Yet the ultimate control
of funds cannot be removed from the legislature. The financial
arrangement should insure the staff against left-handed, joker and
rider attack, against sly destruction, and should at the same time
provide for growth. The staff should be so well entrenched that an
attack on its existence would have to be made in the open. It might,
perhaps, work behind a federal charter creating a trust fund, and a
sliding scale over a period of years based on the appropriation for
the department to which the intelligence bureau belonged. No great
sums of money are involved anyway. The trust fund might cover the
overhead and capital charges for a certain minimum staff, the sliding
scale might cover the enlargements. At any rate the appropriation
should be put beyond accident, like the payment of any long term
obligation. This is a much less serious way of "tying the hands of
Congress" than is the passage of a Constitutional amendment or the
issuance of government bonds. Congress could repeal the charter. But
it would have to repeal it, not throw monkey wrenches into it.
Tenure should be for life, with provision for retirement on a liberal
pension, with sabbatical years set aside for advanced study and
training, and with dismissal only after a trial by professional
colleagues. The conditions which apply to any non-profit-making
intellectual career should apply here.
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