Talk:Federal Security Agency

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Cabinet-level status[edit]

Despite a lot of searching through historical documents, I can find no evidence for the unsourced claim that the FSA or its directors were considered to be Cabinet-level. This article already cites FDR's Reorganization Plan No. 1 establishing the FSA, so the conspicuous absence of any mention of Cabinet-level status is as authoritative as we're likely to get. The already-cited oral history interview of Oscar Ewing, a director of the FSA, also makes no claim to Cabinet rank, and some of his statements ("I know the President hoped to make it a Cabinet position.") imply the contrary. Likewise, a full-length biography of FSA director Oveta Culp Hobby (“Oveta Culp Hobby: Colonel, Cabinet Member, Philanthropist” by Debra L. Winegarten, p. 107; https://books.google.com/books?id=C1zIAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA107) says she didn't gain Cabinet status until the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) was created; if she had held Cabinet-level status while FSA director, surely some contemporary observer would have commented on the notable fact that she became only the second woman with Cabinet rank. When the heads of agencies such as EPA and Small Business Administration are given Cabinet rank, this is widely reflected in news reporting and official government statements, yet a review of the Washington Post archives shows nothing similar for the FSA. On the contrary, when contemporary news reports addressed the FSA's status at all, it was in the negative, such as this line from a Washington Post article on Sep. 9, 1945, about the resignation of FSA director Paul McNutt: "Technically speaking, the head of Federal Security has not been a member of the Cabinet."

I'm therefore removing the unsourced claim from this article and the Cabinet article. Because I've cited the agency's founding document, the first-hand statement of one of its directors, and a survey of contemporary news reports, please do not reinsert this claim without citing sources that are equally authoritative. RCTodd (talk) 16:46, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]