Archive Report
Archive Report
Passports, Newsmen, and Foreign Travel
Controversy Over Right of Newsmen to Visit China
State department objections, now apparently weakening, to granting passports to newsmen for travel to Red China have put a new angle on a running controversy over the government's power to limit foreign travel by American citizens. There have been numerous cases of late in which not only press representatives but also individuals of leftist bent have been unable to obtain the prescribed travel documents. In each case the Secretary of State has exercised only the long-accepted right to treat the issuance or withholding of passports as a matter within the discretion of the Executive Branch.
Decisions of lower federal courts have tended for some time to put certain bounds on the Secretary's authority in ...