons can we draw from the comparison? I am finishing a manuscript to be published by the University of Michigan Press with the working title International Travel, National Security, and the Constitution in War and Peace. In the book, I plan to defend this analogy, at least when it comes to the role travel restrictions have played in the national security policies of that time and our own.
Some officials and experts whom I’ve interviewed for this project thinks that this is a bad idea! They point to differences they perceive between terrorism, al Qaeda, and asymmetrical warfare on the one hand, and communism, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War balance of power on the other. But I also think that their reluctance to embrace the analogy is partly driven by the disconcerting feeling that it teaches the wrong lesson. Maybe we over-reacted then, they sometimes concede, but we are certainly not over-reacting now. Whatever shadows we boxed during the Red Scare, terrorism today is the real deal.
I’m keeping the analogy as a core feature of my book because I think that history has a lot to teach us. Back then, very thoughtful people were certain that communism was a clear and present danger that required extraordinary measures to defeat. The issue isn’t the objective merit of the threat assessment, but how we react to the threats we perceive. After the break, I’ll give you a taste of this analogy by way of introducing Mrs. Ruth Shipley, whom Time magazine described in 1951 as: “the most invulnerable, most unfirable, most feared and most admired career woman in Government.” Not only was she powerful, she was also one of a very small cohort of women to rise to the commanding heights of power in the Washington of her day. Here she is receiving the Distinguished Service Medal from John Foster Dulles:
Mrs. Shipley was the chief of the State Department’s Passport Division from 1928 to 1955. She had the power to grant, restrict, and revoke passports. Her word was law, since prior to the Supreme Court’s opinion in Kent v. Dulles in 1958, the decisions of her office were unreviewable in a court of law. That’s why Dean Acheson referred to the Passport Division as Mrs. Shipley’s “Queendom of Passports” and noted her “almost absolute power to decide who might leave and enter the country.” If Mrs. Shipley wrote you a letter that said your travel is “not in the interests of the United States,” you stayed put. Just like William O. Douglas, W.E.B. DuBois, Arthur Miller, Paul Robeson and many others.
In many ways, I think that Mrs. Shipley’s Passport Division was the paper-and-rubber stamp precursor to today’s sophisticated, digital systems of controlling international travel. Consider, for example, the digital “Secure Flight” program, which is operated by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Secure Flight, once fully rolled out, will check the name, gender, and date of birth of every would-be air traveler against government watchlists. You’ve probably already experienced it if you fly on American Airlines. You won’t receive a boarding pass unless TSA gives the all-clear. Or you may find yourself subject to heightened scrutiny at the ticket counter, security lane, or at the gate. If the government determines that your travel raises a red flag — even if every physical search of your bags and person gives you a green light — you’re grounded.
Just as Mrs. Shipley decided whether to issue the passport required for international travel, the TSA determines who may board aircraft (and maritime vessels, too, I should add). But twenty-first century technology and attitudes have worked some significant changes. Here are three:
(1) Mrs. Shipley was the single, identifiable source of a traveler’s cut-short itinerary. Today’s watchlists are classified, originate from multiple agencies, and decisions based upon them are made by anonymous officials.
(2) Mrs. Shipley made most of her decisions in the Winder Building located across the street from the White House and the Old Executive Office Building. She was a well-known Washington presence. The Terrorist Screening Center, which manages the watchlists for TSA and other agencies, has operated since its inception in a secret, undisclosed location somewhere in Northern Virginia. (One official told me this will change soon and was driven by security concerns, although none apparently bothered Mrs. Shipley during WWII or the Cold War.)
(3) Mrs. Shipley heard and responded to all complaints. You could even meet with her in person (though it scarcely ever did any good). Today, citizens who are denied boarding passes are not supposed to be told whether their names appear on a watchlist. Instead, frustrated travelers are directed to a Department of Homeland Security website to complete an electronic complaint form. That form is then reviewed by unspecified officials whose criteria and decisionmaking methods are classified.
Mrs. Shipley’s power came from the need to fight, in the words of the Internal Security Act of 1950, “a world-wide revolutionary movement whose purpose it is, by treachery, deceit, infiltration into other groups (governmental and otherwise), espionage, sabotage, terrorism, and any other means deemed necessary, to establish a Communist totalitarian dictatorship in the countries throughout the world through the medium of a world-wide Communist organization.” Stopping this threat was national security priority number one.
Mrs. Shipley’s role was to stop citizens suspected of communist sympathies from travel that was “not in the interests of the United States.” Today, Mrs. Shipley’s digital equivalent is the watchlist known as the No Fly List. The No Fly List is not just about the physical safety of air travellers. That was the FAA’s old standard, which limited its security directives to refuse boarding only when there was a specific and credible threat to a partiuclar aircraft (You can read how well that went over with the 9/11 Commission beginning on the bottom of page 26 of this transcript). It is also now intended to be used as part of our efforts to disrupt a world-wide terrorist movement. In other words, it is Mrs. Shipley’s task, digitized.
So, what do you think of the analogy?
January 25, 2010 at 10:53 am
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Responses (2)
Adam Shostack - January 26, 2010 at 8:50 am
I think it’s a fascinating analogy, but gives far too much credit to al Qaeda, who pay even less attention to the law of war than Uncle Joe, and pose far less of a threat to the survival of the United States.
Ken Rhodes - January 26, 2010 at 2:19 pm
I, like Adam, think think it’s a fascinating analogy, but I think it gives far too much credit to the TSA. Mrs. Shipley, so far as we can determine from this article, was an earnest and hard working person, applying her human judgment in furtherance of a national objective in which she believed, for which she exerted considerable effort and attention, and for which she publicly accepted responsibility.
And Mrs. Shipley heard and responded to all complaints. You could even meet with her in person, though it seldom changed her mind.
Objectives aside, any analogy to today’s TSA cluster%&@ck is totally spurious, and does the esteemed Mrs. Shipley a great disservice.
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