Wartime information agencies

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WARTIME INFORMATION AGENCIES

A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the School of Government University of Southern California

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Public Administration

by Ernest Albert Foster June, 19b-2

UMI Number: EP64452

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T h i s thesis, w r i t t e n by

ERNEST ALBERT FOSTER u n d e r the d i r e c t i o n o f h .^ 3 F a c u l t y C o m m i t t e e , a n d a p p r o v e d by a l l it s m e m b e r s , has been presented to a n d accepted by the C o u n c i l on G r a d u a t e S t u d y a n d Research in p a r t i a l f u l f i l l ­ m e n t o f th e r e q u i r e m e j i t s f o r t h e d e g r e e o f

HASTER..-OF..SOIENOH..2N..P.IIBIiIQ..ADMINISTRATION#

Secretary D a te ..

To Mary, My Wife

TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER

PAGE

I. IN WAR, CENSORSHIP OR PUBLICITY?. . . . . . . .

1

Introductory discussion . . . .

..............

1

Explanation of the problems .

...............

4

.............

8

Scope of the study

II. INFORMATION IN EARLIER W A R S ........................ 10 Revolutionary war news-gathering

.............

10

Influence of colonial newspapers

. . ........

11

Sedition act of 1798 Covering the Civil war

*

.............. . . . . .

Abuse of press privileges

12

.............

..............

. .

13 llj.

Less freedom in the s o u t h .................... l 6 Critical judgment ..............................

l6

Suppression of newspapers .....................

17

Tighter restrictions in Spanish-American war

,

Pre-World war attempts to work out a. censorship p l a n ............................... XII. WORLD WAR

18 20

C E N S O R S H I P ..........................

22

British

censorship affects U . S .................

22

Pre-war

censorship moves' . . .

23

History

of the Espionage a c t ................. 24

.................

Censorship by executive order ........

. . . .

25

Sedition a c t ................................. 29 The censorship board

.........................

30

ii Postal c e n s o r s h i p ................. - ............

31

Censorship of soldiers and sailors

. . . . . .

35

Restrictions on war correspondents

...........

35

.............

37

...............

38

Criticism of World wa^ censorship \

Carryover of press restrictions

IV. A M E RI CA 1S "PROPAGANDA MINISTRY" * .

ip

Need of a coordinating agency *................

ii.1

Varied activities of the CPI

* .

...........

k-2

Organization of the committee

•

.............

44

. . . . . . . . . . .

4?

News division activities

The voluntary censorship'plan ..................

48

Objections to voluntary c e n s o r s h i p ...........

53-

Effect of censorship l a w s ......................

53

Criticism of C r e e l ...............

53

Propaganda w o r k ...............................

.

V. GROWTH OF INFORMATION S E R V I C E S .................. The proposed public relations administration

.

55 57 57

Office of information of the department of agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

58

Information services mushroom ..................

60

The size of information u n i t s ...........

63

Function of the information dispensers

. . . .

VI. THE NEWSPAPERMENf3 P R E S I D E N T .............

65 67

White house No. 1 news s o u r c e ..................

67

The presidents and the press-

68

...............

iii The press- conference s t a r t e d ................... 69 Hoover's three news classifications ...........

71

The "newspapermen's p r e s i d e n t * "

72

. .

Wartime press conferences' * ...................

74

The president's press secretary ...............

77

Cabinet press sessions

78

. . . . . . . . . . . .

VII. WAR ACTION NEWS FROM THE A R M Y ......................80 Army public relations reorganized . . . . . . .

80

Bureau of public relations

81

Press relations

...

.............

........... p. . . . .

.

83

Army officers* and the p u b l i c ................... 85 Camp n e w s p a p e r s .................................. 86 Communiques behind the s c e n e s .................

86

........

88

New public relations policy . . . . . VIII. NEWS FROM THE N A V Y .....................

90

Organization of the office of public relations

9°

. . . . . . . . .

91

Conflicts over voluntary censorship . . . . . .

92

Wartime operation of voluntary censorship . . .

94

Voluntary censorship started

............... 96

IX. OFFICE OF GOVERNMENT REPORTS Purposes of the OGR

. .

96

Press intelligence section

................... 98

Division of field operations

.................

99

The U.S. information s e r v i c e .................

100

Relationship to newspapers

...

............. 10 0

iv Opposition to the O G R ................ t. . . . . X. WAR PRODUCTION PRESS RELEASES .

102

................. 107

The OEEf division of information . . . . . . . .

108

News releases * .......... * ..................... 109 Publications

..................................

XI. AGENCIES OF POLITICAL W A R F A R E Purposes of the Coordinator of Information

110 .

112

. .

112

A specialist in information . . ................. 113 Short-wave listening posts

...................

Sifting broadcasts for information

........

Counterpropaganda . . . . . .

114 .

114

. . . .

'115

Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs ........

117

XII. GUARDIAN OF DOMESTIC MORALE .....................

120

The real coordinator of i n f o r m a t i o n ..........

120

Confusion over functions of the O F F ............. 120 Wartime efforts to bolster morale at home . . .

123

Censorship of speeches

125

Other activities

. . . . . . . .

„ . . .

.............................. 126

The OFF intelligence b u r e a u ......................127 MacLeish’s position in the information setup

.

128 130

•XIII. OFFICE OF C E N S O R S H I P ................. Functions of the office . . . . . . . . . . . .

130

Censorship at the source

131

. . . . . . . . . . .

Censorship code for newspapers Operation of the codes

............... I32

...................

.

llpD

XIV, A WARTIME INFORMATION PROGRAM ................... Other war information agencies

...............

Proposed centralization of information func­ tions ....................... ................ Increasing criticism of existing setup

. . . *

Abuses’ of legitimate informational functions

:

Danger to independent reporting ............... How much c e n s o r s h i p ? ......................... Suggested principles for a wartime information policy „ . . . •............... . ............ The problem of criticism

.............

Dangers in administering censorship . . . . . . BIBLIOGRAPHY

...........................................

CHAPTER I IN WAR,

CENSORSHIP OR PUBLICITY?

When Japanese airplanes zoomed down on Pearl Harbor December 7> 19^1» to blast United States warships at anchor in the naval base and to destroy army and navy aircraft in adjacent hangars,

they caught the American personnel com>-

pletely by surprise.

Not so the various information agen­

cies of the federal government.

Within minutes after the

first Nipponese dive bombers had thundered over Marble Head and broken the Sunday morning Hawaiian calm, these agencies were at work on the difficult dual problem of suppressing data of military worth to the enemy and of releasing other wartime information to the people as quickly and accurately as possible. Introductory discussion.

By December 7 censorship

and a controlled flow of information were an old story to American newspapers and their readers.

As soon as the pres­

ident and congress in 1939 k ac3 determined a national policy of all-out assistance to nations fighting the aggressor Axis powers, both American armed services began' imposition of an increasingly rigid suppression of facts at the source. And a year before the Japanese attack the secretary of the navy--a former newspaper publisher— had requested the vol­ untary cooperation of editors in keeping certain types of

2

stories out of print. was inevitable.

Confusion under this voluntary policy

Even nine months before entrance of the

United states into World War II the reporter for a daily published in Portsmouth, N.H., site of a naval base, voiced the bewilderment and weariness of scores of other writers and editors at censorship practices when he wrote: SHH i- -DON *T TELL A SOUL ABOUT THIS--WE HAVE A NAVY1 . This is a sad story. Today at a navy yard in an unnamed town something is being done to a submarine. We ca nft tell you what because if we said that the submarine was being com­ missioned the enemy would know that the submarine would have a crew and in that case the enemy would not go on believing that American submarines operate without crews which is of course a great saving to the taxpayers. We can't show you a picture of the submarine ei­ ther because if we did the enemy would know what a submarine looks like and if the enemy were to know that a submarine were long and sleek they might be more careful instead of trying to feed it like a pet whale. We have to be careful about these matters because the enemy is very tricky. We can't even tell you the name of the enemy because if we did the enemy might find out who it is and ^et mad at us.^ Similar uncertainty in operations of information agencies arose from vagueness of authority and overwhelming complexity of the national defense and war effort. President Roosevelt juggled his prewar administration a number of tiraes--by supplementing the Council of National Defense with the Office of Production Management, by topping that with

^•Portsmouth (N.H.) Herald, cited in Editor and Pub­ lisher. 7^:10 (March 8 , 19^1), p. l4*

3 the Supply Priorities and Allocations Board, and finally by creating an omnipotent War Production Board— before he un­ covered a winning combination to speed output of defense and war materials.

In the same manner the chief executive es­

tablished central information agencies with perplexing ra­ pidity. It all started in 1939 when the president formed the Office of Government Reports to take the place of the old National Emergency Council as an information clearing house, supplementing the activities of the publicity offices for the individual government departments and independent units. Awakening to a realization of the value of favorable tax­ payer reaction, the army and navy created offices of public relations only a few months before American entry into the war.

Also in 1941 came three new central information agen-

cies--the Office of the Coordinator of Information, the Office of Facts and Figures, and the Office of Censorship. MH e r e fs where we get OFF , 11 punned a New York He raid-Tribune: writer in an editorial.commenting upon creation of the Office of Facts and Figures: Here, obviously, is the answer to the prayers of a bewildered people. The Office of Facts and Figures, or OFF, will coordinate the Office of Coordinator of Information, or OCI, report on the Office of Govern­ ment Reports (the frequent reference to this as OGRE is just a typographical error), press-agent the in­ numerable Press Agents of the Individual Departments (often called the PAIDS) and will under no circum­ stances do anything whatever that anybody else is

doing already. ...When the Office of•Utter Confusion and Hyste­ ria (to he referred to as OUCH) has finally been cre­ ated, then the capstone ?/ill have been set upon the pyramid and we can all die happy, strangled in the very best red tape.**Explanation of the problems.

In carrying out their

activities in suppressing certain facts and obtaining wide­ spread publicity for other information, the federal agencies performed duties vital to the free people of a democracy. A nation cannot win a war by allowing enemies access to de­ fense secrets and war plans.

Just as obviously World War II

and the preparations for it constituted one of the greatest news stories of all time and had to be reported in full to the public. Here is an administrative problem as well as a mat­ ter of policy determination.

Where shall the line be drawn

between censorship and publicity?

What constitutes infor­

mation that will "aid or comfort" the enemy?

How much is

the public entitled to know about activities of the army, navy, and other government departments that it supports with its tax payments?

Once congress has laid down the gen­

eral outline of information policy, the administrative de­ tails of working it into a practicable system of day-by-day operation form a severe national headache.

Bo insurmounta­

ble did these difficulties become during American participa-

^Editorial in the New York Herald Tribune, October 9,

tion in World War I that George Creel, who as chairman of the Committee on Public Information was both chief censor and head press agent for the government,, commented 20 years after the war: For two years I rode herd on the press, trying to enforce the concealments demanded by the army and navy. Two long, hectic years, and at the end of the disastrous experiment I fell to me knees and offered up a fervent prayer that just as I had been America’s first official censor so would I live in history as the last.*** Yet even Creel admitted in the same article the ne­ cessity for concealing certain types of military data that would be of definite use to the enemy.

A similar need for

some sort of restriction upon freedom of newspapers to print any and all information arose during the months preceding the Pearl Harbor attack in 194-1*

For two years the prospect

of a conflict-between the United States and the Axis nations was becoming increasingly inevitable.

But during that peri­

od newspapers and magazines in the United States exercised little caution in printing articles and illustrations dis­ closing facts that undoubtedly proved of value to represen­ tatives of countries that regarded themselves as potential belligerents actively fighting Americans. Many editors, for instance, printed aerial photo­ graphs of military camps, airports, defense factories, and iGeorge Creel, ”The Plight of the Last Censor,m Col­ li ers\ 107:24- (May 24-» 1941)» P* 13*

similar objects.

Pictures of training camps showed "the

exact location of camp hospitals, division headquarters, roads, warehouses, and the names of the regiments occupying the various barracks *

Not all photographs were the work

of civilian photographers or news picture services.

Several

\

were taken by army air corps or signal corps photographers. One birdfs-eye view covered the 50 square miles of the army camp at Fort Bragg, N.C*

The air field, the heavy artillery

area, the anti-aircraft group, the hospital, and the motor­ ized artillery were indicated clearly.

A half-page diagram

in a Maine newspaper depicting the Bangor airport gave the location of every building and exact length of the runways. A detailed map of a $61^1,000 defense project at Evansville, Ind., appeared in another newspaper.

It revealed the high­

ways, the railway, and measurements of runways.

A St. Louis

daily published a double-page rotogravure map of the city disclosing the location of plants holding defense material contracts.

Another newspaper printed a map of the site of a

$5,000,000 blast furnace along the Ohio river and indicated the location of ore storage, the porter generation plant, the mold-making shop, and the railroad yards. Without question such data are of military value to ^-Arthur Robb, “Shop Talk, at Thirty," Editor and Pub­ lisher, 7^:20 (May 17, 1941)., p. 40. The indiscretions of editors that follow are summarized from the same article.

enemies of the nation, especially to saboteur agents and to fifth columnists in the event of an invasion attempt.

It

can be assumed that these pictorial- guides and countless similar examples were noted by representatives of unfriendly nations for possible future use.

Each of the illustrations

mentioned, however, had great news interest to the community where it appeared. legitimate news?

When does such material cease to be When do.es it convey valuable military in­

formation? If military leaders whose minds have mired in tradi­ tion are to prevail, then absolute secrecy must shroud all land and sea moves.

News of reverses must either be mini­

mized or eliminated.

Victories must receive prominence..

The public should never criticize the military judgment. There are evidences that this traditional "military mind" »•

is becoming obsolete in the face of increasing recognition of the contribution: that well-planned publicity can make to defense preparations and war.

Today*s war is an all-out

effort on the part of the entire population.

Public coop­

eration comes not through coercion but through a clear un ­ derstanding of objectives and procedures. The army and navy seem to be going through the same transition that many large private business enterprises have pass’ed.

It is only in recent years that private business

has abandoned its "public /be damned* policy.

It probably

8

w o n !t be many years until the armed services do likewise and adopt an enlightened and sympathetic attitude toward civil­ ians*

In that case the army and navy would give all their

officers courses in public relations and not alio?/ them to blast away in the manner that Lieutenant General John L. Dewitt, commander of the western defense area, did in San Francisco a couple of days after the war started.

His state­

ments following should be considered in the light of the fact that w?ar had broken suddenly and that residents were complete­ ly unprepared for emergency action: We will never have a practice alert* We will: never call an alert unless we believe an attack is imminent. If I can't knock these facts into your heads with words, I will have to turn you over to the police to let them knock them into you with clubs... I almost wish we could have pulled the switch in San Francisco last night because (referring to con­ stant telephone calls) there are more damned fools in this locality than I have ever seen...I say it's none of their damn business. Scope of the study.

The succeeding chapters are a

critical analysis of the various federal government agencies primarily charged with the responsibility of issuing and sup­ pressing information about America's participation in World War II.

They begin with a historical sketch of how the gov­

ernment handled information during the Revolutionary, Civil, and Spanish-American wars.

Censorship laws adopted during

World War I are treated in detail, since they are still on ^United Press report in Los Angeles Times, December 1 0 , 1941 .

9 the statute hooks and form the basis for censorship in the second world conflict.

Full description is presented of

George Creel's Committee on Public Information during World War I because of its effective organization for distribution of news and propaganda and because subsequent agencies pat­ terned their setups after the CPI.

The various present-day

information agencies receive separate consideration. The writer has avoided overemphasizing censorship. This does not mean that he ignores the subject.

The temp­

tation to treat the fascinating problem of censorship at full length was great, particularly in view of its timeliness dur­ ing the war and its importance to a democracy.

But censor­

ship is largely a matter to be determined by the policyforming bodies and the military leaders.

A discussion giving

censorship a distorted emphasis would not be appropriate here. The v/riter attempts to confine his presentation to a critical explanation of organizational and administrative problems found in government information agencies.

CHAPTER I I

INFORMATION IN EARLIER WARS When men are not afraid, they are not afraid of ideas; when they are much afraid, they are afraid of anything that seems, or can even he made to appear, seditious.^ Nothing brings out the truth of Walter Lippmanfs ob­ servation better than a backward glance into the history of the wartime relationship between the United States government and the press* Revolutionary war news-gathering *

Newspapers of the

Revolutionary war period were not the well-organized and im­ partial news-gatherers that they are today* mostly printers. political tracts.

Publishers were

Contributors were essayists and authors of Modern concepts of objectivity in obtain­

ing and writing news* had not developed*

Although the war for

independence was the big story of the day, there was no or­ ganized coverage of it, and no newspaper was able to print a comprehensive summary of war activities.

One historian

points out; It may seem incredible that newspapers...relied almost wholly on the chance arrival of private let­ ters and of official and semi-official messages. They filled their news columns, to a large extent, with clippings from other newspapers--foreign papers and colonia.1 exchanges--and those papers had accumu-

IWalter Lippman, Liberty and the News * New York; Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920, p. 29*

11

lated their own news In the same haphazard way.-*Influence of colonial newspapers.

With the war mak­

ing the news-gathering problem more complex and interfering with normal communication, it is a little surprising that newspapers could exert much influence upon their limited lists of subscribers.

Yet most students of the Revolutiona­

ry war movement agree that the newspapers and political pam­ phlets were strong factors in consolidating public opinion and causing the break with England.

The political essays

became more daring in their criticism of British actions directed against the colonies.

When governors and judges

representing the crown attempted to suppress newspapers, they found a lack of sympathy on the part of the public and grand juries. The principal repression of newspapers came not from enforcement of laws but from activities of mobs or from threats of revolutionary groups.

Newspapers that sympathized

with the independence drive were free from these pressures. Those that favored the Tory side felt the effects of mob ac­ tion.

Out of the more than 100 newspapers that either were

in existence at the start of the war or were started during the six arid a half years of conflict, only 15 ever had Tory sympathies.^ 3*Frank Luther Mott, American Journalism. New York: Macmillan, 19lj-l, p. 992-Ibid., p. 9 5 .

12

Political expressions of newspaper contributors played a vital role in bringing about the adoption of the freedom of expression guarantee in the Bill of Rights. This pledge--the first araendment--is worth recalling; Congress shall make no law respecting an estab­ lishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exer­ cise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assembly, and to petition the government for re­ dress of grievances* Sedition act of 1798.

Only

o r jc e

during peacetime

has congress’ or the executive branch of the government at­ tempted to abridge freedom of the press.

This move came in

enactment of the Alien and Sedition acts of 179^. here there was a threat of war with France.

And even

The Sedition

act provided:; ...that if any person shall write, print, utter or publish...any false, scandalous and malicious writing or ?/ritings against the government of the United States, or either house of the congress...or the president••.with intent to defame the said gov­ ernment... or to bring them...into contempt or disre­ pute; or to excite against them...the hatred of the good people of the United States...he shall be pun­ ished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding two years. Enforcement of these provisions resulted almost in open rebellion of the states against the federal government.^ Only about 10 persons were found guilty under the Sedition 3-James R. Mock, Censorship 1917. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 19^1 > p* 7* ^Bertha Mpser Haines and Charles Grove Haines, The Constitution of the United States. New York: F.S. Crofts & Co., 1928, p. 1 9 1 .

13 law, but it aroused powerful protests#

It led to passage of

state resolutions supporting the right of the states ‘to de­ clare congressional acts void#

It caused the downfall of the

Federalist party and the election of Jefferson.

Under his

regime the act was allowed to die in 1 8 0 1 , and those convict­ ed of its violation not only were pardoned but were granted reparations from congress. Covering the Civil w a r .

Not until the Espionage act

of 1 9 1 7 3id congress make another significant attempt to in­ terfere with freedom of expression.

Passage of this restric­

tion resulted partly from abuses by newspapers of their un­ hampered reporting of the Civil war and partly from the fail­ ure of sporadic censorship during this rebellion.

Newspapers

had made great strides in their news coverage since the Revo­ lutionary war and blanketed the Civil war battlefronts with correspondents.

They wrote their descriptions of the fight­

ing from front-line trenches.

"Civil war conditions allowed

for more uncensored, on-the-scene reporting than did those pf «i later wars," comments Frank Luther Mott. Correspondents were not recognized as noncombatants.

Sometimes they were

attached to officers 1 staffs and carried out military duties. Censorship efforts were feeble.

At various times at­

tempts were made to censor telegraph communications from the

3-Mott, ojD# cit. , p. 332.

Ik war zones by the treasury, war, and state departments*

Not

only were these restrictions intermittent, badly-administer­ ed, and incomplete when they were in operation, but no ban ever spread to messages transmitted by train, by mail, or by special carrier*

James R. Mock contends that during the Civ­

il war ’’freedom of speech and of the press was greatly cur­ tailed 11 and.even goes to the extreme of remarking that "to all intents and purposes the Constitution was placed in cold storage*This

statement seems to conflict with the find­

ings of other students of that period in history.

Not only

was news constantly filtering through the channels not sub­ ject to censorship at any time during the war, but reporters roamed the battlefronts with only their regard for their own safety to deter them from obtaining every possible iota of information. Abuse of press privileges.

So little hampered were

the correspondents that some even functioned almost in the part of publicity agents for the military leaders. kept certain generals in great prominence.

This

The dispatches

not only brought renown to the writers b@rt also expanded the prestige of the newspapers.

Editors from the safety of

their armchairs became military experts. Abuses by newspapers and their correspondents grew

^Mock,

. cit *,

ojd

p. 10.

15 until officers in the opposing lines carafully scanned is­ sues of enemy newspapers for data about military movements, ship sailings, troop concentrations, and location of artil­ lery and supplies.

One of the articles of war provided a

death penalty for giving military information to the enemy directly or indirectly, but that "newspaper correspondents wrote such information and their papers printed it are facts beyond question#"1

Again, in August, 1801, the war depart­

ment specifically reminded newspapers of the war article and placed a ban on publication of any data about camps, troops, or military or naval units unless officially released by the commanding officer.

"This order was generally disregarded."^

General Sherman became bitter toward newspapers.

He declared

that his drive against Vicksburg h a d .succeeded only because correspondents had been thrown off the trail.

In a letter

to his brother he asserted that the newspapers were doing "infinite mischief" in publishing "casualty lists with full data as to location of military units, statements of expect­ ed reinforcements, revelations of the amount of force com­ manded by various generals, speculations as to plans, re­ ports of the location and strength of batteries, and many similar items.”3

Other northern generals had comparable

iMott, o p . c i t ., p. 337^Loc. cit. 3Cited by James G. Randall, "The Newspaper Problem in Its Bearing Upon Military Secrecy During the Civil War," American Historical Review, 23:1 (January, 1918), p. 310*

16 troubles.

General McClellan found only partly satisfactory

an agreement he worked out with correspondents to withhold certain information.

General Halleck ejected all corres­

pondents from his battalions. Less freedom in the south. cers had less difficulty.

Southern military offi­

Newspapers of the Confederate

States were less enterprising in theJLr news-gathering and presentation.

Control of correspondents was more rigid.

Severe penalties were imposed against writers who published statements about troop movements, military secrets, or re­ marks that jeopardized confidence in officers.

Correspond­

ents seldom were able to visit the front lines and were re­ quired in most cases to receive approval of the officer in charge before printing the material. Critical judgment.

While friction developed, par­

ticularly in the north, regardless of whether the controls placed upon news writers were voluntary or mandatory, all blame cannot be shouldered by the correspondents*

A great

portion of the material sent out by newspaper representa­ tives was justifiable in informing people of the nation of their government's operations.

Bonds of military secrecy

cannot fetter everything that an army or navy does.

And

blunderings of the northern generals, especially in the first two years of the war, have since come to be recognized* In general, howevery there seems to be agreement that

17 newspapers exceeded the limits of judicious treatment of in­ formation.

Vital activity of troop units was constantly

disclosed to the extent of endangering the very objectives of the union army.

The conclusion reached by James G.

Randall is sound; When one contemplates the full result of a loose policy toward newspapers during war, the case for some form of news control becomes a convincing one... Acting under no effective governmental restraint (in the Civil war), the newspapers of the north, though in many ways deserving of admiration, undoubtedly did the national cause serious injury, by continual­ ly revealing information, undermining confidence in the management of public affairs, and giving undue publicity to the virtues of ambitious generals and the sensational features of the war.l Suppression of newspapers.

In the Civil war the

newspapers had their first taste of censorship imposed by law since the abandonment of the Sedition act.

But on the

whole interference with press freedom was of little conse­ quence.

President Lincoln was sympathetic toward newspapers

and talked freely with reporters in private interviews. There was only one significant instance of newspaper sup­ pression because of opinions expressed about the war.

The

Chicago Times- was taken over by soldiers of General Burnside in 1863 for "repeated expression of disloyal and incendiary sentiments."

But the protest was so widespread that Lincoln

rescinded the suppression order and reprimanded the ge ne r a l . '

^ I bid. . p. 303.

A year later the New York World was suppressed at Li ncolnfs order because it had printed a false presidential proclama­ tion. Just as in the Revolutionary war popTtrlar pressure exerted more influence in the editing of newspapers in the years of 1861-65 than did laws.

Evidence of the increased

tolerance of expression of opinion by both government and the people was the fact that five of New Y o r k fs 17 daily newspapers remained unmistakenly pro-Confederate through the four years of the war.

Four others maintained a favorable

attitude toward slavery.

Only five were definitely loyal

toward the administration.^ Government administrators of this period were un­ aware of the potential morale-building and moralepdestroying effects of propaganda.

There are a few examples of false

statements disseminated by Washington in an effort to de­ ceive enemy generals.

And on two occasions General Lee per­

suaded the Richmond papers to produce misleading reports of his troop movements.

The Lincoln administration made no

attempt to centralize the release of government news. Tighter restrictions in Spanish-American w a r .

The

Civil war offered the final opportunity for reporters to de­ scribe fighting from the actual firing lines.

A quickening

of the pace in warfare brought a need for greater secrecy covering movements of armed forces.

Foreign governments

without the American traditions of free expression began im­ position of strict military censorship.

Historians censure

the yellow journals of the large cities with pushing the United States into its war with Spain.

Although the fight­

ing in Cuba never reached the proportions of a major war, the locale of the conbat away from continental United States itself imposed restrictions upon the flow of accurate infor­ mation. Enterprising newspapers succeeded in getting thorough coverage of the brief conflict in Cuba.

So ingenious were

the news-gathering channels developed that it became ’’almost impossible for the government ti> withhold any information” and "the public at large was hardly aware that any censorship existed.The

guerrilla fighting in the Philippines devel­

oped similar difficulties.

At first the war department or­

dered the commanding general to censor press articles.

This

action by G-eneral Otis brought the following dilemma, report­ ed by Mock: When he informed the correspondents that they had defied military authority and were liable to punish­ ment, the general found that they courted martyrdom, which he thought it unwise to permit them. This con­ troversy finally led to the point where he was will­ ing to remove the censorship and let them cable any3-Mock, o p . ci t ., p. 17-18.

20 thing...Otis was informed that the censorship might be removed, ’“only continuing the requirement that all matter be submitted in advance, that you may deal, as you may deem best with any liable to affect military operations or offending against military discipline."I Pre-World war attempts to work out a censorship plan. Laying the background for censorship regulations of the first and second world wars, the experience of the federal govern­ ment in administering restrictions upon press freedom in the Civil and Spanish-American wars brought out two significant facts; 1.. Administration of laws imposing a strict cen­ sorship was practically unworkable because of the impossibility of plugging all loopholes through which newspapers could get a peep at the truth. 2. The pressure of popular opinion proved much stronger than governmental restraint in suppressing statements likely to harm the war campaign, yet public opinion would not back up a policy of rigid control over the press. The breakdown in enforcement of press restrictions during the two big American wars of the 1 9 th century, added . to the example of the Japanese in barring front line corres­ pondents in their war with Russia, led to an army and navy search for effective regulations to be placed over the spread of information during wartime. study,

In 1 9 0 7 the army conducted a

“The Press in W a r , 11 that covered; 1. Illustrations of the mischievous .effect of un­ restrained publication. llbid.. p. 19.

21

2. Laws of other countries restricting publica­ tions, 3* Constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press. * This investigation did not result in any recommendations for legislation.

But it did suggest the importance that military

leaders placed upon censorship and it did presage a form of censorship in America's next war. Aimed chiefly at enemy agents likely to interfere with national armed preparedness was the act of March 3> 1 9 1 1 , forbidding the improper acquisition or transmission of

data about national defense facilities.

The 1911 statute had

a negligible effect upon newspaper publication.

And until

the Espionage act of 1917 there was no federal law that in­ terfered with the constitutional right to free expression.

■^Ibid., p . 4-0.

CHAPTER I I I

WORLD WAR CENSORSHIP So engrossing to Americans was the world scene during World War I that, apparently, they were never aware of piece after piece of federal legislation which, when fitted together, made the mosaic of cen­ sorship. 1 The European conflict engaged attention of Americans with such intensity that they scarcely noticed that a censor was at work in Vera Cruz when the United States sent troops to that Mexican port in 1914*

When other American soldiers

fought Mexicans in border skirmishes the following year, the war department sought the cooperation of publishers in not printing material of possible use to the enemy south of the border. British censorship affects U . S .

With an undeclared

war with Mexico on its hands and with consideration of cen­ sorship no longer a theoretical discussion, the army chief of staff ordered renewed research to recommend legislation for the wartime control of the press.

The investigation was

to include the censorship procedure ,of the British.

Some

criticism about the weakness of the English control methods— largely as the result of an absence of advance planning--had reached the war department, but England landed what one his-

1James R. Mock, Censorship 1 9 1 7 « Princeton: Princeton University Press, 19^1» p* 39-

23

torian called "its first staggering blow--perhaps' a decisive oneul j_n cutting the cables between Germany and America on August 5, 1 9 1 This act assured that the bulk of news sent across the Atlantic by United States journalists went on cen\

sored British cables.

Since getting uncensored news from

Germany and the Central Powers was almost impossible, most news that came to America was subjected to British scrutiny and control. Effect of this English policy quickly became evident, for three months after war broke out in August, a Literary ' Digest poll revealed five times as many pro-allied editorial leanings among American newspapers as

pro-German.^

The num­

ber of neutral journals declined rapidly after sinking of the Lusitania. Pre-war censorship moves.

Army investigators criti­

cized the 1 9 11 act as being too limited and. ineffective in its operation.

They proposed sweeping legislation that would

have conferred upon the president "the power to restrict the publication of certain information inconsistent with the de­ fense of the country."3

Need for cooperation between the army

and navy was obvious, and the following year the two services lFrank Luther Mott, American Journalism. New York: Macmillan, 19k-l, p. 6 1 5 . ^Cited by Mott, p. 6 l 6 . The poll showed 2I4.O neutral papers, 105 pro-Allies, and 20 pro-German. 3Mock, op. cit . , p.. 4l.

2k recommended a proposal that would prohibit publication of any facts, rumors, or other information “relating to our armed forces, material, or the means and measures contemplated for the defense of the country" during a period of national emer­ gency as proclaimed by the president.^

A bill (S-5258) em­

bodying this recommendation was introduced, but no legisla­ tion resulted.

The secretary of war again appealed to his

colleague in the navy department for cooperation in forming regulations to censor publications and communications. War Secretary Newton D* Baker went beyond merely studying the censorship problem and making recommendations when on June 9> 191&* he established a bureau of information in the war department. In charge of Major Douglas MacArthur, the bureau was to serve as the originating point for all news given to the press from the war department unless of a strict ly routine nature.. History of the Espionage act.

In the closing months

of 1916 the United States advanced inevitably toward parti­ cipation in the European conflict*

But America was still

eight months away from war when Secretary Baker proposed to the chairman of the house judiciary committee, Edwin Y. Webb, that a law be enacted empowering the president to regulate the printing of vital defense information. ^bi d * , p. 4 l

Webb and Senator

25 Lee S. Overman introduced such legislation in the two houses of congress on February 5> 1917* Mild protests, some of them from journalistic groups and newspapers, met renewed activity toward a more rigid cen­ sorship on the part of the war and navy departments.

Secre­

tary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, although a former news­ paper editor, now took the leadership in developing censor­ ship regulations.

On March 1, 191?, he suggested to Baker

that the navy continue censorship of all radio stations and start censoring cables.

He proposed that the war department

take care of telephone and telegraph communications.^ Although the bill passed the senate after having been amended,

it had not come to a vote in the house by the time

congress ended its session on March

On the opening day of

the extraordinary session, April 2, the same day that Presi­ dent Wilson delivered his war message, Webb and Senator Charles A.. Culberson introduced a new bill.

After nine weeks

of debate and consideration it became the Espionage act of June 15, 1917. Censorship by executive order.

But censorship did not

await formal congressional authorization.

Just 10 days after

the declaration of war, President Wilson delivered a proclam­ ation relating to such 11treasonableH actions as "the perform-

■^Ibid., p.

h3

26 ance of any act or publication of- statements or information which will give or supply, in any way, aid and comfort to the enemies of the United S t a t e s . A n

order.from the postoffice

department on April 25 asked postmasters to report "disloyal and treasonable acts and utterances, and anything which might be important during the existence of the present state of war."^

Note the broadness of the terms used.

"Comfort to

the enemies" is a term flexible enough to include any event causing sorrow or inconvenience to the people, regardless of its military significance.

"Anything which might be import­

ant" could blanket in any activity. On April 28 the president issued an order censoring all cable, telephone, and telegraph messages leaving or enter ing the country.;

The. restriction was designed to prevent

valuable information from reaching the enemy, intercept in­ coming- data, and bar the publication of reports that would in terfere with military operations or weaken morale.

The cen­

sorship was placed in effect immediately•for messages to and from the Orient and Latin America.

The censor had authority

to examine all communications and dispose of them in any way he deemed necessary without notifying the author.

To allow

American censors to work out a plan of cooperation with the

3-Cited by James R. Mock and Cedric Larson, Words That Won the W a r . Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1939> p. 78. 2lbid., p . *78.

28

Newspapers had "lost sight of, or at least showed little interest in *1 this section, Mock points out.

1

He re­

gards it as surprising that newspapers should take such little notice of the first outright lfgag law1' since the death of the Sedition act in 1801.

Yet the law was upheld in virtually

all court rulings, which generally found that the press has no more right when the country is at war to interfere with operations of naval or military forces than any individual person..

In Hickson vs. U.S- (C..C-A-S-C- 19191 2 5 8 F 8 6 7 ) the

decision was that ,fthe Espionage act is not unconstitutional in making criminal in time of war statements or utterances which in time of peace might be within the constitutional rights of a citizen.”

Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell

Holmes upheld the section of the Espionage act in a famous ruling in the case of Schenck vs. U.S. 39S.Ct..247).

(Pa, 1919* 249US47*

He wrote;:

When a nation is at war, many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so ■ long as men fight and that no court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right.. Another section of the Espionage law set a penalty of $ 5 0 0 0 fine or five years 1 imprisonment for persons mailing any

material "advocating or urging treason, insurrection, or forcible resistance to any law of the United

iMock, ojo. cit.«p. 49* ^Cited- in Mock, ojd. ci t .. p. 5 0 .

S t a t e s .

”2

Com-

29

plying with this provision,

the postmaster general issued a

nine-point statement of regulations *for excluding the non­ mailable matter.

The rules specifically said that a publi­

cation should not be excluded from the mails because of ”the general tone of either its editorial or news columns.*1 Sedition act.

With the Espionage act on the books

extensions of its terms became much easier.

When Congress­

man Webb introduced an amendment that was enacted on May 1 6 , 1918* and became popularly known as the Sedition act, news­ papers were apathetic.

Mock notes that *'far from opposing

the measure, the leading papers seemed actually to lead the movement in behalf of its speedy enactment.

This measure

provided: ...whoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully utter, print, write, or publish any dis­ loyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, of the constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States, or the flag of the United States, or the uniform of the army or navy of the United States...shall be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than twenty years...2 Its broad terms allowed the postmaster general great discretion in declaring material unmailable and the department of justice in enforcing the law.

Postmaster General Albert S f

Burleson interpreted the section of the Espionage act applying

^ b i d . , p. 53* 2Ci ted by Elizabeth Hawkins, Freedom of the Press in the United States. Unpublished Thesis, University of Southern California, 1931> P»- 8 3 .

30

to nonmailable material as equally applicable to the terms of the Sedition clause.

Without a hearing,

the postmaster could

hold up an issue from mailing privileges if he found any writings he believed damaged the prestige of the government* In addition, if such an issue were banned from the mail, the department could maintain, and did, that nby missing a number the paper had forfeited its mailing privileges altogether, and refuse subsequent issues, however i n n o c u o u s * T h e courts in general upheld validity of the Sedition act and re­ fused injunctions to prohibit the postmaster from seizing the papers and stopping publication. During the first year of the Espionage act about 75 papers , including The Mass-es, the socialistic literary peri­ odical, a n d •5 0 other left-wing publications, suffered frorm postoffice enforcement.

Some kept their mailing rights by

refraining from comments about the war.

Most drastically

affected were German language newspapers.

Circulation

dropped 5 0 per cent. The censorship board.

Authority for establishment

of the first American censorship board came in the Tradingwith-the-Eneray act of October 6 , 1917*

Section 3 of this

law--still. in force--rea 1917 > In which he suggested that Britons should learn more about Americans. Only short references were made to the speech in United States newspapers after the chairman of the Committee on Public Information termed its publication unot wise.** 4* Articles that might have' aroused indignation of allied or neutral countries could not leave the coun­ try . 5. An issue of The Equitist favoring socialistic ideas and a single tax plan. 6 .. Jokes in which the United States army or navy had an unheroic role.

7. Articles questioning the honesty of the Ameri­ can and administration's war aims. 8 . Publications expressing opposition to war.

35

9* Prophecies of the role of the soldier after the war • Censorship of soldiers and sailors.

If mail and read­

ing matter of civilians came under the surveillance of cen­ sor, restrictions over men in military service were much stricter.

Limitations over what soldiers and sailors wrote,

read, and spoke was almost complete, particularly after the men had left training camps in the United States for fighting abroad.

The censorship had the dual aim of preventing im­

portant information from reaching hands of the enemy or un­ dercover agents and to bolster morale of both the men in the services and the public„ Restrictions on war correspondents«. men in the army and navy was censored.

News about the

The censorship divi­

sion of the army general staff intelligence section super­ vised and controlled war correspondents assigned to the Ameri­ can Expeditionary Forces in France.

Reporters became accre­

dited correspondents upon filing of a $ 2 0 0 0 bond and a $ 1 0 0 0 deposit for maintenance. They were allowed great freedom of movement, and fre­ quently were able to visit the front lines. But their stories all were required to pass through the censorship before they could be dispatched across the ocean.

Both accredited and visiting correspondents were re-

ISummarized from a number of sources*

36 quired to sign an agreement pledging himself; To submit all correspondence except personal let­ ters to the press officer. Personal correspondence was censored at the base. To repeat no information he received at the front unlfess approved by the censor. To refrain from using names or locations of speci­ fic units. To refrain from disclosing future military plans or any information regarded as valuable to the enemy. To accept further censorship rules from time to time .1 Penalties for violation were suspension, dismissal with a public reprimand, or detention for an indefinite period. Censorship gradually relaxgd as the war progressed and military and naval leaders became aware of the valuable contributions that American newspapers were making to the nation*s part in the conflict.

In September, 1917> an army

order guaranteed that reporters would not be forced to make any assertions against their wish and that their copy would not be changed in any way except through deletions.

Corres­

pondents were able to see their articles after they had been censored.

More definite regulations covering censorable

material that eliminated much of the guesswork as to what in­ formation was of aid to the enemy were issued in April, 1918# Many of the censorship regulations were abandoned after the armi stice• Few complaints about the A.E.F. censorship came from

^Summarized from Mock,

o p . c i t ., p. 103.

American editors, and it seems evident that the American re­ strictions were more liberal in allowing the dispatch of war news than those of the European nations.

Frequently the cor­

respondents received summaries of war developments written by veteran former ne?vspapermen serving in the censor's staff. Publishers generally recognized the need for restriction of , military information.

One author comments:

Though there were many complaints at first, most correspondents came to agree that the A.E.F. censor­ ship was, on the whole, sensibly conducted. Despite censorship handicaps and the difficulties placed in the way of field correspondents by all the European military authorities, the American people were better informed of the progress of.the war than those of any other country in the world . 1 Criticism of fiforld war censorship.

Not all was har­

mony bet\7een the censoring agencies and the press, however. And the censors pulled more than one boner in their cautious methods of suppressing everything of doubtful nature.

One

issue of The Saturday Evening Post was not allowed to leavethe country at San Francisco because of an article which the editor said had been written at the request of the Fuel Ad­ ministration.

A senate investigation report on profiteering

and waste in the aircraft industry was printed in domestic newspapers but was banned from issues of papers sent abroad. Strangely, no censorship was applied at the Mexican border, and newspapers below the border printed summaries of the re-

.

^Mott, ojd

.

c i t , p* 623 .

38 port * Melville Stone, former head of the Associated Press, tells of an almost unbelievable incident indicative of many similar happenings involving both the British and American censors*

When Great Britain declared war on Austria, a cen­

sor banned it from the A.P* but allowed it to be released to a New York newspaper* relates,

f,There was an investigation,” Stone

Hand he calmly said that he knew the Associated Press

was a great organization and that he felt he could not take the responsibility of permitting the message to go to it, but he thought it would do no harm to let it go to an indivi­ dual paper in the United States..1’^ Carryover of press restrictions. ship restrictions continued after the war*

Many of the censor­ Full information

about military movements was not allowed as troops came home across the Atlantic after the armistice.

Mock points out

that all the news concerning the return of American troops was subject to restrictions.

Correspondents attached to the army

were not to complain about continued maintenance of troops on European soil.

"Nor were there to be any statements implying

that these troops should be withdrawn sooner than the governo ment planned.,” Censorship in the services, except that covering military secrets, gradually decreased.

But in March,

lMelville E. Stone, Fifty Years a Journalist. Garden City, N. Y.; Doubleday, Page & Co., 1921, p. 3 1 7 . ^Mock, o cit*, p. 105.

39

1921, the naval judge advocate general, George R. Clark, in commenting about censorship of publications,

expressed

agree­

ment with the remark that freedom of speech is acceptable, but not aboard a man-of-war. And Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer urged congress to adopt legislation to combat what he termed the menace of anti-American papers and other periodicals existing in the United States after the war.

He informed a senate committee

investigating German plots and propaganda in the United States in February, 1919» that there were. 222 radical foreign-language papers, 106 radical papers printed in English, and ikk-radical publications printed in.foreign countries and enter­ ing this country.

Palmer pointed out that Espionage act re­

strictions were not applicable after the war.

Congress did

not adopt the law he recommended Although censorship laws in many cases were not en­ forceable during peacetime, the indifference of the public toward repressive measures allowed the restrictive techniques to continue..

What a writer in the Nation called ’’the logic

of events and the patriotic desire of the press to support the government’*

operated after the armistice to continue re­

pressive devices designed to curtail freedom of expression. Return to the complete liberty of speech enjoyed before the ilbid., p. 1 5 2 . ^Nation, CVII (Nov. 3 0 , 1918), p. 6 3 8 .

4-0

war seemed impossible.

Here lay the acute danger of censor­

ship, as Mock observes: The lasting threat to Americafs democratic govern­ ment is in the carryover into peacetime of repressive measures instituted during war...When peace came, the repressive measures, instead of being abolished, were used by federal, state and municipal officials, and were imitated by social, political and economic groups. These agencies employed censorship ideas and techniques against their domestic foes under the guise of protecting the institutions of the United States and the American way of life...!

n Mock, o_p. cit., p. 213.

CHAPTER IV

AMERICA1S "PROPAGANDA MINISTRY" The Committee on Public Information was assigned the staggering task of "holding fast the inner lines. The story of how it fulfilled that mission is a dra­ matic record of vigor, effectiveness, and creative imagination* The Committee was America's "propagan­ da ministry" during the World war, charged with en­ couraging and thus consolidating the revolution of opinion which changed the United States from an anti­ militaristic democracy to an organized war machine . 1 Censorship alone was not enough.

The World war, for

the first time in history, called for contributions on the part of all citizens.

Development and maintenance of a will

to fight among all adults became vital to production of mater ials to support the armed forces and bolster the national economy at home. Need of ja coordinating agency.

Activities of govern­

ment mushroomed to handle the war program.

Each department

had a different method of handling news releases to Washing­ ton correspondents.

Some department heads regarded dissem­

ination of certain types of information related to national defense and war as confidential matter that should be sup­ pressed from the public.

Other more publicity-minded depart­

ment officials gave out similar news freely.

Conflict was

inevitable between reporters, whose objectives were to obtain

War.

James R. Mock and Cedric Larson, Words That Won the Princeton: Princeton University Press, 19397 P * 4 -

42

all information possible and print it, and government offi­ cials, particularly those of the war, navy, and state depart­ ments, who wished to conceal data they regarded as of mili­ tary importance. So a week after America entered the war, the secre­ taries of state, Robert Lansing; war, Newton D. Baker; and navy, Josephus Daniels, transmitted a letter to the presi­ dent pointing to a “steadily developing need for some author­ itative agency to assure the publication of all the vital facts of national d e f e n s e . T h i s

letter recommended the

creation of a Committee on Public Information that would unite the censorship and publicity functions.

“While there

is much that is properly secret in connection with the de­ partments of this government,“ the letter explained, “the total is small compared to the vast amount of information that is right and proper for the people to

h a v e .

“2

The

three secretaries proposed that they serve as members of the committee along with a civilian as chairman.

Carrying out

their suggestions, President Y/ilson established the Committee on Public Information by an executive order dated April 1 3 , 1917i Q-nd named a veteran newspaperman and writer, George' Creel, as chairman. Varied activities of the C P I . ICited in ibid.m p. $0 ,‘ ^Loc. cit.

Although its initial

43 purpose was to restore order to the chaos in issuing govern­ ment news, the CPI went far beyond merely serving as a clear­ ing house for announcements of the various departments.

Con­

gress never granted the committee censorship authority, but the CPI worked out a system of "voluntary censorship 11 that presumably placed responsibility for stifling information of value to the enemy in the hands of the newspaper publishers and editors themselves.

And Creel formed his brilliant staff

into the greatest propaganda, opinion-forming, and advertis­ ing organization in the nation's history.

It succeeded in

making President Wilson's theories known at every village crossroads in this country and in remote countries of foreign lands Wilson's order was broad enough to allow Creel free­ dom to build whatever type of organization he wished and to direct its work as he determined.

There is little doubt that

wordage of the proclamation would have embraced the formation of an agency that could have rigidly censored all information and comment--either through authorization frmra congress or from a voluntary censorship plan made obligatory by patriotic desires of publishers.

Although congress soon granted legis­

lative sanction to censorship administered by the department of justice and the postoffice department, the authority as it

11 bi d ., p . l±S.

44 concerned newspapers generally was kept in reserve.

During

Creel^s 18 months in office, censorship nominally at least re­ mained voluntary.

He took the affirmative method in which

“channels of communication were literally choked with official approved news and opinion, leaving little freeway for rumor or disloyal r e p o rt s ,^ Organization of the committee.

'Almost overnight

Creel devised an administrative organization that functioned with efficiency.

He extended his agency operations into

every known field of imparting information and opinion to the public.

At a net cost of only $4,M>4»602 for their year

and a half of work, Creel1s staff of newspapermen, publicity men, desk editors, artists, and research experts performed an unbelievable task of building and guiding public opinion, unequaled until the advent of the propaganda agencies of the Soviet and Nazi governments. When Creel had completed his set-up, he had a domes­ tic:’ section with 15 divisions for handling •information and propaganda for the United States; a foreign section to carry American ideals and objectives to people of other nations; and an administrative section for business and duplicating details.

The list of divisions under these three principal

sections illustrates the wide spread of CPI functions:

h b i d .. p. 11.

45

DOMESTIC SECTION Division of news,--the backbone of the CPI. Issued &)00 releases, which Creel estimated were published inaa total of 2 0 ,0 0 0 newspaper columns a week. 2* Official Bulletin— the official daily newspa­ per of the United States government. Eliminated much interdepartmental correspondence, disseminated government news throughout the country, and preserv­ ed the record of the nation at war. Peak circula­ tion ll 8 ,0 0 8 . 3* Division of civic and educational cooperation-prepared 1 0 5 publications by famous scholars and writers, total circulation 75*000,000. Later in war issued the National School S e r v i c e a l 6 -page paper that reached 2 0 ,0 0 0 ,0 0 0 homes through distribution to school children. 4* Picture division--opened the war activities of the nation to exploitation by pictures by issuing camera, permits and distributing pictures widely. 5* Bureau of war expositions— arranged exhibits of machinery of war and trophies captured from'the Germans. Twenty cities saw exhibits, and admission receipts totaled $4 0 0 , 0 0 0 more than expenses. 6 * Bureau of state fair exhibits--arranged dis­ plays stressing conservation.

7* Labor publications division— served largely the Alliance for Labor and Democracy, an independent or­ ganization but allied with the CPI. 8 * Service bureau--an information headquarters which answered 8 6 ,0 0 0 queries.

9* Pictorial publicity division--designed posters. 10. Bureau of cartoons--sent a weekly bulletin for cartoonists.

Bi vi si on of -ad vert i sing--direc ted some of the most famous patriotic advertising campaigns of the war and obtained many contributions of free space.

46

12* Division of four-minute men--arranged for 75 ,000 volunteer speakers to give four-minute talks in movie houses and other public places and served with the speaking division, merged with it, as a lecture bureau. 1 3 * Syndicate features division— enlisted volun­ teer services of novelists, essayists, short-story writers. Circulation reached 12,000,000 a month. 14. Division of work with the foreign born--translated committee pamphlets, followed the foreign lan­ guage newspapers*

15* W o m e n 1s war work division--attempted to inform: and energize women of the country, prepared 2 3 0 5 news stories and 2 9 2 pictures and sent out. 5 0 ,0 0 0 letters to wives and mothers who had complained about the war. Eliminated in a budget cut on June 3°> 1918* FOREIGN' SECTION 1* Wireless and cable service— prepared daily dis­ patches with the help of the news division and sent them with the aid of naval communications and commer­ cial cables to virtually every country in the world. Some dispatches even appeared in German newspapers. 2* Foreign press bureau--sent to United States agents abroad a profusion of feature articles, pho­ tographs, cuts, mats. ' 3* Foreign film division--handled the export of motion pictures.

ADMINISTRATIVE SECTION 1* Executive divisi on--headed by Chairman Creel at $8000 a.year and Associate Chairman Edgar Sisson ($6000), Harvey J. 0 fHiggins ($6000),and Carl Byoir ($5 2 0 0 ). 2. Business management office--relieved the exec­ utive division of details and finances. 3 • Division of stenography and mimeographing.

4* Division of production and distribution--handled printing details News division activities.

In memory of American

citizens the work of Charles Dana Gibson1s pictorial division--the striking patriotic posters--still remains*

But the

core of the entire CPI program was in the news division.

It

operated much in the same way as the city room of a metropol­ itan newspaper.

Over the CPI city desk passed, the news of

the departments directing the war— -the army, the navy, the statemdepartment, the white house, and most other agencies except the few older departments and new emergency divisions that maintained their own press relatione staffs.

All re­

leases written by CPI workers were sent to the department that furnished the material for approval before it was made available for publication. There was no coercion brought upon Washington cor­ respondents to use the releases. them upon their news elements.

They were free to judge Without having any government

pressure exerted upon them to follow one cours-e or another, the reporters could use the material, rewrite it, or toss it in the wastebasket.

Creel himself said that a “special and

painstaking effort was made to present the facts without the slightest trace of color or bias,

either in the selection of

facts to be made public or in the manner in which they were

^Adapted from M ock and Larson, pp. 66-73*

4-8 presented.

Thus the news division sets forth in exactly the

same colorless style the remarkable success of the Browning guns on the one hand and, on the other,

the facts of bad

health conditions in three or four of our largest camps. Although not all historians agree with Creel in their appraisal of impartiality of committee releases,

there is no

doubt that most newspapers readily printed them.

"This m a ­

terial,11 says one authority, propaganda;

"was colored with patriotic

but it wds, on the whole,

news v a l u e . "2

The division,

accurate and full of

open 24 hours a day, issued more

than 6000 releases during its existence and answered hundreds of questions from newsmen.

But, Mock and Larson point out

»». *it is important to realize that the committee was no inner clique imposing unwanted views on the general public. Scarcely an idea may be found in all the work of th# CPI that was not held by many Americans before war was declared. The committee was representative of the articulate majority in American opinion*3 The voluntary censorship p l a n .

Before Wilson created

the CPI, the secretaries of state, war, and navy drew up six regulations covering material they wished the press to censor voluntarily, subject.

at least until congress adopted a law on the

The navy department was responsible for five of the

^•Creel's final report, cited in Mock and Larson, o p . c i t . , p. 9 1 . ^Frank Luther Mott, American Journ alis m. New York: Macmillan, 194-1, p. 6 15* 3Mock and Larson, o j d . cit. , p. 10.

recommendations made on March 2ip, 1917 > an(3 the state depart­ ment for the sixth. press opposition.

That was the proposal which aroused It read:

It is requested that no information, reports, or rumors attributing a policy to the government in any international situation, not authorized by the pres­ ident or a member of the cabinet, be published with­ out first consulting the department of state . 1 To clarify these suggestions and be more specific on exactly what news the government wanted withheld, the CPI on May 28, 1917 > issued a "Preliminary Statement '1 which Creel said was for the purpose of eliminating "needless misappre­ hensions which have led the conscientious many to omit mat­ ters freely open to d i s c u s s i o n . H e warned against: 1. Possible insults to our comrades in arms. 2. Unsigned dispatches from "our special corres­ pondent • 3 . Exaggerated or unverified reports capable of leading to panic. Ip. Reckless journalism, a "positive menace when the nation is at war." "In this day of high emotionalism and mental confusion, " the Creel statement went on to say,

"the printed word has immeas-i

urable power-, and the term traitor is not too harsh in appli­ cation to the publisher, editor, or writer who wields this power without full, and solemn recognition of responsibili­ ties."

Ijames R. Mock, Censorship 1917. Princetojj: Princeton University Press, 19^4-1> p. Ip3 • ^This quotation and following list cited by Mock and Larson, p. 8 0 .

5o

Creel's ''regulations for the periodical press' of the United States during the war* classified news- as dangerous, questionable, and routine.

He offered the following break­

down: DANGEROUS NEWS v 1 . Stories of naval and military operations in progress:. 2. Movements of official missions. 3* Threats and plots against the life of the president. v i|_. News regarding secret service and confidential agents. 5* Movements of alien labor. vo* Position, number, or identification of allied or American warships. 7 . Certain data pertaining to lights and buoys. */8 . Mention of ports of arrival or departure. 9 . Any details of mines or mine traps. 10. Signals, orders, or wireless messages to or from any warship. 11. All phases of submarine warfare. 1 2 . Facts regarding drydocks. 13. Information relating to fixed land defenses, lq.. Movements of American or Canadian troops. 15. Assignments of small detachments. 16. Concentrations at ports. ^ 1 7 . Aircraft or equipment that were, or might be, in process of experimentation. QUESTIONABLE NEWS (might be published only with the approval of the CPI.) 1. Naval and military operations, including train­ ing camp routine. 2., Technical inventions. 3 . Sensational or disquieting rumors, such as of an epidemic, without the most painstaking verifica­ tion. ROUTINE NEWS: (contained the great bulk of news, but if editors had any doubt as to propriety of publica­ tion, they were urged to submit the article to the

51 CPI for speedy consideration.) . «

Approval by the CFI took two forms•

Material that

the committee had carefully investigated and officially ap­ proved was stamped "authorized•*

Articles not necessarily

accurate but publishable without harmx were stamped "passed.” Objections to voluntary censorship. Although most ■/ newspapers abided by the voluntary rules, they did not wel­ come them.

The New York Herald-Tribune, for instance, com­

plained The newspapers have not volunteered to respect them. Nor could they consent to respect all of them without at the same time submitting to a dictatorship more fantastic and oppressive than exists in any other nation now at war. Even in Turkey, we fancy, newspapers may still do what Mr. Creel wants to pro­ hibit American newspapers from doing.2 The Associated Press, which previously had rejected Creel’s request for suppressing news of the arrival of American troops in

France,3

followed them.

accepted the more specific regulations and

Many liberal editors, protested, against both

the censorship and the committee propaganda.

Enforcement of

the restrictions was left up to newspapers themselves, backed by the pressure of patriotism and public opinion that demand­ ed compliance.

Much information was suppressed at the source

^-Summarized from Block and Larson, pp. 8 I- 8 3 * ^Cited by Elizabeth Hawkins, Freedom of the Press in the United States. Unpublished Master’s Thesis, University of Southern California, 1931, P* 80. ^Repo rt ed by Mott,

op.. c i t ., p.

627.

in the army and navy.

But it was up to the newspapers to

withhold considerable military data, such as movement of troops, departure of trains and ships, and so on, that could be observed easily by their reporters and hundreds of citizens. “Approximately 99 Per cent of the press,” estimates Mock,

“ob­

served the rules of this voluntary censorship, and since it was voluntary they made little complaint about the denial of freedom of the press The one per cent of the press that failed to abide by the regulations generally did so not through disloyalty or deliberate desire to aid the enemy.

They usually sought to

gain a scoop over competitive newspapers or through exercise of judgment that the material did not consitute a violation of the rules.

Many newspapers protested against committee

rules as unreasonable, and in a few cases they were.

But Creel

did not attempt to punish violators except by an occasional telegram or letter pointing out the offense and asking more caution.

As the authors of the most complete history of the

CPI point out: More clearly indicative of the fact that Creel did not push to the edge of his power is the tremendous number of newspaper stories and editorials sharply critical of the administration; exposing alleged in­ efficiency and stupidity, protesting against govern­ ment rules on food, fuel, and prices, and the mobil­ ization of industry; and always, always taking those 1inkpotshots" at the CPI and its chairman...

53

He could afford to overlook unimportant details in a small number of papers because all the rest of the press was pounding out an anvil chorus of patriotism under the direction of the C P I * 1 Effect of censorship laws.

Administration of the se­

crecy rules did not change greatly with passage of the Es­ pionage and Trading-with-the-Enemy acts and the so-called Se­ dition act.

The laws left enforcement authority with the

justice and post office departments.

But Creel was a member

of the censorship board and maintained close cooperation with the department of justice, military and naval intelligence, and post office officials. forcement,

"Without specific powers of en­

the CPI thus enjoyed censorship power which was

tantamount to direct legal force,

although this was energet­

ically denied by the committee during the war.”^

No arrests

were made by the committee, and according to Mott: It seems clear that, everything considered, the chairman of the CPI used his great power with re­ straint. Undoubtedly he and his assistants made mis­ takes, but they did a job necessary in war times with skill and conscience.3 Criticism o£ Creel.

Cre el rs regime was stormy.

From

the time of his appointment he was criticized, largely, it seems, because of his aggressiveness.

Commenting on his se­

lection by President Wilson, the New York Times said: We are unable to discover in his turbulent career... iMock and Larson, pp. 8 8 -9 . 2 Ibid., p. 2 0 . 3Mott, o p . c i t ., p. 627 *

5k any evidence of the ability, the experience, or the judicial temperament required ‘to gain the understand­ ing and cooperation of the press , 1 as the three cabi­ net officers put i t ...Essential to the information of the public during the war will be not pleasing fictions prepared by imaginative writers, but facts, accurately described by conscientious and competent reporters. Congress delighted in the sport of "jumping on George," as Mock and Larson declare, since “it was a safe and convenient way of attacking the national administration without the political dangers incurred by direct criticism of Wilson."

2

Ser­

iousness of the congressional opposition was evident in June, 1918, when the legislators slashed in half the CPI appropri­ ation, bringing lowered prestige for Creel and lessening the committee’s operations.

Some evidence tends to show that much

of the criticism coming from large metropolitan newspapers and the press associations was motivated by their animosity again­ st the CPI because of its competition as a news-gathering and news-controlling organization* Creel later offered his own judgment that the censor­ ship phase of the C P I ’s work had failed.

He remarked:

Not only did the plan fall down in operation, but out of it came a long train of irritations that made for lasting angers and ill will. The resentments of the bedeviled press deepened into revolt, equally be­ deviled officials fumed and what should have been a friendly and cooperative relationship went rancid. By way of adding to the tragedy, it soon became pain­ fully apparent that the whole business had no real

■^New York Times, April 1 6 , 1917* ^Mock and Larson, op>. cit., p* 6 0 .

55 point, no justification in necessity His statement contradicts many of the opinions about the com­ m ittee’s activities in keeping strategic information secret* Propaganda work*

The committee, however,

also had

the vital function of disseminating reports of government operations to maintain a favorable morale among civilians and those in the fighting forces.

And there is general agreement

that the CPI gave out news releases that were accurate and complete with all data not of value to the opposition*.

Al\

though they may have reflected the committee's enthusiasm for f

the war effort and easily come within present-day definitions of propaganda, they mirrored the patriotic spirit that the majority of Americans shared during the war* Certainly Creel courageously avoided what must have been a temptation to exercise his authority in a dictatorial manner.

This was significant, for important as it was to sus­

tain the spirit of the people, it was equally necessary that the methods remain democratic.

In a time of emergency when

speedier and more authoritarian devices might easily have been called into service and excused on grounds of expediency, Creel stuck to ways of carrying out the committee1s work that were essentially liberal and straightforward.

One writer,

referring to widespread belief both before and after the w&r

^■G-eorge Creel, "The Plight of the Last Censor," Colliers, 107:2k (May 24, 1 9 4 D , p. 13*

56 that the CPI was "a propaganda agency unscrupulous enough to issue deliberately false news about military and naval de­ velopments," reaches this conclusion: One of the most remarkable things about the charges against the CPI is that, of the more than 6000 news stories it issued, so few were called into question at all* It may be doubted that the C P I fs record for honesty will ever be equaled in the official war news of a major power.^

^Walton E. Bean, "The Accuracy of Creel Committee News, 1 9 1 7 - 1 9 1 9 , An Examination of Cases, ffi Journalism Quarter­ ly;, Vol. 18, September, 19^1, p. 272-

CHAPTER V

GROWTH OF INFORMATION SERVICES Success of the CPI in disseminating data about gov­ ernment activities and in mobilizing popular support led in­ formation agencies to copy its organization pattern af-ter the World war. The proposed public relations administration.

Al ­

though never carried out, a recommendation for creation of a public relations administration in 1 9 3 7 was similar in many respects to the setup that Creel worked out*

The suggestion

came from a special joint committee on army and navy public relations and was part of the industrial mobilization plan scheduled to become effective in time of national emergency. It proposed the joining of publicity 1 and censorship functions under a single administrator of public relations. He would work in cooperation with a coordinating and liaison committee composed of representatives from the public rela­ tions staffs of the various; government departments, admini­ strations, corporations, and independent boards and commis­ sions.

One of his chief assistants, the director of commu­

nications control-, would have charge of administering rules * of censorship.

The army, censoring mail and telegraph and

telephone lines, and the navty, censoring radio and cable com­ munications, would handle the details.

Thus the proposal

brought under the public relations administrator the work of the World war censorship board* The other principal assistant, the director of pub­ licity, would hold a position not unlike that which Creel occupied.

As a matter of fact, the industrial mobilization

plan suggested a breakdown of activities almost, identical to that of the CPI.

Proposed publicity functions of the public

relations administration would aim toward: 1 . Coordinating the publicity' programs of govern­ ment departments and agencies. 2 . Serving as an information bureau to which the nation and the world might look for accurate and u n ­ biased facts regarding war aims. • Combatting disaffection at home. . Counteracting enemy propaganda both at home and abroad. 5* Organizing all existing propaganda media for prosecution of the war. 6 . Securing cooperation of the press, the radio, and the film industry.^-

Office of information of the department of agricul­ ture .

Although there was no effort to centralize informa­

tion work either during the peaceful years that followed World War I and during the early part of World War II, growth of personnel in government to handle publicity and public contact work advanced rapidly.

Information divisions arose

in nearly all executive departments and agencies.

The pio­

neer was the department of agriculture, which made provision ■^Adapted from James R. Mock and Cedric Larson, Words That Won the W a r . Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1939. P- 3$3

for this type of activity as early as 1 9 ^*3 *

It received its

present title of office of information in 1 9 2 5 *

Its func­

tions are three: 1. To make available to farmers and the public the results of departmental research, conservation, and other activities through a series of technical and popular publications, 2. To cooperate with the press and radio in spread ing useful information to farmers and the public. 3. To keep the secretary of agriculture informed on the total operation of the department in the field Publicity,

educational, promotional, and informations

al services of this office multiplied until it became by far the largest in the government, at least until the second world ¥/ar started.

For the 1941 fiscal year it operated on

a budget of $1 1 ,8 8 7 ,8 0 0 , or nearly 4 3 per cent of the govern­ ments 711

entire expenditures for these purposes.

full-time public relations employes and 2 0 , 5 4 3 part-time

employes for a total of 3^91 man years. 1941

It employed

fiscal year amounted to $8 ,9 8 4 ,4 4 6 *

The payroll for the The office had

charge of spending about $1 ,6 6 0 ,0 0 0 a year for printing and binding.

It issued725 magazines, yearbooks, and reports,

plus an average of 30 technical, bulletins a year to pass along the results of agricultural research to farm readers. Other bulletins and leaflets, published at the 'rate of 2 3 ,8 1 3 , 3 4 4 & year,

explain the results in simple language and

•^Condensed from U.S.. Government Manual« Washington: Government Printing Office, September, 1941, P • 3^3*

6o

were mailed free in answer to requests*"*Sections of the office, reminiscent of the breakdown of Creel committee activities, carry on work that dwarfs that of a large metropolitan newspaper or a national adver­ tising agency*

For instance, the office issued 2 8 7 6 posters,

charts, and illustrations and 2 6 7 ,4-24 - photographic prints during the year 194-0*

The duplicating department gave out

151,323,975 pages of mimeographed material for 6 0 3 ,7^ 9 cus­ tomers*

In its press service the office maintains a city

room and a staff of news gatherers and editors in Washington alone larger than the editorial department of any Washington daily newspaper or press.association*

About 100 persons form

the staff of this office, exclusive of stenographers and clerks,

to maintain favorable relations with newspapers and

to issue approximately 2000 releases a year*

The radio sec­

tion prepares regular weekly programs such as the national farm and home hour and a consumer education offering and scripts on useful information for farmers and their wives sent to more than 2 5 0 stations. Information services mushroom*

With the department

^Statistics in this description are adapted from re­ ports of the house of representatives committee on appropri­ ations, a bureau of the budget tabulation, and information furnished by Secretary of Agriculture Claude R* Wickard, re­ ported by Peter Edson in his "In Washington" column, Los Angeles, Daily News f October 7 and 9 and-November 4-, 194-1.

6l

of agriculture breaking the ice and demonstrating the value of an information service, other government departments and agencies soon created similar units*

The period of greatest

development came with the inauguration of the New Deal in March, 1933? a^d the subsequent expansion of government ac­ tivities to meet the national emergency. leadership,*" remarks one author,

"Under Roosevelt’s

"the various departments of

government became much more news conscious than ever before, and the men heading them had their own press conferences.’”^ This growth was inevitable for several reasons. First, there was an increasing interest on the part of the public in government as it moved into fields where only pri­ vate business had trod before.

This awakened a great demand

for information about government activities. success of private enterprises

Second, the

in more enlightened public

relations services, plus the work of the department of agri­ culture service, pointed the way to adoption by other depart­ ments.

Third, the very enlargement of government itself ob­

viously augmented those engaged in informational work as well as all other functions.

And for the first time in history

government was beginning to attract large numbers of men with newspaper training. President Roosevelt himself once edited the Harvard

^Frank Luther Mott, American Journalism. New York: Macmillan, 19^4-1 > P«

62 Crimson.

He.- appointed former news reporters as his personal

secretaries and advisers— Stephen B. Early, Marvin McIntyre, and Louis McHenry Howe.

A few of the other key figures in

the New Deal with newspaper experience were Henry Wallace, editor of a farm journal, Wallace*s Farmer; Jesse Jones, pub­ lisher of the Houston Chronicle; Frank Knox, publisher of the Chicago Daily News; Nathan Straus, former New York police re­ porter; and Lowell Mellett, editor of the Washington Daily News . Estimates of the number of persons engaged in informationrservices of the federal government seemingly are not available for years, of the Roosevelt administration and the period preceding it.

Some of the guesses place 100 such em­

ployes in 1 9 3 3 , about 1 5 0 in the early part of 1 9 3 5 ,^ ar*d 3 ° 0 p in 1939* But obviously these conjectures were not based on data that were anywhere near complete.

The civil service

commission at the end of 1 9 3 $ tried to compute the number of federal employes doing work that could be classified under the general heading of information specialists.

It said

there were 2 6 0 0 of them, 60 0 with the rank of chief or assis­ tant chief of an information service at salaries from $ 3 8 0 0 to $10,000.

The remainder, although k.7 per cent of them made

^Charles E. Rogers, Journalism Quarterly, XII; 2 (March, 1935), P* 5* 2 Ti me. .XXXVI: 3 (January 1 6 , 1939), p. 34- •’

63

more than $ 2 0 0 0 a year, were ranked as clerical workers in these information sections.

1

The size of information units,

The first detailed

survey, however, did not come until three years later to give the first accurate picture of the size of the gigantic in­ formation machine in the federal government to keep the public acquainted with its work.

The report was for the year ended

June 3°» 19^-1 > and was made by the bureau of the budget and released by the appropriations committee of the house of re­ presentatives. It revealed that 153 agencies of the executive branch of the federal government had divisions carrying on functions of publicity, press agentry, information, education, public contact, and propaganda.

Expenditures of these offices came

to $2 7 ,7 6 9 ,94.0 for the 19^1 fiscal year - - $ 1 9 ,k-&3 >k-70 for sal­ aries and $8,3C)6,ij.70 for other expenses.

A total of 2895 full

time and 3 I 3618 part-time employes manned these information units.

So complete was the budget bureau*s report that it

even broke down the work of these part-time public servants. It estimated that the information work they performed, along with that of the 2 8 9 5 full-time employes, was equivalent to &k-33*5 man years of labor. Half the total, $13>75l»597> w &s spent on publications

•^■Peter Edson, O c t o b e r 8, 19lU.

"In Washington," Los Angeles Daily News, ------- ----------- ------

64 of various sorts,

A quarter of the total, $6,150,300, was

for contact work with the public.

Press services accounted

for only $ 2 ,6 7 7 ,0 0 0 of the total, with 2 3 2 full-time and 71 5 part-time employes.

Other functions and their approximate

costs included exhibits, $8 3 9 *0 0 0 ; motion pictures, $6 0 0 ,0 0 0 ; educational cooperation, $5 1 0 ,0 0 0 ; radio $4 3 5 >0 0 0 ; photo­ graphy, $3 8 0 ,0 0 0 ; lantern slides and lecture material, $ 1 ^-6 ,0 0 0 ; posters, $9 9 *0 0 0 ; and miscellaneous,

$ 5 5 1 *0 0 0 *^

Presented in statements and tables on 1 6 3 pages 24 . by 36 inches,

this survey was a surprise to taxpayers and pro­

vided ammunition for opposition party spokesmen in attacks against the administration.

Probably it was a surprise, too,

for the government and for newspapers.

Congressman Robert F.

Jones of Ohio, youngest Republican on the appropriations com­ mittee, who had led the fight for specific information about size of the government information agencies, criticised the "waste" of paper and money for publicity.

The Los Angeles

Times quipped; If all the press agents in Washington were laid end to end, they ought to be left that way for the duration.^ This traceable outlay of $27,770,000 in the 194-1 fis­ cal year was not the only expenditure for publicity.

There

was a paper bill of $2 ,5 1 5 *8 5 8 , and the free mailing privilege lEdson, November 4* 194-1* ^Editorial in Los Angeles Times, February 11, 194-2.

of government agencies cost $49>020,190*

And the figures re­

present a survey made before entry of the United States into the second world conflict*

Growth of existing information

agencies was pronounced during the national defense speedup and the early months of the war. mushroomed. rolls.

New information divisions

They added hundreds of new employes to the pay­

One Washington columnist predicted that the cost of

these new units, added to hidden costs of information ser­ vices impossible to tabulate, would raise the cost of public­ ity and public relations in the federal government for the 1 9 4 2 fiscal year to more than $2 0 0 ,0 0 0 ,0 0 0 .

Function of the information dispensers.

Yet Washing­

ton correspondents could not operate without the services of these government press agents.

Government has grown to such

monstrous size that a staff of newspapermen- the size.of the Washington press corps would be overwhelmed in trying to track down information from all sources.

Many.of the government

workers are former reporters who know what news is and where to find it.

And the 1GC0 newspaper and magazine represent­

atives in Washington remained free until war censorship went into effect to accept .the material offered by the press agents or to disregard it and obtain the information from the orig­ inal source.

'^Ray Tucker, ’’National.Whirligig, '* Los Angeles HeraldExpress , February 1 7 .,. 1942.

66

Importance of the government information specialists to newspaper reporters and their readers doubled as the United States rushed preparations for war.

"Every phase of the emer­

gency defense program is news," observed one writer shortly before the Pearl Harbor attack.

"Even whispers and gossip

are sometimes retailed as news in the national capital."^ How the government information agencies streamlined their operations to meet the challenge of the national de­ fense and war program; the creation of new organizations to handle censorship, morale-building, and propaganda functions; the problems they met and solved; the blunders they made; and the reaction they caused among the people--these form some of the most fascinating episodes in the history of Americafs part in World War II.

The chapters following tell this story.

^-Cedric Larson, "Publicity for National Defense— How It Works," Journalism Quarterly, XVIII 13 (September, 1941), p * 245 *•

CHAPTER V I

THE NEWSPAPERMEN1S PRESIDENT The press room presented a cacaphony. Mingled with the clatter of typewriters, the blending of a dozen telephone dictations to newspaper offices, the raised voices of radio commentators, and the general hubbub, was the sound of a portable radio receiving set, not infrequently giving a report emanating from a point only a few feet removed from the receiver. Paper cups which had held coffee, sandwich wrappings and leavings littered the floor* Correspondents un­ able to find more suitable space, scribbled bulletins on scraps of paper, using any stationary object as a writing desk*3This vivid description of the bedlam in the press room of the executive mansion in Washington during the evening fol­ lowing the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor is evidence of the importance of the white house as a news source*.

For 30 hours

press associations and newspapers concentrated their report­ ers at the presidential residence.

News of the outbreak of

war for the first hours streamed exclusively through the white house• White house N o * L news source.

This situation repre­

sented a new development in American government, for up to March, 1933? congress had been the nation's No.. 1 source of newspaper headlines.

Thereafter the white house became the

originating point for most of the biggest American news.

■^James J.. Butler, “Capital Press Corps Quickly Mobil­ ized on War News," Editor and Publisher, ih.: *>0 (December 13. 1 9 ^ 1 ), p* 8 .

68 “When President Roosevelt came in," observed Lyle C. Wilson, manager of the United Press bureau in the capital, balance shifted.

"the news

He made the presidential press conference

what it is today--a unique, almost unbelievable institution... no other head of state undertakes such a task."'1' The presidents and the press.

The presidential press

conferences represent a century and a half of a democratic evolution of the freedom of the press policy in actual oper­ ation.

Yet it was not until recent years--1909--that the

first presidential press conferences were held, and it was not until 1 9 3 3 that they were held regularly#. When Washington was president, there was little newsgathering effort on the part of newspaper proprietors.

Wash­

ington withstood violent attacks from essayists in the polit­ ical press, but no writer would have dared to question the president personally in an interview and publish the conver­ sation.

Coverage of the national capital began to develop

only after 1802, when the editor of the National Intelligencer asked for space on the senate floor for persons to report de­ bates.

The senate granted the request by a small margin--the

vote was 19-1?**

John Adams established the practice of an­

swering criticism through an "official 11 newspaper, of the Uni ted States.

the Gazette

This practice continued until the tele-

3-Lyle C. Wilson, (January, lplpl), p. 12..

"Covering the Capital," Quill, 29:1

69

graph started demands for presidential comment without the . delay of having it first printed in a newspaper,. Following the Civil war presidents began a policy of favoring individual newspaper correspondents with their choice news, trusting them to interpret it favorably. these writers served as “official spokesmen."

Sometimes This was the

relationship of Mark Hanna, President McKinleyds political counselor and press spokesman*. About this time, in 1895> an enterprising reporter for the Washington Star began the practice of meeting white house visitors at th*e gate as they emerged from the mansion and questioning them as to what business was carried out and what comments the president made. first publicity-minded president,

Theodore Roosevelt,

the

saw the correspondents hud­

dled in the rain at the gate one day and invited.them into an anteroom. press room.

This was the forerunner of .the modern white house, Roosevelt also played favorites by giving best

news tidbits to approved reporters frequently while .he shaved. He also made use of the techniques of sending out "trial bal­ loons" --stories that he later denied if the reaction was unfavorable--and of releasing information on Sundays to be printed in Monday morning papers, usually containing little other significant news', ' The press c.onference started.

President Taft invited

correspondents to question him at infrequent intervals, and

70 his action is credited with starting the open press conferences. But the system actually developed into little more than hand­ ing out prepared statements to reporters gathered around the table in the white'house cabinet room.

"In the Taft Adminis­

tration, 11 recalls one veteran Washington newspaperman,

“the

conferences were irregular and disorganized and there was none of the give and take, the jokes, and the off-the-record com­ ments of FDR's sessions."^ Wilson established semiweekly press conferences, de­ signed not only to give reporters news and observations of the chief executive but also to help keep him posted on public opinion..

"Such a confidential cooperation never developed,

however," declares Historian Mott,

"partly because it did not

fit the character and temperament of the president.

He pre­

pared for press conferences as for a classroom lecture, and o always looked down upon the Washington writers." Wilson at first allowed reporters to query him without submitting the questions in advance and until the sinking of the Lusitania he discussed his policies quite freely.

This liberality of

discussion at a time of national emergency inevitably led to misquotations and misinterpretation. ferences in May, 1915*-

He suspended the con-

Creel's Committee on Public Inform-

lR, M. Dobie, "Essary Talks About His 32 Years as a Washington Correspondent," Editor and Publisher, 74*22 (May 31, 1 9 4 D , p. 13* ^Frank Luther Mott, American Journalism, New York; Macmillan, 1941, p* ? 2 1 *

71 ation covered Washington so thoroughly and made it so diffi­ cult for correspondents to gather

their

own news that the

prestige of the reporters sank to

a low

point*

A newspaper publisher himself when he entered the white house, Harding received a welcome from the newspaper corps*

He reestablished twice-a-week conferences*

But he

slipped while answering a question On an important foreign affairs matter and thereafter required that all questions to be asked be submitted in advance*

His two successors, Cool-

idge and Hoover, preserved the written-question procedure* Coolidge never allowed himself to

be quoted in any form

permitted some of the information

to be

’’white house spokesman*" Coolidge regime,

attributed

but to

a

One correspondent, recalling the

saw interest in the conferences drop to a

point where attendance fell off almost completely and where the sessions were held at irregular intervals .A Hoover fs three news classifications *

Hoover killed

the ’’white house spokesman" and designated three classifications for information he released: that permitted for direct quot­ ation, that given for background purposes which could be used if not attributed to the president, and that identified as confidential material not to be published at all.

"Mr. Hoover,

it seems, had an annoying way of completely ignoring written

^Do-bie-, o p *, c i t * » p. 13.

72 questions that he did not wish to answer,11 comments one news­ man.^

And after the crash of 1 9 2 9 multiplied the problems of

his administration,

"Hoover became increasingly irritated at

newspaper criticism, sought to punish famit-finding corres­ pondents, and tended more and more to withhold not only the casual news of the white house but far more important infor­ mation of governmental

a c t i v i t i e s / * ^

News from Hoover and

his cabinet members became increasingly difficult to get, and press conferences were abandoned completely in November, 1932*

At that time relations between the chief executive

and Washington newspapermen were more strained and actually antagonistic than at any time for the past three or four decades. The "newspapermen1s president.* Roosevelt,

Like Theodore

the New Deal president who came into office in

March, 1933, capitalized on the value of good press rela­ tions.

"He knew what newspapermen recognized as a good

story, and he knew as well as they did when and how to 'break1 it.*3

Franklin D. Roosevelt abandoned the require­

ment for written questions turned in ahead of time. scheduled press conferences semiweekly.

He again

To Hoover's three

news* classifications he superimposed a fourth and exceedingly

3-L o c . d i t . 2Mott, 0£. oit., p. 722 . 3lbid.. p. 7 2 3 .

useful device; statements that could be ascribed to him but without use of direct quotations,

Mott's description of the

first of these Roosevelt conferences is graphic;

8

Each of the 200 correspondents was introduced to the president, who shook hands with them, recogniz­ ing many and calling them by their first names* Then,* with his cigarette in its long holder struck in his moi^th at a sharp angle, with quick play of wit but with ready and exact information on all subjects, Roosevelt answered the questions that were fired at him. In its genuine informativeness, in its appre­ ciation of the news task, and in its gay informality, this was something new in presidential press rela­ tions* At the close of the conference there was a spontaneous burst of applause*■*■ Alrnost unbelievably fine relationships endured be­

tween Roosevelt and the press*

Quite: understandably, Roose­

velt resented the growing amount of criticism that began appearing in newspapers and frequently displayed his irrita­ tion at the conferences.

But there was hardly a newspaperman

in Washington who would have failed to agree with the presi­ dent of the National Press Club: late in 193^ when he told Roosevelt; We feel you have been a newspaperman's president*.* You have made historic news, and you have served it hot and steaming.^ At the White House Correspondents' Association dinner in March,

19^1> President Roosevelt remarked that the confer­

ences were a means of "helping each other,#*:

^Cited b y Mott, Q ^Loc* cit.

ojd*

cit*,

p*

72ip.

I have been trying to keep you informed of the news of Washington, and of the nation, and of the world, from the point of view of the presidency* You, more than you have realized, have been giving me a great deal of information about what the people of the country are thinking and saying.-*Wartime press conferences.

President Roosevelt's

press conferences took on greater significance after December 7, 1941*

They served as the keystone to the entire war in­

formation structure of the federal government.

They remained

as the most important single news source in Washington— a source covered regularly twice a week by 2 0 0 of the finest and most experienced newspapermen available. Uniqueness’ of the presidential press conference was brought sharply to the attention of newspapermen and their readers three weeks after the start of war when Prime Mini­ ster Winston Churchill, as leader of a democracy far older than that of the United States, had never before taken part in a mass press conference as premier.

It was the first time

during war that a British prime minister had volunteered to answer questions of -American journalists.

And Washington

turned out in greater numbers than usual.

Here's the reveal­

ing account of a reporter whp was there; For 15 minutes Prime Minister Churchill answered questions as they came. He gave some answers so direct and so honest that the 201 reporters present could hardly believe their ears...

-‘•Speech quoted in Editor and Publisher. 74:12 (March 22, 1941), p. 4.

75 Mr. Roosevelt and his press secretary, Stephen T. Early, had been warning the prime minister of the ordeal in store for him. They had proposed that he make a statement but decline to answer questions. As a guest, an honored guest, a guest under circumstances utterly without precedent, he could refuse with per­ fectly good grace to be bombarded by the press. But, as the president himself disclosed, Mr. Churchill scorned the protection offered him. He would, he declared, answer questions to the best ofhis ability. The man who never held press conferences at home performed like a veteran at his press conference abroad among strangers. It was' a great performance . 1 Two Washington political commentators credited Churchill with a superb public relations job in his appear­ ance at the press meeting.

They wrote:

In a single impulsive movement at the white house press conference, Winston Churchill did more for the British empire than a corps of propagandists could have done in a lifetime. He stood upon a chair. That was all. But it created a wave of friendly sentiment, and it knocked into a cocked hat the old vaudeville notion of the bally Englishman with a gaping mouth, a stiff neck and a cane... The 200 men who had crowded into the presidents office wanted to see the prime minister as well as hear him. "Stand up, please1 .* somebody called from the rear. And Churchill obliged* He not only stood up, but he climbed upon his chair so that he could be seen over the heads of the front' row by every newsman in the room. The effect was electric, Tough crusted newsmen cheered. Then they thrust their pencils in their teeth and applauded. Churchill had done something wholly American. The rest of the press conference was easy . 2

1United Press dispatch written by Joseph L. Myler, December 2 lj., 1 9 [pL. 2 Dr ew Pearson and Robert 3. Allen, "Washington MerryGo-Round," December 28, 1941 *

76 To many students of government and polftics the very fact that the press conferences•continued on through the war was surprising.

Credentials of newspapermen were checked

more closely before they were admitted to the oval room of the white house*

No restrictions were placed on questioning

despite the increased possibility of disclosure of military information*

The following is a description of a press con­

ference three and a half months after war started: The president sits calmly at his desk, flanked by a stenographer•*.while the correspondents shove in. Somebody says '"all in." The president, looking up and addressing no one in particular^, opens the con­ ference with any announcements that he may want to make. If some correspondent wants to ask a question he just speaks right up and asks it. Usually the president answers him. If the question happens to be too hot he says "no comment...*" He doesn’t wisecrack as much as he used to, but that doesn’t mean that he isn’t just as alert. Just more sober— that's all. He tosses answers, or eva­ sions, back at the reporters like a shot. He still loves to speak in parables--draws analogies frequently. 1 Not alii comments about the wartime conferences were favorable, however*

Walter Lippman complained that he had

left a session ’’not a wiser, but a sadder

m a n . **2

He said

that President Roosevelt opened the meeting with the remark that "I have no news to day**, and then parried questions from the reporters without disclosing any information.

^Bill Henry, 20, 1942.

Arthur

wBy the Way,** Los Angeles Times. March

^Column by Walter Lippmann, New York Herald-Tribune, February 3 , 1 9 lj_l.

77 Robb: of Editor and Fublisher called attention to newspaper comment that discontinuance of the conferences for the dura­ tion of the war had been considered.

Robb protested:

We can recall no instance in which Hr. Roosevelt has ever revealed information that his cabinet asso­ ciates saw fit to suppress. He has been extraordina­ rily adroit at avoiding embarrassing questions— too much so, we believe, for the aims that he and the 1 3 0 ,000,000 people behind him wish to attain. The presidential press conference is a unique American institution. It i s n ’t a show piece, but, under Mr. Roosevelt, it has often been a great and genuine contribution to the functioning of democratic government .-*■ The president’s press secretary.

Able assistant to

President Roosevelt in his newspaper and radio relations is •Stephen T. Early, the press secretary, who meets reporters every morning and is available continually to answer ques­ tions.

Early explained his policy as that of trying to make

facts available to newspapers, chiefly in the form of texts of speeches and messages to congress. the facts available, m Early said,

’’When we have made

’’out policy is to leave to

the newspaper correspondents themselves the interpretation of white house

n e w s . ,f2

Early belmeves the system serves "the

real needs of the newspapers themselves” and that its Mstaunchest defenders" are working newspapermen and correspondents

^Arthur Robb, "Shop Talk at T h i rty,”Editor and Pub­ lisher, 75*6 (February 7» 194-2), p. 40* 2Speech dedicating the new St.. Paul Dispatch and Pio­ neer Press plant, January 24, 1941 >reported inEditor and Publi she r, 74^5 (February 1, 194.1 ), p* 5*

78 who file the bulk of the news from Washington*, Cabinet press sessions.

Patterned after the presi­

dential sessions are the press conferences of his cabinet members.

Frequently the information divulged by them is of

extreme importance.

They have developed during the Roosevelt

regime to strategic positions as primary Washington news sources.

Since the cabinet members are the actual adminis­

trative heads of the principal government executive depart­ ments,

the value to the people of having them available for

questioning can not be underestimated.

Press conferences for

cabinet officers are a vital means of preventing bureaucracy, of keeping the executive branch of government responsive to public opinion. War brought new significance to the conferences in the key departments--state, war, and navy. ences continued on a regular basis.

Yet the confer­

Like the presidential

sessions, they are on a give-and-take basis.

Consider one re­

po rter’s description of Secretary of State Cordell Hull’s meetings: One steady date for state department reporters is the daily conference with Secretary Hull, usually held at noon. Shortly before then a stream of news­ men pours into the secretary's waiting room and stands around a long mahogany table awaiting H u l l ’s entrance with considerable decorum. The white-haired states­ man greets the gathering with a courteous "Good morn­ ing, gentlemen. Have you got any questions?" Then the floor is open. The going gets thick and fast at times. Hull, clasping and unclasping his long hands, has to parry

79

questions with caution, but seldom loses his south­ ern composure, Sometimes he will break the tension with a quiet joke. Privately Hull often throws aside his press conference reserve and cuts right through the maze of diplomatic phraseology, pulling no pun­ ches. f,It can go to hell in a minute,” was his reply •to one query about the general foreign situation.1 Secretary of Navy Frank Knox and Secretary of War Henry L.. Stimson held significant press conferences after the war started.

Notable was the press gathering at which Knox

submitted the report of his investigation into the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor: It was a "reporter's report" brimming with color, missing no detail that a correspondent might want, the press corps agreed....Surrounded on all sides by newspapermen, Secretary Knox puffed calmly on his pipe and rocked slightly on his swivel chair as he read... significant passages from his report...The questionand-answer period which followed the formal delivery was one of the most lively many Washington corres­ pondents, veterans of such sessions, could recall,

^Article by Eleanor Ragsdale, Newspaper Enterprise Association staff correspondent, Los Angeles Daily New s , December 194-1 • ^Editor and Publisher. 74:51 (December 20, 194l),p* 8*

CHAPTER V I I

WAR ACTION NEWS FROM THE ARMY Soldiers and sailors and marines actually do the fighting, and from their exploits in World War II came the drama, the human interest, the tales of heroism, of disappoint­ ments, of inspiring victories*

When early months of the war

brought a. series of discouraging United Nations defeats— Pearl Harbor, Manila, Singapore, Java, Burma, Corregidor-the nation thrilled to the army communiques of the courageous defenders of Bataan peninsular and to navy announcements of victories over Japanese sea and air units. of individual feats of daring.

Communiques told

Important as the white house

and other civilian government agencies were in the scheme of giving out information, the real action stories of the war came from the army and navy. Army public relations reorganized,

Complete reorgan­

ization of the war departments contacts with the press and radio preceded the entry of the United States into the con­ flict against the Axis*

Previous relationships chiefly were

handled by the military intelligence, the G-2 section of the general staff which concerns itself largely with information of enemy activities.

This arrangement frequently had been

responsible for criticism of editors on grounds intelligence officers were concerned with keeping information secret rather

81

than divulging it to the public. Bureau of public relations.

In the expansion of the

army that took place aft-er outbreak of the second world war in Poland there was a parallel extension of the a r m y’s press contacts.

To meet a renewed interest in military matters,

the functions of public relations and information dissemination were transferred from the intelligence section to a deputy chief of staff.

In February,1941, after drafting of thou­

sands of youths into the army had begun, a bureau of public relations was created and placed directly under the secretary of war.

One article offered the following explanation for

establishment of the new bureau: One of the reasons for this change was to establish in Washington a responsible central agency which could collect and release all information bearing on the army and the war department activities in general. The rapid expansion and the problems raised by the training programs and the procurement of material and supplies have greatly increased the amount of inform­ ation which required coordination and distribution 1 through the press and other channels of communication. Major General Robert C. Richardson, Jr., was the first director of the bureau.

He organized nine divisions to ’‘help

in all possible ways to facilitate the distribution of in­ formation *": 1. Press information branch to prepare news re­ leases and maintain contact with newspaper correspond­ ents and news agencies. Officers attached to this

Anonymous, ’’Army News for Your Newspaper," American Press, 59^9 (July, 1941), p* 4*

82

office are experienced newspapermen and staff the division around the clock to answer special requests. 2, Pictorial branch to handle distribution of pictures taken by army signal corps members, arrange for newsreels to be taken, provide for photographers to visit army camps, and cooperate with motion picture producers wishing a military background for a com­ mercial film* 3« Badio branch to aid representatives of radio stations and networks in preparation of scripts and programs• ip. Special assignment branch to cooperate with magazine and book editors to furnish factual material such as biographies, histories of posts, and descrip­ tion of -war activities and to review manuscripts up­ on request. The office serves as a general research bureau* 5*. Field liaison branch to remain in constant con­ tact with public relations officers on duty at the larger army units in the field and the various posts and stations. These officers.serve as miniature bur­ eaus of public relations within the areas to which they are assigned. They are responsible to their own military commanders, but the bureau of public re­ lations in' Washington keeps them informed and coordi­ nates their independent activities*. 6. Procurement information branch to cover pro­ blems of public relations arising from army purchases of supplies and equipment and maintain contact with indust ry. 7- Intelligence and analysis branch to review pub­ lished material, editorials, and radio broadcasts dealing with military topics and keep the department informed as to extent and. trends of popular interest in the army.

8. Planning and liaison branch to shape policy and orient work of the bureau. This office works with speakers on military subjects and coordinates acti­ vities of the bureau with those of other agencies in the war department. 9«; Administrative branch to handle personnel, cor-

83

respondence, reproduction, and distribution of re'

leases.^Press relations.

Establishment of the bureau of pub­

lic relations met favorable reaction, and General Richardson received praise for "revamping the old service-manual rules: and regulations to coincide more closely with those of working 2 newspapermen." Formerly commander of the first cavalry divsion at Fort Bliss, Texas, he had had no newspaper experience. To put over his ideas for closer cooperation between the army and the press, he called a conference in Washington in March, 1 9 4 1 > of 200 public relations officers from army centers all

over the nation.

Secretary of War Stimson advised them to

make available "the real basic facts, free from any false ex3 aggeration either one way or the other." And General Richardson directed them to aid reporters and photographers in carrying out their assignments and to send back to home­ town communities "a stream of news on the military, al, and social life of the army stations.."^

education­

Richardson in a

statement said: The American public is entitled to full information on national defense progress, and the policy is to give the press full cooperation in every proper news acti­ vity...The only news which will be withheld is that which would be detrimental to our national defense in­ terests or helpful to possible enemies...As I see it, lAdapted from o_p. ci t .. ^Newsweek. 17:12 (March 24, 1941), p. 6 4 . 3Loc . ci t ♦. ^Loc. cit,.

8li-

the responsibility of army public relations officers is to present the facts and then, with confidence, leave their interpretation to the editor* Press releases for the entire war department are routed through the bureau. draft the article,

After officers in the bureau

it returns to the branch or servce where

it originated to be checked for accuracy of fact and impres­ sion.

The bureau has a press room in the munitions building

where correspondents may use desks,

typewriters,

telephones,

reference material, maps, and files of previous releases. United Press teletype brings news to the department..

A

In addi­

tion to sending releases to all correspondents in Washington the bureau makes copies for all war department offices, head­ quarters of the army corps areas, 2 200 other agencies.

overseas departments,

and

On August 6, 1 9 ^ 1 1 Brigadier General Alexander D* S u r l e s , who had been chief of the public relations branch when it was part of the intelligence section of the general staff,

returned to head the bureau of public relations after

spending two years with the armored force at Fort Knox, Ky. At this time the planning and liaison branch of the bureau rose in importance as the policy-making,

idea-testing division:

It originates, reviews, and passes upon public r e ­ lations plans to be carried out in detail by other

^■Editor and Publi she r, 7 ^ 1 1

(March 15, 19ipl), p. 5*

Cedric Larson, "Publicity for National Defense— How It Works," Journalism Quar ter ly, 18:3 (Sept ember, 19^ 1 ), p. 252 .

85 branches of the bureau. New stories, methods, and approaches are developed here with the’ aim of placing the true story of the army before the American people* This branch also has a speaker’s bureau, which sup­ plies well-informed army officers to speak at civilian functions; a womenfs interest section, which inter­ prets to women of the nation the aims and activities of the army and war department; and an exhibit section, which assigns, produces, and installs national de­ fense exhibits wherever practical,^ Army Officers and the public.

Public relations is a

new concept in the army, where the traditional viewpoint is that nearly all news except announcements of victories should be withheld as a part of military strategy.

And officers sub­

ject to the rigidity of army organization usually are not in a position to give out information to outsiders.

This re­

lationship was explained by Surles when he pointed out: Unless the officer is of a rank and in a command post which carries as a military duty that of speak­ ing officially, a member of the United States army does not ordinarily speak for the army or any com­ ponent unit. Even though the officer questioned is an expert on some particular subject or problem, it is usually the commander who makes or authorizes the answer or statement. This holds true even if the com­ manding officer has to refer to the expert’s opinions or gives them verbatim; it is the matter of responsi­ bility and coordinated evaluation which is most im­ portant. That all officers of the army are not imbued with the spirit of public relations became clear in the famous "yoohoo" incident in July, 19^-1*

A battalion of soldiers was marching

^-Anonymous, “U.S. Bureau Set Up to Give Complete Army News,” American Press, 160:1 (November, 19i|-l), p. 18, 2Stuart Haydon, "Gen. Surles, Press Chief, Asks Editors’ Cooperation," Editor and Publisher, Ik'k-l (November 22, 1 9 4 D ,

past a golf course near Memphis, Tenn., and engaged in the typical activity of American youths when they whistled and "yoohooed" at a group of girls in shorts playing golf with a? lieutenant general.

The officer,

considering the ”yoohoosu

an insult, ordered the battalion to march an extra 15 miles in the hot Tennessee sun as punishment.

Newspapers through­

out the country criticized the general and suggested that he could have handled any disciplinary action he thought was called for in a way that would have killed the news value of the story.

The general probably had seldom thought of the

idea of public relations in all his 43 years of military ex­ perience . Camp newspapers.

As the army grew in size in 1940

and 1 9 4 l> every camp and unit of sufficient size had its own newspaper--a total of 3 5 0 such publications being reported by *1

the war department in April, 1942.

And to reach soldiers all

over the world the Stars and Stripes, famous newspaper of the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I, was revived under a new name of Y a n k .

The paper contained cartoons, edit­

orial opinion, and straight news stories on progress of the war, training, promotions, new regulations,

army sports, and

personal incidents among army men. Communiques behind the scenes.

A former reporter work-

J United Press dispatch, April 2., 1942.

8?

ing behind the scenes was responsible for much of the success of the army communiques in winning popular admiration for the exploits..

Some readers who tingled when they read early in

19-^2 of General Douglas A.. MacArthur's' forces counterattack­ ing on Bataan peninsula in the face of Japanese forces out­ numbering the Americans and Filipinos 10 to one gained the im­ pression that MacArthur wrote them under fire.

Actually the

words that appeared in print were of necessity altogether dif­ ferent from those MacArthur used.

The general, before his

shift to command the United Nations forces in the southwest Pacific with headquarters in Australia, forwarded his report from his peninsula headquarters to Corregidor fortress in Manila Bay.

Naval operators there shortwaved the account to

Honolulu for relay to Washington, Lieutenant Colonel Francis V. Fitzgerald, a former re­ porter in Salt Lake City, Lod Angeles, and Kansas City, hand­ led the rewrite .job on the MacArthur dispatch.

He revised and

reworded the decoded message to prevent the Japanese from be­ ing able to compare it with the original message, which pre­ sumably they were able to intercept easily and obtain the. clue to decipher secret messages*.

Fitzgerald also held a press

conference for reporters to explain and interpret the communique if necessary.

■^Ray Tucker, ” Los Angeles HeraldExpress, February 17, 1942 *

88

New public relations policy.

Although a former news­

paperman was responsible for the effective phrasing of the MacArthur communiques, MacArthur-had formerly served as chief of the intelligence section and was familiar with press re­ lations techniques..

MacArthur*s statement to newspapermen

covering his headquarters in Australia was the best and most concise expression of the new constructive public relations policy of the army made by any officer.

It is worth quoting

in full: My main purpose is not to suppress news but to get news for you.. The reason for efforts by the United States and Australia to inform the public what is going on is that if it does not know the truth its imagination operates, thereby reducing confidence. Silence will begin to react against you*. It, there­ fore, is a crime. It is important that the public should be told so it can summon confidence and deter­ mination of purpose in support of the war effort. I want your help, without which we cannot get that maximum effort needed to win. I am an old censor myself. What I have said does not mean that what we give out here you have to take and use or that you are limited to canned news and cannot use your brilliancy. It does not mean you must abstain from criticism, but I hope that before you criticize you will avail yourself of the facts. If you do you will find most criticism disappears. When you start to tear down public confidence in military leaders you practically destroy an army. I am always glad to give you my full knowledge or opinion on any subject by background only.. There has been nothing more astonishing in the pro­ gress of this war, which is really the application of the mechanics of force to human nature, than the posi­ tion occupied by public opinion. One cannot wage war under present conditions without the support of public opinion, which is tremendously molded by the press and other propaganda forces.

89 Men will not fight and die- without knowing what they are fighting and dying for. The care with which the enemy keeps the truth from his people and tries to incline their minds toward certain channels and to implant certain ideas shows the weight he lays upon it. In the democracies it is essential that the public should know the truth. The old days called for a censorship embodying a method of control in which the emphasis was placed upon preventing the leakage of information of military value* The censorship of these days has gone infinitely beyond that* There is almost a voluntary censorship now. No one wants to help the enemy* The moment the public knows that anything printed has inadvertently or unwittingly helped the enemy it will demand that such aid be stopped , 1

■^■Quoted in Associated Press dispatch, Los Angeles Times, March 24, 1942.

CHAPTER V I I I

NEWS FROM THE NAVY Development of a modern public relations policy in the navy trailed that in the army*

The function was not di­

vorced from naval intelligence until May 1, 194l> nine months after the war department had separated its press relations staff from army intelligence* Rear Admiral A* J *. Hepburn, former commander-in-chief of the United States fleet and commander of the 1 2 th naval district, assumed charge of the office of public relations, directly responsible to the secretary of the navy, on May 8 , 19^*1*

Lieutenant Commander Hal 0 'Flaherty of the naval re­

serve, former managing editor of the Chicago Daily News, was named aide to the admiral in full charge of the Washington office.

Hepburn divided the organization into four branches: *

I. Press relations section to clear all spot news to newspaper correspondents and wire associations and answer inquiries. The staff of former newsmen kept the office operating 2 ip hours a day. 2 * Radio section to maintain contact with radio stations and networks. 3 . Photographic section.

Ip. Naval district section to coordinate the Wash­ ington office with the public relations officers of the naval districts on the continent and Puerto Rico, Canal Zone, Hawaii, and the Pacific and Atlantic fleets

^-Adapted from anonymous article,"Navy News for Your Newspaper," American Press. 59**9 (July, 19 lpl), p. 5*

91 The naval district section assumed great importance be­ cause of efforts to decentralize the entire public relations program and give each district the responsibility for news of * naval activities of interest to the public within its jurisdi cti on. But the navy's public relations plans soon hit ob­ stacles.

In the first place the navy engaged in war activity

and in actual combat with the enemy several months before the Pearl Harbor battle and long before army forces became involved. Navy participation in the war began when the United States started to protect the vessels carrying lend-lease materials to Great Britain.

This war activity led Secretary of the Navy

Frank Knox on January 16, 19^J-1>

send a letter to newspapers,

press services, radio stations, photograph agencies, and mem­ bers of congress.

The letter requested them to put a volun­

tary censorship into effect on the following types of inform­ ation not announced or authorized by the navy: 1. craft 2. their 3* Zj_.

Actual or intended movements of vessels or air­ of the United States navy. Mention of secret technical naval weapons or development. New United States ships or aircraft. United States navy construction projects ashore.

One writer said that Knox's appeal to the press and radio came only after a great deal of information of value to potential enemy nations had appeared in print.

He added:

Most of it, the navy confesses, came from officers who just couldn't keep their mouths shut, gave out

figures or released statements they shouldnft, or talked too much at cocktail parties. Twice the se­ cretary circularized all naval establishments, asking the personnel to pipe down. When that d i d n ft do any ^ good, the problem was put up to the newspapers direct. Although the program was "voluntary,M in the back­ ground as a means of enforcing the pionage act of 1917*

"suggestionswas

the Es­

But in the months that the voluntary

plan was in effect there were no outright refusals to abide by its restrictions.

Considerable confusion arose, however,

as

to just what material should be printed and what should be withheld.

This conflict of judgment of editors and naval offi­

cers grew more acute as the voluntary censorship was extended to cover more and more things,

The navy asked newspapers to keep silent about British vessels coming to American shipyards for repair of war damage. Editors found it hard to suppress information about the huge British ships coming to American harbors,

since the boats en­

tered in daylight and often were visible to thousands of per­ sons lining the waterfront.

The British warship Malaya, for

instance, was seen by millions as it steamed up New York har­ bor, with extent of its damage clearly observable.

Hundreds

of its sailors, with the words "H.M.S. Malaya" on their hat­ bands, readily talked about the ship and the fights it had been in to American listeners at New York restaurants and 1

Peter Edson,"Washington Column," Arizona Republic. February 2 3 , 19 ^.1 .

93 saloons.

The New York Daily News and the Herald-Tribune

printed stories and pictures of the arrival, while other New York papers and the three press services withheld the story. Some weeks later the navy realized its mistake in trying to conceal presence of British ships and allowed newspapers to print stories about them subject to certain restrictions.. Other taboos were added to the original list.

The

navy asked newspapers to keep quiet about construction of naval bases abroad.

The maritime commission on May 27 asked that

stories be suppressed about the following; 1 , Actual or intended movements of vessels used to aid Britain or other democraaies, including sailings to the Red Sea and to Rangoon, port terminus of the Burma road to China*. 2. Names or lines or characteristics of vessels be­ ing used to aid the democracies. 3*. Arrivals or departures of such vessels. q_. Cargoes of the vessels.

Newspapermen complained that the voluntary censorship system was not specific enough to offer a guide as to whether to print or suppress the scores of stories of various types that arose.

A typical answer from the navy department came

from Lieutenant Commander Herbert A. Ellis, public relations officer of the first naval district,

in a speech before the

New England Daily Newspaper Association: When we c a n ft understand, we must have faith; so I say to you when you cannot understand why you are asked not to publish certain types of news or carry certain types of pictures concerning your navy, you must have faith in the person who asks you to forego the publishing of such items...

../War or national emergency means sacrifices* It means to newspapermen that they must be.ready and willing to look a wonderful piece of copy in the face and heave it into the wastebasket without thinking they are martyrs to a narrow-minded, short-sighted, unimaginative sailorman.lTransition from a period of national emergency to actual war helped in convincing editors of the necessity for suppressing information that might be of value to the enemy and also cut off many sources of information.

Newspapermen

accustomed to the peacetime psychology of printing all news were forced to adapt themselves to the fact that publication of some types of information would be unquestionably detri­ mental to the nationfs war program. But there were scores of incidents indicating a con­ fused public relations policy--stories withheld by some editors but released by others, censorship of insignificant details, failure to furnish news of important navy operations of no strategic value to the enemy, and inconsistencies.

Newspapers

complained about navy suppression of news about the disastrous burning of the U.S.S.. Lafayette, formerly the French liner Normandie.

There was the Farr incident, in which a London

newspaper correspondent released the first information about arrival of American convoys in Australia.

Announcements of

warship launchings continued after the start of war, although such news conceivably was of direct aid to the enemy.

p. 1 2 .

There

^•Cited by Editor and Publisher, 7^;21 (May 24, 1941), 1

were scores of other unexplainable public relations boners* And five months after the December 7 attack, the navy still was trying to readjust its press relations policy, still at­ tempting to explain blunders and inconsistencies, still hold­ ing conferences with newsmen to “iron out“ strained relation­ ships, still wondering where to distinguish between informa­ tion that should be released and that which should be barred from public notice*

CHAPTER IX

OFFICE OF GOVERNMENT REPORTS Emergency governmental agencies mushroomed so rapid­ ly during the first year of the New Deal that President Roosevelt himself found it impossible to keep himself in­ formed of all activities.

To fill this need, to create a

clearing house where information about the entire New Deal program could be made available, and to form a liaison group between the federal and state and local governments, Presi­ dent Roosevelt by. executive order of November 17, 1933, es­ tablished the National Emergency Council.

This was the

first move toward a central information organization since the Creel committee went out of existence after the World War. Purposes of the O G R .

The NEC operated with moderate

success and weathered several storms of congressional criti­ cism until it was ua&olished under terms of the Roosevelt reorganization plan No. 2 effective July 1, 1939*

At that

time its .duties were assumed by the newly-created Office of Government Reports.

The OGR, an administrative unit of the

executive office of the president, had its purposes defined by congress when it received an annual appropriation under an act of June 9, 19^p.* a. Provide a central clearing house through which individual citizens, organizations of citizens, and

state or local government bodies may transmit in­ quiries and complaints and receive advice and infor­ mation* b* Assist the president in dealing with special problems requiring the clearance of information be­ tween the federal government and state and local gov­ ernments and private institutions* c. Collect and distribute information concerning the purposes and activities of executive departments and agencies for the use of the congress, administra­ tive officials, and the public. d. Keep the president currently informed of the opinions, desires, and complaints of citizens and groups of citizens and of state and local governments with respect to the work of federal agencies.^ Lowell Mellett, former Scripps-Howard newspaper exec­ utive, became director of the OGR with its staff of more than 5 0 0 persons with field headquarters in every state. The national defense program with its speed-up of industrial and civilian life in 1 9 3 9 a^d 19 ^4-0 placed heightened empha­ sis upon the need for public information.

The OGR served a

useful purpose as an information headquarters where busi­ nessmen wanting advice about obtaining a military supply contract, the anxious mother asking about the likelihood of her son getting drafted, the congressman seeking to learn, public response to his latest radio oration, and the depart­ ment head wishing to determine effect of the new laws passed by the North Dakota legislature,

all could go with certainty

of receiving the facts sought or being directed to the prop-

•^•Public Law 107; 77th Congress, 1st Session, Ch. I8 9 .

98

er office.

Mellett divided the OGR into three principal

sections, press intelligence, field operations, and the United States information service, plus an administrative office that handled such matters as personnel,

finance, and

services like mimeographing and printing. Press intelligence section.

Oldest division is that

of press intelligence, which had been formed in August, 1933, as an office of the National Recovery Administratibn to furnish government officials with comprehensive press services. NEC.

On July 10, 1935? it became a division of the

It offered four services to congressmen and federal

offi ci als; !• The Daily Bulletin, a 100 to 150-page mimeo­ graphed compilation of news and editorial discussions of governmental, economic, and related subjects from 350 newspapers * OGR workers in 194° read lli{-,300 newspapers and summarized and classified 4 5 1 > 0 9 1 news items and 203,200 editorials.! The Bulletin, indexed according to a permanent clipping file dating back to October, 1933> is distributed free each day to mem­ bers of congress and a list of 5&0 federal officials. 2.. The Magazine Abstracts, a weekly summary of articles and editorials relating to public affairs compiled from 50 weekly and monthly magazines. In 1940 the Abstracts reviewed 11,300 articles and dis­ tributed copies to 12 71 congressmen and public offi­ cials. Three hundrkd copies were mailed weekly to government representatives abroad as a means of keeping them acquainted with domestic affairs.^

lMellett!s testimony before house committee, reported by Editor and Publisher, 74^9 (March 1, 1941)> P* 3 .^Loc. cit.

99

3

3 * A service unit providing a daily clipping ser­

vice for government officials and National legisla­ tors. In 1940 this unit loaned 172,700 clippings on selected topics for periods of weeks, months, or years, A total of 1,771,800 duplicates were furnish­ ed and lOip, 021 photostatic copies made in the same year. Senate and house members took an average of 1 3 , 6 0 0 clippings a month during 1 9 ^ 0 , most of them on aviation and defense plant strikes . 1 Ip. Special research unit to fill individual re­ quests from government officials and congressmen for information based upon the permanent files of 6 ,0 0 0 , 0 0 0 newspaper clippings*^ Division of field operations.

Offices or field rep­

resentatives in all 4 S states make up the division of field operations, functioning as a "barometer of public opinion for government circles.”3

Major activities of the field

representatives include; 1 . To maintain and operate clearing houses for in­ formation concerning federal agencies by providing, upon request, statistical data and other factual in­ formation concerning federal activities.

2. To head committees composed of the principal state representatives of the several federal agencies and in other ways to effect cooperation among these agenci es. 3 . To serve as liaison between federal agencies and state administrations for the purpose of advanc­ ing cooperation in the development and execution of federal and state programs.

To furnish to the director reports concerning iL o c . cit. ^United States Government Manual, Government Printing Office, September, 1 94-1, p . ^Cedric Larson, ^Publicity for National Defense--How It W o r k s ,* 1 Journalism Quarterly. XVIII: 3 (-September, 19 ipl),

p. 2lj.6 .

100

(a\) opinions* desires, and complaints of citizens and groups of citizens and of state and local governments with* respect to the work of federal agencies, and (b) the effectiveness of work accomplished by. federal agencies and the extent to which needs are being met, 5. To prepare, during regular and special sessions of state legislatures, reports for the information of federal departments and agencies covering proposed legislation which may in any way affect their opera­ tions; also, to act as liaison in the presentation of legislation proposed by federal departments or agen­ cies for enactment by the legislatures of the several states . 1 The U.S. information service *

The United States in­

formation service, created in March, 193k->

a division of

the NEC, is the central information clearing house.

It pro­

vides those who request it with “factual information on the structure and operations of the federal departments and agencies, assists government departments in serving the pub­ lic through the proper routing of inquiries, and directs in- p quiries to the government bureau or agency concerned*” The service issues the United States Government Manual three times a year to list the functions, organization, and per­ sonnel of government departments and bureaus. Helationship to newspapers.

Until 194-l~*it was the

boast of Director Mellett that OGR never issued a handout, never put out a press release."3

But the OGR changed its

-Mj.S. Government Manual, p. 6 6 . ^•L o c . c i t . 3peter Edson, “"In Washin gto n” column, Los Angeles Daily N e w s , October 13, 194-1 •

101

attitude and became a sort of super press agentry office with the advent of the national defense program.

It began

studying the releases of all other federal agencies and for­ warding them to its field offices.

This grew into a daily

Information Digest, a publication boiling down the news re­ leases of all departments and agencies and made available not only to its own field representatives but also to gov­ ernment officials in Washington.

A weekly digest of defense

news, This Week in Defense. is distributed to 2500 officials in Washington and to libraries and other organizations throughout the country. Reversing its stand against press releases completely, the OGR in the early part of 19^4-1 began distributing This Week in Defense to weekly newspapers throughout the nation under an arrangement with the National Editorial Association. The government bore the cost of preparing and mailing the material to a list of papers made up by the NEA. 1941 , more

mary.

In April,

than 1 2 , 0 0 0 weeklies were receiving the news sum­

It was not sent to dailies, since, as Mellett ex­

plained, it was not original material and all had been made available previously by the various government agencies. Mellett justified this distribution of government propaganda in this manner:

1Edltor and Publisher. 74:15 (April 12, 19^1), p. 58.

102

I believe that nothing will go further toward de­ veloping a strong national morale than accurate know­ ledge on the part of all the people of what is being done in thb defense program. Such accurate informa­ tion can be and is being put within reach. In lieu of any more convenient source, it can be obtained from the OGR...In response to the request of a number of publishers, we undertook 'to make available to any newspaper the weekly summary of developments in the defense program...The contents of the summary, of course, are purely factual, all possible editorial color being eliminated.^ A great many other publications have been issued as mimeographed or printed pamphlets designed to keep the pub­ lic informed.

They include such titles as “Declarations of \ War by Belligerent Countries,” “Defense Employment and Training for Employment," “The Housing Program of the United States Government” and "The National Defense Program. Opposition to the O G R .

Naturally no government agen­

cy could develop into an organization the size of the World war Committee on Public Information and engage in such wide­ spread activities without arousing cries of "propaganda" and "censorship."

Complaints against the OGR reached a peak in

February and March, 1941 > when congress was considering a bill to make the OGR a permanent agency with an annual ap­ propriation of $1,500,000.

The predecessor of the OGR, the

Lowe 11 Mellett, ^’Offers a Defense News Summary to Papers," American Press. 59»9 (July, 194l)> p. 5p *-For a more complete list see the selected list of references on national defense issued by the OGR, or Jerome K. Wilcox's Official Defense Publications. Berkeley:*Bureau of Public Administration, University of California, Septem­ ber, 1 9 ^ 1 •

103 National Errrergency Council, had begun with an allotment of $127,000 from National Industrial Recovery act. funds.

In

1 9 3 6 the financial support for the NEC started to come from

emergency relief act funds, which made the OGR practically a. WFA project*-*A direct appropriation of $850,000 for the OGR was made in 19 4 -0 , and in addition it received $3 5 0 , 0 0 0 from the presidential emergency funds*

Mellett was called before the

house committee on expenditures' and denied allegations 7 that the government was contemplating press and radio censorship even before the outbreak of war.

He defended its activities

and praised its value as a central clearing house for infor­ mation and offered a letter from the president requesting passage of the appropriation,2

Nevertheless one representa­

tive commented that he "dreaded this bill as a propaganda machine."

The committee agreed by a majority vote to send

the proposed measure to the house. Lively debate led by Republicans greeted the bill when it reached the floor of the lower house.

Congressman

Fish, New York Republican, called the bill the first step toward restricting freedom of the press. Bender, Ohio Republican,

Representative

contended the measure would provide

"an ideal method for imposing a complete and rigid censorlEdson, ojd. cit* ^Article in New York Times, February 27, 1941•

101+. ship of every kind of news, military and civil alike." AdG ministration supporters described the OGB as essential to proper functioning of the executive office and said it fur­ nished valuable information and made it available to con­ gressmen, the government, and the public.! / The house passed the measure on a rollcall vote of 200 to

144

-*

The senate also approved it after verbal skir­

mishing in which Senator Danaher, Connecticut Republican, said the measure authorized the government to control news at the source and created a condition “incompatible with a fully informed public . ”2

Senator James J. Davis of Pennsyl­

vania also attacked the bill, condemning it as supporting an agency that “could be made overnight into a government cen­ sorship bureau."3

President Roosevelt signed the completed

bill on June 9* Although never free from criticism, the OGR aroiised great resentment a year later when it sought construction of a central information bureau in Washington where visitors might go for direction and advice in official business. “While coordinating departmental information under a single head," it was pointed out at the time,

“the p r e s i d e n t s

directive specifically provides that the new office .will ^-Extensive quotations from the debate are contained in the Associated Press report, March 25, 194-1* ^International News Service report, March 26, 194-1* 3sditor and P u b l i s h e r , 7ip:21 (May 24, 194-1), p* 13*

105 \

exercise no supervision over the publicity of government agencies•

Without asking an okay from congress, the OGR

proceeded to begin construction of a ’’temporary'* two-story, block-square building in downtown Washington park with $ 6 0 0 , 0 0 0 from the emergency "blank-check" funds voted the president earlier.

Mellett failed to get congress to re­

vise the law governing OGR expenditures and appropriate $285,000 to equip and staff the structure.

Some congressmen

resented the plans to have uniformed girls tell strangers how to locate the federal agency they wished to transact business with and revived the term "boondoggle" to express their contempt for the project as something useless and unnecessary. Mellett was summoned before the congressional economy committee to explain why he "went over the head" of the national legislature to begin the building.

Mellett pointed

out that the floor space was needed for the expanded infor­ mation service and that rental charges for the amount of space needed would total $135,00° a year.

He continued:

It is not intended to issue or deal with press re­ leases or other means of reaching public media of in­ formation. It is intended to deal with individual citizens: who write or come to Washington on business connected with the war effort . 2 One Washington columnist probably uncovered the key ^Editor and Publisher, 75:6 (February 7, 1942), p. 9. ^United Press dispatch, March 12, 1942*

io 6

to congressional objections when he observed that the legis­ lators had enjoyed an almost exclusive right of serving as the official information source for their constituents.

The

congressmen sent out pamphlets on effect of newslegislation, on advice for expectant mothers, and on how to fight insect pests * Now* Mr. Mellett proposes to undertake the problem of dispensing all the ballyhoo news to those back home. Instead of the politicos, he will become the capital's big question-and-answer man. And he is a Roosevelt worshiper and appointee. To the boys who depend upon this sort of pap for reelection--Mr* Mellett doesn 1t--such an invasion of their propaganda field is a heinous offense,3*

-1-Ray Tucker, ^National Whirligig,* Los Ange1es HeraldExpress-. March 17, 19^2.

CHAPTER X

WAR PRODUCTION PRESS RELEASES The OGR began as an agency to supply information to those groping through the maze of present-day Washington bur­ eaucracy but later invaded the field of using handouts to the press.

Conversely, the division of information of the Office

for Emergency Management originated as primarily a press-re­ lease unit for defense news and soon moved into the work of publishing information pamphlets--many of them very similar in content to those of the OGR.

Both information agencies are

typical examples of the automatic and seemingly irresistible tendency of government organizations to expand their activi­ ties. When President Roosevelt formed the OEM by adminis­ trative order on May 25, 194°> k e designed it as the section of his executive office through which all information and re­ ports would be routed to his desk..

The order outlined its

functions as: 1. Assist the president in the clearance of in­ formation with respect to measures necessitated by the threatened emergency. 2.. Maintain liaison between the president and... such...agencies, public or private, as the president may direct, for the purpose of securing maximum utilization and coordination of agencies and facili­ ties in meeting the threatened emergency.*

^Federal Register. S/..108 (June 4-, 194-0), p. 2109.

108 The OEM divis ion of information*

The division of in­

formation, under Director Robert W, Horton,

"provides cen­

tral informational services to the several offices and divisions in the Office of Emergency Management."

Horton, a

friend of Mellett and former Washington correspondent for the New York World-Telegram, had headed the information section of the old National Defense Advisory Commission.

As

director of the OEM's division of information he supervised the issuing of newspaper and radio releases for all national defense and war activities handled by the special agencies created during the emergency*

He had charge of publicity

for the Council of National Defense; its successor, the Office of Production Management;

its successor, the Supply Prior­

ities and Allocations Board; and its successor, the War Pro­ duction Board. As the organization chart changed for the various ddfense and war agencies, Horton revised his own setup-

In a

typical phase of its growth the division of information had the following subdivisions through which defense information was canalized and administrative routine-handled: Production, under WPB:* Priorities, under'WPB. Purchases, under WPB. Labor, under WPB. Office of Price Administrator,

^United States Government Ma nual, U. S. Government Printing Office, September, 194.1, p. 6 8 .

109

National War Labor Board. Civilian supply, under WPB. Division of industry operations, under WPB. Materials, under WPB. Defense housing. Health, welfare, recreation, and nutrition. Photography and newsreels. Contracts and finance. Newspapers and periodicals. Motion pictures. Spe ech.es ». R a di o • Press releases. Publications. Files and correspondence. Press clippings. Office of Civilian Defense (which seceded from the OEM on February 7> 19 ^1-2 ). News releases.

Scope of activities operating under

the division of information immediately stimulates comparison with the breakdown for the World war Committee on Public In­ formation and the contemporary Office of Government Reports. In size the division of information is similar to both the OGR and the CPI.

In October,

19^1 3 ibe division had 219

persons in Washington alone, not including the personnel in its 13 field offices.

The OEM greatly augmented its staff

after the outbreak of war, and its total force probably reached 500. releases.***

Its budget in 19^-1 included $ 1 2 2 ,14-00 for press These news items were made available by the

hundreds to Washington correspondents.

In May, I9 I4-I, for

instance, the OEM distributed 198 press releases amounting

^Reported by Peter Edson, Daily Ne w s . October 11, I9 Z4-I.

uDh Washington,” Los Angeles

110 to *79 ^4- pages in sufficient copies to m a k e .a total of 3 ,9 ^0 , 0 0 0 mimeographed pages.^ Publications.

Overlapping of the OEM divisions’ work

and that of the OGR became evident when the OEM opened a regional information office in New York--the first of 13-in June, 1941, to "supply data and answer questions on non'2

military defense activities.” .This is the purpose for which the OGR was formed. And the OEM published scores of pamphlets.

Best

known was its summary of national defense and war news in a weekly summary called Victory.

It averaged 20-30 pages and

was sold at a subscription rate of 75 cents a year.

Another

weekly review* "The War and Business,” listed all develop­ ments affecting business and industry, was made available to newspapers.

Titles of some of the other publications included

"Priorities and Defense," "Civil Defense," and "Farming Out Methods." Posters and motion pictures were clearly propaganda. The posters--including such familiar slogans as "Keep ’em Rolling" and "America’s Answer--Production" with appropriate red, white, and blue designs— received widespread display, especially in industrial plants.

Overcoming a lack of funds

^■Figures from Cedric Larson, "Publicity for NationalDefense--How It Works," Journalism Quarterly, XVIII : 3 (Sept­ ember, 1 9 4 1 ), p. 2 4 9 . ^Editor and Publisher, 74:28 (June 28, 1 9 4 1 ), p.32.

Ill

the OEM produced several short motion pictures on defense activities of the government bearing such titles as ’’America Builds Ships,” "Power for Defense,” and "Army in Overalls."

CHAPTER X I

AGENCIES OF POLITICAL WARFARE Three government agencies, cooperating smoothly with each other and with privately-operated short-wave transmit­ ting stations,

form America’s "ministry of political warfare,"

They are only roughly a>. counterpart to the Goebbels-led Ministry of Propaganda in Germany..

The American and Nazi or­

ganizations are similar chiefly because both recognize the great value of psychology in modern all-out warfare and both rely upon the radio to convey doctrine to people of enemy and neutral countries.

The triumvirate of United States agencies

includes the Coordinator of Information, munications Commission,

the Federal Com­

and the Coordinator of Inter-American

Aff airs. Purposes of the Coordinator of Information.

Success­

ful pioneer in this work was the Creel committee of the first World war.

It performed a thorough job of spreading the

Wilsonian war and peace aims throughout all coxmtries of the world.

So when President Roosevelt created the office of

Coordinator of Information on July 11, 1941, many persons thought that he was establishing an overall information and censorship agency.

Language of the executive order was

broad enough to include almost any activity and was strangely similar to phrases used in setting up the OGR;

113

There is hereby established the position of Co­ ordinator of Information, with authority to collect and analyze all information and data which may bear upon national security; to correlate such information and data, and to make such information and data avail­ able to the president and to such departments and officials of the government as the president may de­ termine; and to carry out, when requested by tbepresident, such supplementary activities as may facilitate the securing of information important for national security not now available to the government,*. Nothing in the duties and responsibilities of the Coordinator of Information shall in any way interfere with or impair the duties and responsibilities of the regular military and naval advisers- of the president as commander in chief of the army and navy*^ A specialist in information*

But the coordinator,

Col. William J* "Wild Bill" Donovan, has turned out to be the real information expert of the United States at war*

The

data that he and his staff of specialists uncover, analyze, and correlate are the background upon which President Roosevelt as commander in chief of the army and navy works out his military and psychological strategy. The COI is not a publicity agency like the OGR and the OEM division of information. its offices*.

No press releases come from

No information that it gathers is handed out

directly for domestic consumption*

Functioning in great

secrecy, the COI acts as a brain trust adviser to the presi­ dent in war matters and disseminates factual news to short­ wave radio listeners in other countries,.

These two services

are not so dissimilar as their description might indicate*

^Federal Register, 6:1 36 (July 15, 1 9 4 D ,

p, 3422*

Ilk Donovan,

it seems, has solved the problem of "how to have a

propaganda ministry that will outgobble Goebfeels without hav­ ing a propaganda ministry and without having a Goebbels."^ Short-wave li stening posts,

Each day the COI receives

a summary of all short-wave broadcasts sent out from countries outside the United States,

These summaries are the product

of the foreign broadcast monitoring service of the Federal Communications Commission,

All speeches and newscasts,

especially from German, Italian, and Japanese sources, are recorded by a specially trained staff of more than 1 0 0 , work­ ing in three shifts.

The monitoring service records, trans­

lates, and summarizes from 6 0 0 , 0 0 0 to 9 0 0 , 0 0 0 words a day at its listening posts located in Portland, Oregon, Kingsville, Texas, Guilford, M d ,, and Santurce, Puerto Rico, Sifting broadcasts for information.

These daily FCC

summaries of foreign broadcasts are scrutinized by the board of analysts of the COI, a group of information experts under the direction of Dr, James P, Baxter,

The board is alert for

all types of inforrnation--hints as to changes in Axis poli­ cies or military moves before such revisions are announced officially; data about internal conditions in Axis countries; geographic, economic, cultural facts— any information, brief­ ly, that could possibly be used by American military strat-

_ Peter Edson, November 19, 19kl •

"In Washington," Los Ange1es Daily M e w s,

115 egists or in American counterpropaganda*

The "altered tone

of certain foreign broadcasts gave the first intimation" of the German invasion of Russia in 1941 and the Japanese occup­ ation of French Indo-China*^ Donovan1s staff of scholars and research specialists by no means confines its sources of information to the FCC foreign broadcast summaries.

One writer describes the COI

work in these words;. In its scope and final fruit it may exceed even the far-famed Geo-Political Institute of Germany. That institute strives to study all the significant char­ acteristics of all the countries of the world. Col­ onel Donovan*s office seems to have an end of that sort clearly in view; but it begins on a broader base. It collects into- one spot all the pertinent diplomatic facts, military facts, naval facts, geographical facts, political facts, economic facts, racial facts, and psychological facts possessed by all of the agencies of our government regarding foreign regions of in­ terest to us; and it combines these facts, along with facts gathered by itself, into a composite weapon of knowledge and action. Counterpropaganda*

The board of analysts prepares re­

ports on the foreign situation based upon the last-minute summaries from the FCC and makes them available to the presi­ dent and to the foreign information service of the COI. This latter service and the office of Coordinator of InterAmerican Affairs form the American counterpropaganda organi­ zation.

The COI foreign information service, headed by

^Editor and Publisher article, 7 4*»35 (August 30, 194-1 ), p. 3 . ^William Hard, "Secret War," This W e e k , magazine section of the Los Angeles Times , January 4> 1942*

116 Robert E. Sherwood, noted newspaperman and playwright, pre­ pares material for short-wave broadcasts--nearly Q00 broad­ casts a week--from 11 American privately-owned and operated transmitters. Donovan is not attempting a short-wave propaganda barrage patterned after those of the Na£is and Fascists,

He

is aiming to keep his material factual and as impartial and objective as possible.

Unfavorable information about the

United States and the other United Nations is included in the broadcast material unless it is of definite military advant­ age to the enemy.

His theory, is that thousands of short­

wave radio listeners in Axis and neutral nations will in time learn to rely upon American broadcasts for the truth.

As the

facts reveal the increasing power of the United Nations and the inevitability of their victory over the Axis, Donovan believes,

the people of Axis countries and their conquered

nations will become increasingly dissatisfied and skeptical of their own leadership and finally will rebel. a far-fetched supposition.

This is not

The power of words in influencing

morale and arousing a defeatist outlook was proved in World War I in inducing mutiny among German sailors and revolt among soldiers and civilians that led to internal collapse and subsequent Gherman military surrender. Colonel Donovan has developed a guarantee that the short-wave broadcasts originating in the United States will

117

remain objective and truthful.

First, the transmitters re­

main in private control and are not subject to government control except military wartime censorship-.

Second, all

material compiled by the COI is reviewed by editors of the private radio stations before it is sent out.

There is no

coercion on the part of the COI, and the stations can eli­ minate any items they wish.

This is an assurance that the

information must be judged as unbiased and in conformity to the facts by impartial, trained radio editors. Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs.

At first there

was friction between the COI and CIA over material to be short-waved to Latin America.

This controversy has been

ironed out by providing for exchange of news releases by the two offices.

If there is a conflict or if the CIA considers

any items "not seasoned to the South American taste," items are dropped or altered.

such

Then the material goes to a

representative of the private broadcasting chains who main­ tains a desk in the COI office in New York.

The represent­

ative selects only those items he believes would be news­ worthy and interesting to foreign listeners.

He picks the

items for their news strength, not for their propaganda value. Work of the CIA, headed by Nelson Rockefeller, result­ ed in a weekly average of 1 5 0 , 0 0 0 spoken.and written words

■^Peter Edson column, Los Angeles Daily News, December 17, 1941.

118 sent to Latin America in an effort to counteract and super­ sede Axis propaganda*

A staff of more than 60 operates the

CIA office of the director of information,

led by Francis

S. Jamieson, former Associated Press correspondent who won the Pulitzer reporting prize of 1933 f°r kis coverage of the Lindbergh kidnaping*

Jamieson's creed is that the ’’most

effective propaganda is straight news, tersely told*”^ Harry Frantz, former United Press veteran of 22 ye a r s 1 ex­ perience, heads a score of reporters who cover the state, war, navy, and diplomatic beats in Washington and produce the CIA* s news releases for short-wave transmission to Latin America.

The releases•total an average 12,000 words a day.

The news section also prepares a 5000 word weekly news sum­ mary sent by airmail to lj.85 provincial newspapers in the American republics. Preparation of news plays a major part in the CIA effort to build up hemispheric unity to resist Axis penetra­ tion, but other information media are put into full use. The office publishes a l(.2-page monthly pictorial magazine, En Guardia, packed with illustrations and articles on Amer­ ica's war industries and military forces. charge to 1 7 5 * 0 0 0 public officials,

It goes free of

educators,

businessmen,

and other community leaders in South and Central America.

^Article in Newsweek, 19*7 (February l 6 , 19^2), p. 7 6 *

119

Other products of the CIA include;

-V;

1* A biweekly letter, explaining and interpreting the news in confidential style, airmailed to 5 0 0 0 businessmen in countries south of the Rio Grande. 2. A poster campaign emphasizing strength of United States armed forces and hemispheric solidarity, de­ signed to reach into every Latin American city and hamlet and influence the large groups who are unable to obtain their news from papers or radio. Latin Amer­ ican artists prepare the designs. 3* A picture and mat service for newspapers, to be supplemented by cartoons, fiction, and comic strips. 4* A campaign among American firms doing export business in South ^America to have them buy time on South America’s domestic radio stations to present news dispatches from the -United Press and Associated Press. There are now more than 125 such programs offered over Latin American stations each week., , 5«- Activity on the part of the three big United States radio networks to form chains in Latin American and thus strengthen commercial bonds among the Ameri­ can republics * 2 6. Spending of $ 1 0 0 , 0 0 0 in 194-1 for advertising in Latin American newspapers to promote the United States as a tourist mecca. This campaign was canceled later because of ’’diplomatic and economic reasons . n3

^Summarized from material in Newsweek, op. cit.. pp. 7 5 -7 6 .

^Activities in items 4 and 5 described by Peter Edson column, Los Ange1es Daily N e w s . December 1 7 , 19&1* ^Editor and Publisher, 7 4 :43 (October 25, 1941), p.4o

CHAPTER X I I

GUARDIAN OF DOMESTIC MORALE The real coordinator of information,

"Wild Bill"

Donovan may have had the title of coordinator, hut the job of .coordinating information actually went to a new agency set up by President Roosevelt. Facts and Figures.

He called it the Office of

Its purpose, according to the executive

order creating it, was that of facilitating "the dissemina­ tion of factual information to the citizens of the country on the progress of the defense effort and on the defense policies and activities of the government."^ Confusion over functions of the O F F .

Like those

creating the OGR and the C O I , the presidential order was worded broadly enough to embrace almost any sort of activity The order read: Subject to such policies and directions as the president may from time to time prescribe, the OFF shall formulate programs designed to facilitate a widespread and accurate understanding of the status and progress of the national defense effort and of the defense policies and activities of the govern­ ment;, and advise with the several departments and agencies of the government concerning the dissemina­ tion of such, defense information. The OFF shall rely upon the services and facilities of existing agencies of the government for the dissemination of such in­ formation.' The several departments and agencies of the govern

19U,

p

^Executive Order 8 9 2 2 ;, Federal Register, October 28, . 5477. -----------------

121 ment shall make available to the director, upon his request, such information and data as he may deem ne­ cessary to facilitate the most coherent and compre­ hensive presentation to the nation of the facts and figures of national defense.* So indefinite were terms of the order that several weeks passed before functions of the OFF became clear. Stephen Early, the p r es i d e n t s secretary, explained at the time of its establishment that Fiorello LaGuardia, then director of civilian defense, had proposed it as a worth­ while means of promoting civilian defense operations.

But

it was evident that the usually w-e 11-informed Early did not know what the OFF was to do, for he was quoted by an Asso­ ciated Press reporter as indicating that requests for in­ formation on defense from people throughout the country would be routed through the new agency.^

This function at the time

was being adquately handled by the OGR.

Archibald Macleish,

poet and librarian of congress chosen to head the OFF, could offer no definite idea of what his duties were.

He issued

a statement upon appointment saying the office had been set up on the assumption that ltthe people of a self-governing country are entitled to the fullest possible statement of the facts and figures bearing upon conditions with which their government is faced*”3 This muddle was an opportunity for administration opllbid. ^Associated Press dispatch, October 25, 1941* 3lbid.

122 poents to deride the abundance of publicity offices,.

The

.New York Heraid-Tribune joshed; According to Mr, LaGuardia-, it i s n ’t a propaganda agency. According to the reports, it isn't a sub­ stitute for any of the existing press agents..,It is not going to try to bring order out of the existing chaos of the publicity departments; OFF is just going to superimpose its own "well organized facts" upon the splendid confusion, interpret the interpreters, redigest the digesters, explain what those who explain what the explainers of the explanations mean, and co­ ordinate the coordinators of those appointed to co­ ordinate the coordinations of the coordinated. Be­ fore this example of the sublime administrative genius which now rules in Washington, the mind can only reel with admiration.! Even a month after its creation the confusion per­ sisted.

"To date, OFF has no offices, no facts, no figures,"

wisecracked a Washington columnist.^

And he went on to ex­

plain that the absence of a precise program for the OFF could be ascribed to the fact that Macleish himself didn’t yet know.

But he was beginning to get an idea.

He elabor.-

ated upon phrases of the executive order calling for formu­ lation of programs to spread an understanding of the defense effort and to advise government agencies concerning dissemi­ nation of such information.

He expressed belief that the

government should see that such information is free from in­ accuracies and distortion,

that nothing should obstruct the

^Editorial in New York Herald-Tribune, October 9> 19^4-1 • ^Peter Edson, "In Washington,” Los Angeles Daily N e w s , November 19, 1941•

123

free flow of information,

that the various information agen­

cies should avoid discrepancies or conflicts, and that the government should not engage in morale and propaganda cam­ paigns . Wartime efforts to bolster morale at hom e.

What the

OFF did after the outbreak of war clearly indicated, however, that its main purpose was to maintain public morale in the United States.

While the COI and the CIA were concerned with

arousing popular support for the United Nations in other countries, the OFF concerned itself with bolstering enthusi­ asm for the war program at home. But some activities overlapped the work of other in­ formation organizations.

On January 22, 1942, for instance,

the OFF issued a 62-page pamphlet, Report to the Nation, de­ scribing the results of 18 months of American defense ef­ forts.

Coming on- the heels of two severely critical defense

surveys by congressional investigating committees, the report was optimistic in tone and overconfident in predictions of war production.

The pamphlet praised the progress of Ameri*

can aviation, for example, in sharp contrast with findings, of a senate defense investigating committee saying that only 25 per cent of the plane production was equal or superior to

the best foreign types.^

The OFF publication also placed

■^United Press dispatch, January 22, 1942.

*

124

more emphasis on goals for the coming year than on production schedules actually in operation.

Authors of "The ¥/ashington

Merry-Go-Round” were disparaging in referring to the Report to the Nation as a "highly glamorized account of the prewar defense production program.”

They continued:

There were no untruths in the report. Neither was there anything about such highly pertinent items as Jesse Jones stalling on rubber and aluminum; the dol­ lar a year dawdling of OPM; "unconscionable profits” by war contractors and numerous other delinquencies exposed by the Truman and house naval affairs commit­ tees.^* An example of the OFF's efforts to preserve morale came a few days after the department of justice ordered the evacuation of Japanese aliens from strategic defense areas along the west coast.

An official of the OFF telephoned the

Washington representatives of Pacific Coast journals asking them to request their editors to minimize demands for drastic action against the enemy aliens.

"We fell," the OFF official

said, according to a Y/a.shington column*^ "that a wave of hysteria may develop and we want the newspapers to help avert it."

The correspondents generally ignored the proposal, al­

though one promised to send the suggestion to his editor with the recommendation that he disregard it as at variance with the views of the army and navy and department of justice.

■^Drew Pearson and Robert /Alien, "Washington Merry-GoRound," Los Ange 1 es Daily New s, February 7» 194^*

^Tbid.

125

Censorship of speeches.

Another job for the OFF was

created February 7> 19^4-2» when the white house announced that cabinet members, undersecretaries,

and federal admini­

strators would be asked to submit any speeches they made from then on'to the OFF for prior clearance *

Secretary

Early explained that for nine years he had been solely re­ sponsible for clearance of speeches by cabinet officers and high-ranking officials of the executive branch but that some had failed to submit them.^

An OFF official quoted by the

New York Times said the new system would aid high officials in '"avoiding remarks that they themselves did not want to ma k e .

The Times regarded it as significant that the dele­

gation of the new responsibility to the OFF followed an un­ fortunate statement by Secretary of Navy Frank Knox declar­ ing that the United States must first defeat Hitler as enemy No. 1 and then take car.e of Japan.

The Knox statement

"caused consternation among Far Eastern allies of this nation and led for a time to considerable diplomatic t u r m o i l . T h e rushing through congress of a $500,000,000 loan to China was an attempt to appease the Chungking government. Likewise the new policy was designed to prevent ex­ pression of conflicting or divergent views by different cabi-

,

^United Press dispatch, February 7> 19^-2 * ^New York Times dispatch from Washington, February 7?

194-2

3 l o c . cit.

126 net members and other officials* a censor over the speeches.

The O FF was not to act as

It was to "check the statements

and speeches with other interested government agencies and 'recommend' deletions and changes to avert incidents*^ Other activities.

As the OFF expanded its work it

moved more and more into the job of maintaining public morale and of blocking the release of information it believed might cause the mass spirit to weaken.

"fo rattle the United

States out of its complacency, 11 as one writer phrased it,^ the OFF sponsored a "This Is War" radio program over the major networks*

And in March it began making plans to uti­

lize .commercial radio programs as vehicles to carry a steady flow of inspirational war massages to the people.3 On March 17> I9k~2-> the OFF announced a policy of cov­ ering war casualty lists.

The statement said newspapers

would be allowed to publish names .of the killed, wounded, and missing from the paper's immediate circulation area only so as to avoid the possibility of depressing the people with long lists.

"'Release will be delayed," the OFF statement of

policy read,

"until the aceuracy of the lists is well estab­

lished and relatives notified, and until not giving aid or

^•Loc ♦ c it . ^Ray Tucker, "National Whirligig,*" Los Angeles HeraldExpress, February 21, 19ip2. tor and Publisher dispatch from Washington, 75^11 (March 28~} 19^-2) , pi 61

127 comfort to the e n e m y . I n

accordance with this policy the

war department did not issue its first list of casualties suffered in the Pearl Harbor attack until three and a half months later, on March 29*

Senator Millard E. Tydings con­

demned the delay as a "serious mistake" and urged the govern­ ment to permit full publication of casualty lists as a means of stimulating popular determination to win the

w a r *2

A couple of weeks later the OFF stepped into the mat­ ter of alien evacuation and reminded newspapers that unless the story of the removal of alien and American-born Japanese from Pacific Coast areas were handled with restraint, Japan might institute reprisals against Americans held as internees and prisoners of war.

"This is in no sense a request that

this page-one story be ignored or played down," the OFF memo­ randum to editors explained.3

*lt is a request that it be

treated with utmost regard for possible consequences...Your cooperation in the handling of this story will be appreciated by your government.1 " The OFF intelligence bureau.. Just as the publication of full casualty lists by the war department was delayed for more than three months after December 7? MacLeish concealed for a similar period the operation of an intelligence bureau ^Dispatch in the Los Angeles Examiner, March 3 0 , 19^2• 2United Press dispatch, April 2, I 9 I4.2 . ^As carried on United Press wires*

128

within the OFF having the function of sampling opinions as a means of determining policies- to be carried out by war agen­ cies.

Secretary Early late in March disclosed existence of

the bureau when he said its^work had made unnecessary a nationwide tour for President Roosevelt to learn what the people were thinking.

OFF officials revealed the bureau had

been sampling opinion since shortly after December 7 in a technique similar to that of commercial public opinion anal­ ysts.

They said that in order to form a sound policy deci­

sion on war information, the government must know; 1. How true a picture of the war effort does the public have? 2. What has it been told, by whom, and through what channels? 3* How have the various elements of the public re­ acted to what they have been told, to events, to gov­ ernment, and to enemy action? 4* What forces are at work which may disrupt nublic confidence and how can they be counteracted?* MacLeish*s position in the information setup.

But

MacLeish himself at first disclaimed any attempts to sustain morale*

He defined the duty of a democratic government as

that of providing a realistic or informational basis for formation of sound judgments.

He elaborated:

A democratic government is more concerned with the provision of information to the people than it is with the communication of dreams and aspirations, the furbishing of ideals, and so forth. It would seem to

^United Press dispatch from Washington, March 24, 1942.

129 me that the latter job in a democracy is one for the people themselves. Their morale is their own concern. MacLeish said his agency was working in cooperation with the interdepartmental committee on war information to determine policy covering material to be released to press and radio.

And he made it emphatic that although phrased as

suggestions or advice, OFF recommendations to editors were backed by authority and could become commands binding upon those involved.

His views after four months of OFF operation

are significant of the rapid development of the office into an overall agency charged with coordination of all wartime information; The job of OFF, as we see it, is to try to work out -a general information policy and general programs of information on what the government agencies do which will give the people of this country as much information as it is possible to supply within the limits of the requirements of a national security,*. Under our executive order we have authority to make programs for information on the war effort. We make these programs after consultation and advice with and under the direction of the interdepartmental committee on war information...When that policy is made, if it is not carried out, we definitely have authority to see that it is carried out #2

**■"Propaganda Good and B a d , * 1 University of Chicago Round Table, No, 207, March 1, 1942,' pp. 4- 5^Quoted by Editor and Publisher, 75:11 (March 28, 1942), p. 6 .

CHAPTER X I I I

OFFICE OF CENSORSHIP Although not an information-disseminating agency, the Office of Censorship had such complete control over what news the information agencies could disseminate that a brief con­ sideration of the office is appropriate. Functions of the office. executive order of December 19>

It came into existence by under broad censorship

authority granted by the war powers act of December 18.

The

order read: There is hereby established the Office of Censor­ ship, at the head of which shall be a director of censorship. The director of censorship shall cause to be censored, in his absolute discretion, communi­ cations by mail, cable, radio, or other means of transmission passing between the United States and any foreign country... There is hereby created a censorship policy board, which shall consist of the vice-president of the United States, the*-secretary of the treasury, the secretary of war, the attorney general, the post­ master general, the secretary of the navy, the direct­ or of the Office of Government Reports, and the di­ rector of the Office of Facts and Figures. The cen­ sorship policy board shall advise the director of censorship with respect to policy and the coordin­ ation and integration of censorship herein directed. The director of censorship shall establish a cen­ sorship operating board, which shall consist of re­ presentatives of such departments and agencies of the government as-the director shall specify..*! To head the new office President Roosevelt selected

^Executive Order 8 9 8 5 , Federal Register, 6:248 (Dec­ ember 2 3 , I 9 I4J.), p. 6 6 2 5 .

131 Byron Price, executive news editor of the Associated Press and a veteran newsman of 32 years' experience.

The organi­

zation was unlike the Creel committee of the first world war, in which federal employes gathered, wrote, and edited the news*

It bore a close resemblance to the censorship plan of

the British government.

Original plans designated it merely

as a censoring agency with no authority to issue information in its own name and leaving propaganda activities to other federal units.

Price was given authority over the army and

navy public relations offices, with irreconcilable differences to be arbitrated by the president. Censorship at the source,

1

The office aimed at censor­

ship at the source without curtailing activities of the in­ formation agencies or press relations sections of the various departments.

All releases dealing with the war, however, had /

to receive approval of the office of censorship before they could be handed to newsmen.

The president's secretary,

Stephen Early, said the plan was superior to that of the Creel committee setup because of its decentralization and its de­ sign for guarding military secrets at the source instead of routing all news through one office.

"It leaves the regular

sources of information open and avoids delays of hours in the publication of news," Early pointed out.^ lNewsweek, 18;52 (December 29, 2Walter E, Schneider and James Names Byron Price Director of Wartime Publisher, 74--51 (December 2 0 , 19^1),

Price was

19^1), p* 50 J*. Buter, "Roosevelt Censorship," Editor and p* 6 *

132

isolated from direct contact with Washington correspondents except as they uncovered exclusive stories with previously unapproved facts* President Roosevelt made a formal statement justify­ ing formation of the office. • All Americans abhor censorship, just as they abhor war.. But the experience of this and of all other nations has demonstrated that some degree of censor­ ship is essential in war time and we are at war* The important thing now is that such forms of cen­ sorship as are necessary shall be administered ef­ fectively as in harmony with the best interests of our free institutions. It is necessary to the national security that mili­ tary information which might be of aid to the enemy be scrupulously withheld at the source. It is necessary that a watch be set upon our borders, so that no such information may reach the enemy, inadvertently or otherwise, through the medium of mails, radio or cable transmission, or by any other means. It is necessary that prohibitions against the'dom­ estic publication of some types of information, con­ tained in long-existing statutes, be rigidly enforced.-*■ Censorship code for newspapers.

Price formed operat­

ing censorship codes for both the press and the radio.

The

codes asked that editors refrain from publishing specific types of information of potential aid to the enemy.

They

were on a voluntary basis but were observed with few viola­ tions by editors throughout the country*

The code for news­

papers announced on January 15, 19^2 as carried to editors by the United Press follows:

^Loc. Cit.

133

SA 159

WASHINGTON,

JAG* ’ 15--C UP)--THE OFFICE OF CENsOftsHIP TODAY IssUED

THE FOLLOWING ANNOUNCEMENT OF CENSORSHIP RULES AND WARTIME PRACTICED TO BE FOLLOWED BY NEWSPAPERS AMD MAGAZINE-; A CODE OF WAR-TIME PRACTICES FOR NEWSPAPERS,, 'MAGAZINES.

AMD OTHER

PERIODICAL^ WAS ANNOUNCED TODAY BY THE OFFICE OF CENSORSHIP. UNDER THE CODE,

WHICH WAS DRAFTED BY DIRECTOR BYROM PRICE AMD

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR J. H. SORRELL^ AFTER CONFERENCES WITH THE INDUSTRY, THE GOVERNMENT A-Ks THAT CERTAIN CLASoES OF INFORMATION WHICH MIGHT BE OF AID TO THE ENEMY BE WITHHELD FROM PUBLICATION EXCEPT WHEN OFFICIALLY GIVEN O U T « MANY OF THE PRACT ICEs PROPOSED ALREADY HAVE BEEN PUT INTO EFFECT BY PUBLICATION^ ON A VOLUNTARY EAolo, IT VAo DISCLOSED THAT SORRELLs WOULD BE IN DIRECT CHARGE OF ADMINISTRATION OF THE CODE,

ASSISTED BY A SMALL BOARD OF EDITORS AND

AN ADVISORY COUNCIL OF THE PUBLISHING

INDUSTRY,' SOON TO BE APPOINTED.

THE OFFICE OF CENSORSHIP I--UED THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT: THIS STATEMENT'RESPONDS TO THE MANY INQUIRIES RECEIVED BY THE OFFICE OF CENSORSHIP,

ASKING FOR AN OUTLINE OF NEWSPAPER AND MAGATINE

PRACTICES WHICH THE GOVERNMENT FEELs ARE DEsIRABLE FOR THE EFFECTIVE PROSECUTION OF THE WAR* IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT CERTAIN BAsIC F ACT s BE UNDERSTOOD FROM THE

THE FIRoTiOF T51EUE FACTo

1^ THAT THE OUTCOME OF THE WAR b

A MATTER

OF VITAL PERSONAL CONCERN TO THE FIJTUHE OF EVERY Ai-.ER ICAIi CITIZEN.

THE

j ECOMD

is' THAT THE SECURITY OF OUR ARilED FORCES AND EVEN OF OUR

134 HOi'iES ANb OU k ! I BERTIE? W 11 I. PE WEAKENED IE GREATER OR I ESS DEGREE BY EVERY DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION UP JCH Will

HE! P THE EMEMY.

IF EVERY ii'Ei'1B£k OF EVERY FEES STAFF AND CONTk I BUTINC WRITER VII L KEEP THESE TWO FACTS CONSTANTLY IF MIND, AND THE;- i*iIT.I FClIOW THE DICTATE? OF COMMON

SENSE

. HE Will

BE A L',1 £ TG ANSWER fun -HIMSELF MANY

OF THE QUESTIONS WHICH NIGHT OTHERWISE TROUBLE HIE,

IN OTHER WORDS,

A MAXIMUM OF aC COmPL1SHmENT vS11 I. BE ATTAINED IF EDITORS WILL ASK THEMSELVES WITH RESPECT TO AMY GIVEN DETAIL, I WOUID M K E

"IS THIS INFORMATION

TO HAVE IF I WERE THE EL L -. »Y ?" AND THEN ACT ACCORDINGLY,

THE R E c U f.T OF SUCH A PROCESS USUA!" ON THE NEWS BE^K~ OF THE

L 11 T HARLEY REPRESENT "BUSINESS AS COUNTRY•

ON THE CONTRARY.

IT WILL MEA]

SOME SACRIFICE OF T H E ■JGUANA I 1ST]C ENTERPRISE OF ORDINARY TIMES, IT W i n

NOT riEA N A NEWS UK EDI TORI A!

BLACKOUT.

BUT

IT IS THE HOPE AND

EXPECTATION OF THE OFFICE OF CENSORSHIP THAT THE COLUMNS- OF AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS WILI

REMAIN THE FREEST IN THE WORLD,

AMD WILL

TELL THE STORY OF OUR NATIONAL SUCCESSES AMD SHORTCOMINGS ACCURATELY AND IN MUCH DETAIL. THE HIGHLY GRATIFYING RESPONSE OF THE PRESS SO FAR PROCES THAT IT UNDERSTANDS THE NEED FOR TEMPORARY SACRIFICE. AND IS PREPARED TO MAKE THAT SACRIFICE IN THE SPIRIT OF THE PR ES IDEN T’S RECENT ASSURANCE THAT SUCH CURTAILMENT

AS

MAY BE

HARMONY WITH THE BEST INTERESTS BELOW

IS

A

SUMMARY COVERING

NECESSARY WILL RE ADMINISTERED "IN OF OUR FREE-INSTITUTIONS." SPECIFIC PROBLEMS.

REPEATS.

WITH

AGENCIES

OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. AND IT

SOME

M O DIFICA TIO N S;

THIS

SUMMARY

REQUESTS PREVIOUSLY MADE BY VARIOUS MAY

BE REGRDED AS

136 ARRIVAL OF ANY OUCH VESSELS s OR THE PORT FROM WHICH THEY LEAVE] THE NATURE OF CARGOES OF SUCH VESSELS? THE LOCATION OF ENEMY NAVAL OR MERCHANT VESSELS IN OR NEAR AMERICAN WATERS] THE ASSEMBLY*

DEPARTURE

OR ARRIVAL OF TRANSPORTS OR CONVOY^] THE EXISTENCE OF NINE FIELDS OR OTHER HARBOR DEFENSE] REGARDING LIGHTS,

SECRET ORDERo OR OTHER SECRET INSTRUCTIONS

BUOYS AND OTHER GUIDES TO NAVIGATORS] THE NUMBER,

oI2E, CHARACTER AND LOCATION OF SKIPo IN CONSTRUCTION.,

OR ADVANCE

INFORMATION Ao TO THE DATE OF .LAUNCHINGo OR COMMISSIONINGS] THE PHYSICAL SET-UP OR TECHNICAL DETAIL^ 0 t

SHIPYARD-.

PLANES i

■

THE DISPOSITION,

110VEMENT^„ AND *j7R£HGTH OF ARMY OR NAVY AIR UNITS.

FORTIFICATION THE LOCATION OF FCETS AND OTHER FORTIFICATIONS; COAST DEFENSE EMPLACEMENT^,

THE LOCATION OF

CE ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUNS] THEIR NATURE AND

NUMBER; LOCATION 01 DOME oKELTIE -, LOCATION OF CAMOUFLAGED OBJECT^ * PRODUCTIG? SPECIFIC PRODUCTION,

INFORMATION ABOUT VAR C O N T R A C T S U C H PRODUCTION•SCHEDULES,

AS THE EXACT TYPE OF

DATES OF DELIVERY,

OR PROGRESS OF

PRODUCTION] ESTIMATED ~UPPLIEw> OF STRATEGIC AND CRITICAL MATERIALS AVAILABLE] OR NATIONWIDE "ROUND-UPS" OF LOCALLY-PUBLISHED PROCUREMENT DATA EXCEPT WHEN SUCH COMPOSITE INFORMATION Io 01 FICIALLY APPROVED FOR PUBLICATION. SPECIFIC INFORMATION ABOUT THE LOCATION OF, OR OTHER INFORMATION ABOUT,

SITES AND FACTORIEo ALREADY IN EXISTENCE, WHICH WOULD AID

SABOTEURS IN GAINING ACCESS TO THEM]

INFORMATION OTHER THAN THAT READILY

135 SUPERSEDING AND CONSOLIDATING ALL OF THOsE REQUEsTs* SPECIAL ATTENTION IS DIRECTED TO THE FACT THAT ALL OF THE RE( THE SUMMARY ARE MODIFIED BY A PROVISO THAT THE INFORMATION LIsT:...; PROPERLY BE PUBLISHED WHEN AUTKORI7£D BY APPROPRIATE AUTHORITY. ALL OF THESE SUBJECTS WILL BECOME AVAILABLE FROM COVERNMEN7 IN WAR, TIMELINESS

is

AM IMPORTANT FACTOR-

• ON BUT

.'S.;

AMD THE COVER •

UNQUESTIONABLY IS IN THE BI-T PO-ITION TO DECIDE WHEN DI.

IS

TIMELY. THE SPECIFIC

INFORMATION WHICH NEWoPAPERs AND MAGAZINE^ A■»:

NOT TO PUBLISH EXCEPT WHEN SUCH INFORMATION

ASKED'

I. MADE AVAILABLE

OFFICIALLY BY APPROPRIATE AUTHORITY FALLo INTO THE F O L L O W ' '

Of.;ASSES

%

TROOPTHE GENERAL CHARACTER AMD MOVEMENTS OF UNITED -TATEo ARMY UN] I.. . WITHIN OR WITHOUT THE CONTINENTAL LIMITS OF THE UNITED STATES— TU El •' LOCATION*

IDENTITY OR EXACT COMPCuITIOnj

DESTINATION,

EQUIPMENT OR STRENGTH; TNEIR

ROUTE-* AND SCHEDULE^; THEIR ASSEMBLY FOR EMBARKATION,

PROSPECTIVE EMBARKATION,

OR ACTUAL EMBARKATION.

ANY sUCH INFORNATT

REGARDING THE TROOPs OF FRIENDLY MATIONs ON AMERICAN oOIL. NOTE;

THE REOUEsT Ao REGARDS LOCATION AMD GENERAL CHARACTER Do ■.

NOT APPLY TO TROOPs

IN TRAINING CAHPs IN COLT IMENTAL UNITED STATE-,

NOT TO UNIT- A-oIGNEL) TO DOMESTIC POLICE DUTY. SHIPTHE LOCATION-

MOVEMENT-* AND IDENTITY OF NAVAL AND MERCHANT VESSELS' OF

THE UNITED STATES IN AMY WATERS, POWERS,

AND OF OTHER MATIONs OPPOsING THE AX Is

IN AMERICAN WATERS; THE PORT AMD TIME OF ARRIVAL OR PROSPECTIVE

GAINED THROUGH OBSERVATION BY THE GENERAL PUBLIC, DISCLOSING THE LOCATION OF SITES AND FACTORIES YET TO BE ESTABLISHED,

OR THE NATURE

OF THEIR PRODUCTION. ANY INFORMATION ABOUT NEW OR SECRET MILITARY DESIGNS,

OR NEW FACTORY

DESIGNS FOR WAR PRODUCTION, WEATHER WEATHER FORECASTS,

OTHER THAN OFFICIALLY ISSUED BY THE WEATHER

BUREAUj THE ROUTINE FORECASTS PRINTED BY ANY SINGLE NEWSPAPER TO COVER ONLY THE STATE IN WHICH IT IS PUBLISHED AMD NOT MORE THAN FOUR ADJOIN­ ING STATES!

PORTIONS OF WHICH LIE WITHIN A RADIUS OF 130 MILES FROM

THE POINT OF PUBLICATION, CONSOLIDATED TEMPERATURE TABLES COVERING MORE THAN 20 STATIONS,

IN,

AMY ONE NEWSPAPER. NOTE: SPECIAL FORECASTS ISSUED BY THE WEATHER BUREAU WARNING OF UNUSUAL CONDITIONS,

OR SPECIAL REPORTS ISSUED BY THE WEATHER BUREAU.

CONCERNING TEMPERATURE TABLES, OR MEWS STORIES WARMING THE PUBLIC OF DANGEROUS ROADS OR STREETS,

WITHIN 130 MILES OF THE POINT OF PUBLICA­

TION, ARE ALL ACCEPTABLE FOR PUBLICATION. WEATHER "ROUND-UP" STORIES COVERING ACTUAL CONDITIONS THROUGHOUT MORE THAN ONE STATE, EXCEPT WHEN GIVEN OUT BY THE WEATHER BUREAU. PHOTOGRAPHS AND MAPS PHOTOGRAPHS CONVEYING THE INFORMATION SPECIFIED IN THIS SUMMARY, UNLESS OFFICIALLY APPROVED FOR PUBLICATION, DETAILED MAPS OR PHOTOGRAPHS DISCLOSING LOCATION OF MUNITION DUMPS, OR OTHER RESTRICTED ARMY OR NAVAL AREAS.

NOTE; THIS HAS NO REFERENCE TO MAPs SHOWING THE GENERAL THEATER OF WAR, OR LARGE SCALE ZONES OF ACTION, MOVEMENTS OF CONTENDING FORCES ON A LARGE SCALE, OR MAPS SHOWING THE GENERAL EBB AND FLOW OF BATTLE LINES. NOTE! SPECIAL CARE SHOULD BE EXERCIsED IN THE PUBLICATION OF AERIAL PHOTOS PRESUMABLY'OF NON-MILITARY SIGNIFICANCE, WHICH MIGHT REVEAL MILITARY OR OTHER INFORMATION HELPFUL TO THE ENEMY; ALSO CARE SHOULD BE EXERCISED IK PUBLISHING CASUALTY PHOTOS SO As NOT TO REVEAL UNIT IDENTIFICATIONS THROUGH COLLAR ORNAMENTS, ETC.

SPECIAL ATTENTION IS f

DIRECTED TO THE SECTION OF THIS sUNUARY COVERING INFORMATION-ABOUT DAMAGE TO MILITARY OBJECTIVES. GENERAL

CASUALTY LIsTs: NOTE: THERE Is NO OBJECTION- TO PUBLICATION OF INFORMATION ABOUT CASUALTIES FROM A NEWSPAPER's LOCAL FIELD, OBTAINED FROM NEAREST OF KIM, BUT IT IS REQUESTED THAT IN sUCH CASES, SPECIFIC MILITARY Af D NAVAL UNITS, AND EXACT LOCATION'S, BE NOT MENTIONED. INFORMATION DISCLOsING THE NEW LOCATION OF NATIONAL ARCHIVES,

ART

TREASURES, AND SO OH, WHICH HAVE BEEN MOVED FOR SAFE-KEEPING. INFORMATION ABOUT DAMAGE TO MILITARY AND NAVAL OBJECTIVES,

INCLUDING

DOCKs, RAILROADS, OR COMMERCIAL AIRPORTS, REsULTING FROM ENEMY-ACTION. MOTE: THE SPREAD OF RUMORS IN sUCH A WAY THAT THEY WILL BE ACCEPTED As FACTS WILL RENDER AID AND COMFORT TO THE ENEMY.

IT IS SUGGESTED THAT

ENEMY CLAIMs OF SHIP SINKINGS, OR OF OTHER DAMAGE TO OUR FORCES, WEIGHED CAREFULLY AMD THE sOURCE CLEARLY IDENTIFIED,

BE

IF PUBLISHED.

INFORMATION ABOUT THE TRANSPORTATION OF MUNITIONS OR OTHER WAR

MATERIALS,

INCLUDING OIL TANK CARS AND TRAINS.

INFORMATION ABOUT THE MOVEMENTS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, OR OF OFFICIAL MILITARY OR DIPLOMATIC MISSIONS OF THE UNITED STATES O.R OF ANY OTHER NATION OPPOSING THE AXIS POWERS'— ROUTES, SCHEDULES,

OR DESTINATION,

WITHIN OR WITHOUT THE CONTINENTAL LIMITS OF

THE UNITED STATES; MOVEMENTS OF RANKING ARMY OR NAVAL OFFICERS AND STAFFS ON OFFICIAL BUSINESS;

MOVEMENTS OF OTHER INDIVIDUALS OR UNITS

UNDER SPECIAL ORDERS OF THE ARMY, MOT E l ADVERTISING MATTER, MEN ON -LEACE,

NAVY OR STATE DEPAR TME NT,

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR,

^

INTERVIEWS WITH

COLUMNS, AND SO ON, ARE INCLUDED IN THE ABOVE REQUESTS,

BOTH AS TO TEXT AND ILLUSTRATION, IF INFORMATION SHOULD BE MADE AVAILILABLE ANYWHERE WHICH SEEMS TO COfC FROM DOUBTFUL AUTHORITY, THESE REQUESTS;

OR TO BE IN CONFLICT WITH THE GENERAL AIMS OF

OR IF SPECIAL RESTRICTIONS REQUESTED LOCALLY OR OTHER­

WISE BY VARIOUS AUTHORITIES SEEM UNREASONABLE’OR OUT OF HARMONY WITH THIS SUMMARY,

IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT THE QUESTION BE SUBMITTED AT ONCE.

TO THE OFFICE OF CENSORSHIP. IN ADDITION,

IF AMY NEWSPAPER,

MAGAZINE OR OTHER AGENCY OR INDIVIDUAL

HANDLING NEWS OR SPECIAL ARTICLES DESIRES CLARIFICATION OR ADVICE AS TO WHAT DISCLOSURES MIGHT OR MIGHT NOT AID THE ENEMY, CENSORSHIP WILL COOPERATE GLADLY. TO THE OFFICE OF CENSORSHIP,

THE OFFICE OF

SUCH INQUIRIES SHOULD BE ADDRESSED

WASHINGTON.

SHOULD ADDITIONS OR MODI FI CATIONS OF THIS SUMMARY SEEM FEASIBLE AND DESIRABLE FROM TIME TO TIME, THE INDUSTRY WILL BE ADVISED. THE OFFICE OF CENSORSHIP,

BYRON PRICE,

DIRECTOR.

WR 1238 P

lit - 0

Qperation cf the c o de s. prestige among newspapermen,

Largely because of P r i c e fs

his office steered clear of the

public and press criticism that the OFF, GC-R, and other in­ formation agencies met*^

By mid-February the office was re­

viewing an average of 25 stories a day for Washington corres­ pondents and their newspapers,

A minimum of conflicts arose

over administration of the censorship code once editors had adjusted their peacetime freedom to wartime restrictions. His two assistants,

John H. Sorrells,

Scripps-Howard newspapers, John H, Ryan,

executive editor of

in charge of press problems,

and

general manager of a chain of radio stations,

in charge of radio problems,

met generally with approval.

From time to time the office issued memoranda, to editors clarifying application of the censorshipX code to fc* when congress was debat­

ing legislation to make the Office of Government Reports a permanent agency with an annual budget of $1,500,000, Krock suggested that the OGR serve as a clearing house for the news articles of all civilian departments concerned with war pre­ parations.

This plan, Krock pointed out, would permit one

well-informed judgment to prevail over the different judgments of the various department information officers as to what in­ formation was dangerous to release.

"This would be censor­

ship, of course, but merely a perfection of that which now

144 exists," he added.x

Krock explained that all departments

were exercising caution in giving out information but that a coordinated policy was needed. The Office of Censorship carried out the duties sug­ gested by Krock, but Price's agency carefully steered away from originating news or gathering it.

%

There still remained

the need of coordinating the news release policies of the separate departments.

Editor and Publisher reported that an

executive order to coordinate press relations of the govern­ ment was prepared and given to President Roosevelt for signature during the first week in March, 194-2.

This proposed

order would create a central bureau of war information pat­ terned after the Committee on Public information of the first world war. . It was designed to reduce costs by eliminating duplication of releases and mailing lists and presumably al­ lowing a reduction in personnel.

Such a bureau, sponsors of

the order contended, would counteract criticism of newspapers and congressmen against the vast publicity and propaganda organization of the New Deal before the congressional elect­ ions of the fall could utilize, the situation as a campaign i ssue. Increasing, criticism of existing s e t u p .

Opponents of

the administration grew more vociferous as the information

1Arthur Krock's column, New York Times ,Apri 1 15, 194-1 * ^Editor and Publisher. 75*10 (March 7, 194-2), p* 5*

ib-5

agencies doubled and tripled their staffs in 19^1 and 1 9 ^ 2 . Peter Edson, the Washington columnist of the Newspaper Enter­ prise Association, a writer normally favorable toward the New Deal, found in October, 19^1» that official handbooks, telephone directories, and other publications listed 8 0 0 government departments, agencies, and other bureaus in Wash­ ington with which the public could be expected to have con­ tact.

More than 100 of these had offices dealing in public

information, varying in size from a full-time employe to staffs ’'elaborate enough to get out a complete daily news­ paper.’1^

One .editor complained that the publicity sent him

from Washington in a single week was sufficient to fill 31 2 pages of newspaper print set in eight-point type. The great expansion of government increased the im­ possibility of Washington newspapermen.covering all acti­ vities of the hundreds of departments and agencies and all their ramifications on a periodical schedule.

No one question

ed the indispensability of the information services in mak­ ing facts and opinions more accessible to reporters.

’’With­

out the assistance of handouts," one writer declared, "there i s n !t a doubt that a lot of interesting news from the capital Ipeter Edson, "In Washington," Los Angeles Daily New s, October 1b-, 19^-1* ^Quotation from Rep. Carl T. Curtis, Congressional R ecor d , cited in anonymous article, "U.S. Should Pay for Ads, Congressman Explains," The American Pr es s , 59*10 (August, 1 9 4 1 ), p. 3 .

1Z+.6 would never see print . " 1 Abuses of 1egi timate informational functions.

But

the great size and large number of information agencies developed abuses of their legitimate functions and stepped outside their ethical field of public relations.

Edson—

the columnist usually friendly to the New Deal— asserted that "legitimate public relations work has been allowed to degenerate into the lowest kinds of extravagant press agentry" and detailed a number of practices that carried the in­ formation bureaus outside public relations into propaganda and unethical procedures: 1. Public relations men are assigned to write their bosses* speeches and radio talks. .2., They are given the job of glorifying their chiefs 1 personal virtues and covering up their mis­ takes. 3- Publicizing the activities of a department is subordinated to publicizing the personality of the head of the department. 4* When a department head is called before an in­ vestigating committee, his public relations man is taken along to give counsel on what not to say in order to avoid getting a bad press. 5- Public information departments are used as mere clipping services, compiling scrapbooks, studying editorial reaction, and then planning publicity cam­ paigns to overcome unfavorable press comment. 6 , Public relations men are used as censors to cover up activities of a department which should be given fullest public airing. 7« Reams of unnecessary handouts are prepared for flattering the vanity of a section chief, with little or no possibility of the handouts being used. 8 . Elaborate radio and newsreel appearances are

■^Anonymous editorial, "Publicity Rampage," Editor and Publisher, (November 1, 19^4-1), p. 20.

l47 staged, and all too often are carried unwillingly by the theaters and broadcasters in the belief that so doing wins favor with government regulatory bodies* 9* In general, the public relations programs are planned with extravagant disregard of actual neces­ sity or demand. The waste in this effort is beyond computing Danger to independent reporting.

These are serious

charges, substantiated in general by observations of other veteran newsmen in Washington.

But the danger of such

practices is by no means so acute as the possibility that the information and publicity agencies will take the place of original or at-the-source reporting..

"There is always the

ever-present danger that the handouts will completely usurp the job of the inquiring reporter, also that the publicity chief will short circuit direct contacts between newspaper­ men and the responsible policy-making head of the organi­ zation."^

If that situation develops, it is the end of a

free press in the United States and the beginning of a con­ trolled output of government propaganda*.

That would be

tragic, for there is no doubt that freedom of the press is the most vital of all the freedoms guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, the basic freedom upon which all other freedoms de­ pend.

Walter Lippman’s discussion of what modern liberty

means phrases the idea in effective language:

Ipeter Edson column, "In Washington," Los Angeles Daily N e w s , October lip, 194l« p ^Anonymous editorial, "Publicity Rampage," op.cit*

348 The task of selecting and ordering...news is one of the truly sacred and priestly offices in a demo­ cracy. For the newspaper is in all literalness the bible of democracy, the book out of which a people determines its conduct. It is the only serious book most people read. It is the only book they read every day. People of a democracy must have all the news they can get about the affairs of government.

That news should come

from the responsible elected and appointed officers of government, the men and women who determine and carry out the policies of government.

It should not come from “the

largest battery of mimeograph machines that has ever been p mobilized.” It should not come from press spokesmen whose primary concern is not to issue facts, however favorable or derogatory, but to "save the face" of their particular branch of government.

The more obstacles placed between independ­

ent newspapermen and their responsible sources of authentic information, the smaller the flow of unbiased facts to citizens.

The public has learned to rely upon newspapers

for impartial reporting of happenings of the day.

To end

independent reporting and have all information originating from or subject to approval of a government agency is to damage or destroy public confidence in the objectivity of the information the people receive. ^•Walter Lippman, Liberty and the N e w s , New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920, p.* 47• ^Anonymous editorial, “Press Agent Army,” Editor and Publisher, 7b-:k-3 (October 25, 19^1)» P* 2l^*

Ik9 How much censorship? sity of wartime censorship.

This is not to deny the neces­ Certainly no government is going

to reveal the details of military strategy to its enemies* But the censorship should be at the source and the government should take every precaution to see that it is not "exaggerated beyond the bounds of common sense," as George Creel, the censor and publicity director of World War I, warns.^

Creel

believes that "censorship of the press in any form is not the answer" and predicts that the voluntary censorship code plan worked out in World War II will fail "for the causes of failure are inherent in the plan."

Creel lists seven valid

reasons why the voluntary censorship plan of the last war floundered.

They are worth considering as possible indi­

cations that the World War II plan also will falter; 1.. Physical difficulties of administration to meet the requests of newspapers over the entire country. 2. Varying interpretations of such phrases as "in­ formation of value to the enemy," "definitely damag­ ing to the progress and maintenance of the national defense," and "compatible with the national security." This led to contradictions in what material should be suppressed * 3# Confusion over material to be suppressed that led censorship officials to play safe and rule against publication "even when suppression was patently ab­ surd ." ip- Magnitude of the task of watching all newspaper columns for possible violations. 5- Editorial rivalries that caused certain papers to ignore the censor and publish stories that other papers would withhold after requesting a ruling.

^•George Creel, "The Plight of the Last Censor," Colliers, 107:2lp (May 2ip, 1941), P* 13*

i 5o 6. Outright violations arising from the inability of some editors to resist an exclusive story. 7* Lack of authority to punish violations

Creel recognized the need of imposing a strict cen­ sorship on all communications leaving and entering the coun­ try by means of mail, telegraph,

cable, or radio.

But, he

pointed out, speed in transmission is the essence of suc­ cessful spy work, and enemies are not relying for inform­ ation “on something as slow and haphazard as the indiscre2 tions of^ the press.“ Creel recalled that three months after he took office as chairman of the Committee on Public Information he asked President Wilson to issue an executive order subjecting all cable communications to a rigid censor­ ship.

“This done,” he said,

ceased to be of importance.

“what the newspapers printed Even when enemy agents succeed­

ed in getting hold of military secrets, they could not get the information out of the country,

and attempts to do so re­ 's suited in their detection and arrest.fl> For the newspapers to enforce the code was too much to expect, according to Creel.

When that course was recom­

mended, newspapermen said the voluntary plan was a farce and added “to hell with it.“

Creel added:

As a matter of fact, that was my own opinion. Not only was the plan plainly unworkable, but every pass^Summarized from Creel, o£. cit., pp. 13 and 3 ^. ~^Loc. cit. ^ I b i d ., p. 35.

151 ing day strengthened the conviction that it was of a piece with the hysterical "shush-shushing" that warned against unguarded speech, just as though every citizen possessed some important military information that would reach the Germans unless he kept close watch on his tongue. Virtually everything we asked the press not to print was seen or known by thousands, making secrecy a joke.l Suggested principles for a. wartime information policy. Then what should the government’s information policy during war?

What principles should be set as a guide so that admin­

istration of that policy will be consistent, efficient, and above all, an aid to public understanding of the workings of democratic government?

The answer seems obvious to the firm

believer in popular government in view of the preceding dis­ cussion.

These principles should form the basis of a wartime

information program; 1.

Principal objective of the program, as General

MacArthur suggests, should be not to suppress news but to get news for the public. 2. The government should tell the people as much as possible, without disclosing outright military secrets, in­ stead of as little as possible. 3.

Military secrets should be withheld at the source,

but the government should useextreme caution

in determining

that they are real military secrets, not examples of military or political blunders. ^-I b i d . , p.

34.

152 /p. Censorship of international cable, telephone, ra­ dio, and mail should be rigid--a policy that will allow the maximum of information to reach domestic readers and listen­ ers but block data from getting into the hands of the enemy. 5- The basis of censorship should be to prevent valu­ able data from reaching the enemy, not to influence public morale or to become propaganda. 6 . News should be given the people as soon after the

event as possible and not delayed in the hope the effect will be less harmful to morale.

This policy is necessary if

the people are to remain convinced that their government is not hiding legitimate news.

•

7 . Reporters must have access at all times to the re­

sponsible executives of government departments and agencies.

8 . Freedom to criticize constructively should be u n ­ hampered. 9- In view of the mounting costs of running a war, the expenses of the information agencies should be held to the minimum. 10. The government agencies should realize that the best morale-building propaganda is honest information pre­ sented accurately and without bias. The problem of criticism. criticism is a difficult one.

The problem of allowing

Sufficient freedom should be

permitted so that the public can criticize inefficiency

153

hampering the war program.

Pressure of public opinion must

be left free to bring about needed changes in policy and personnel.

But, as Lippman observes;

We cannot too soon make it clear to ourselves that in the discipline of war, public opinion cannot con­ trol the details, no matter how curious we may be to know them, that wars cannot be directed by committees and Gallup polls and rumors and mass meetings. There is plenty for congress and for every last one of us to do without insisting on our right to destroy by talk that discipline and unity of command which is the fundamental requirement of a successful war.l PanAers in administerinfi censorship.

Government must

guard against two acute dangers in administering a censorship program.

First, there must be no continuation of the limita­

tion of freedom of expression after the end of the war. Second, it must not be used as a device to guide domestic public opinion. second situation.

There is an ever-present menace of this When a Florida editor requested the Office

of Censorship for an explanation as to why the news of the torpedoing of a merchant vessel off Palm Beach on February 21, 19^2, had been delayed, Howard,

the reply from Nathaniel R.

on duty with the office in Washington, clearly indi­

cated that the government was using its censorship powers as a means of influencing morale.

Howard said;

There is a further consideration of the effect of announcing a sinking of an American ship some days 1 Walter Lippman, ”Today and Tomorrow” column, Los Angeles Times, December 1 2 , 19^1.

154 after it happens. The public--which means all over the United States— does not, it can be observed, re­ act quite as violently to the piece of bad news as if it had been immediately announced. This is an impor­ tant consideration in these days of many submarine attacks .. . Biggest danger, however, is that the information agencies will direct their entire program toward propagandiz­ ing the public by releasing favorable news and suppressing or at least delaying the announcement of unfavorable events. Government information agencies have a duty to the public to report the news of their departments faithfully and fully. This obligation is just as great as that of the newspapers to present all the news to their readers. is sabotage of the most disastrous form.

Any other policy Walter Lippman

comments: Just as the most poisonous form of disorder is the mob incited from high places, the most immoral act the immorality of government, so the most destructive form of untruth is sophistry and propaganda by those whose profession it is to report the news. The news columns are common carriers. When those who control them arrogate to themselves the right to determine by their own consciences what shall be reported and for what purpose, democracy is unworkable. Public opin­ ion is blockaded. For when a people can no longer confidently repair to "the best fountains for their information," then anyonefs guess and anyone's rumor, each man's hope and each man's whim becomes the basis of government. All that the sharpest critics of de­ mocracy have alleged is true is there is no steady supply of trustworthy and relevant news.^ ^Reported by Arthur Robb, "Shop Talk at Thirty,* Edi­ tor and Publisher, 75*10 (March 7, 1942 ) > p. 3 6 . ^Walter Lippman, Liberty and the News» New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1 9 2 0 , p. 10.

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l6o T u c k e r . H a y , "H a t i o n a 1 H Tii.r 3 igj g-** col u.m n , Los A n a el eg H e r a l d Hxj r e a s . F e b r u a r y 17 and 21 an d 12a r c h 17 ; 15^;l-T .

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, 1 and

; -ioril