DECLASSHHED Authoritybu gh Mitre cf the ttumtg Gamers 111 June 17 1942 FOR THE ATTORNEY GETTIE RAL Re Censorship of Articles Written by Press Correspondents Permitted to Accompany United States Armed Forces in Combatant Areas my investigation of the Chicago Tribune article of June 7th about the recent engagement near Midway Island has plainly disclosed a situation Which should be considered by the Navy Department and the Office of Censorship and possibly the war Department The Espionage Act section 31 makes it an offence to disclose information re- garding the national defense to any one not authorized to receive it Naturally the press looks to the Code of wartime Practices a issued by the Censor to ascertain whether a story is objectionable and if the code does not ban the story the press may assume it may be published and therefore the public are authorized to receive it within the meaning of the statute On the other hand when a news paper correspondent is given special permission to be on a naval vessel in a combatant area it is usual for the Navy to instruct him or require him to agree that any article he writes while at sea or after his return to the United States about his observations must be passed through Navy censorship before publication The conduct of the Tribune in this case shows that its managing editor in passing on Johnston s article of June 7 assumed that the Censorship Office clearance was sufficient and if the Code of Wartime Practices in the paragraph on ships did not ban the article and literally it did not as the CEfice of Censorship has conceded that the Tribune was safe in publishing without even sub mitting the article to the Office of Censorship my point is that the Code of wartime Practices of which a new edition is now in preparation ought to have a paragraph DECLASSHHED Authority MD lg 21 explicitly stating that the code is not intended to supersede special requirements as to Army or Navy censorship of articles obtained by press correspondents granted the privilege of accompanying the armed forces in combatant areas Whether in such case an article should be passed by both the Navy and the Sensors Office is a matter of administrative detail Judging from the Tribune case only experts in the Navy Department are qualified to detect the objectionable features of such an article as Johnston s of June 7th and it would seem better that-all articles by correspondents who have been allowed on ships of the United States in combatant areas should be cleared by the Navy and such a clearance should be sufficient I also have noted that there seems to be no Navy regulation requiring press correspondents who are_allowed on'war vessels to submit their articles to Navy censorship The practice is to require the correspondent to sign an agreement to that effect In the case of Johnston of the Tribune he was not required at Hawaii to sign such an agreement Whether that was an oversight or intentional I do not know May I respectfully suggest that there ought to be a regulation on the subject binding whether Or not an agree- ment is signed In that case so as to give notice of the regulation the correspondent should also be required to sign an agreement to abide by it or'sign an admission that he is informed of the restriction - If there had been such a paragraph in the Code of wartime Practices for the press as I have suggested above the Tribune would doubtless never have dared to publish the article of June 7 without Navy clear ance Furthermore as the case stands the failure to have Johnston sign an agreement Part 2 and the absence of any general Navy regula tion about Navy censorship of articles by men privileged to sail with the fleet may defeat the case against the Tribune I present this situation to you now because a new edition of the Code of Wartime Practices is to be issued June 22 Williain Mitchell                     National Security Archive    Suite 701  Gelman Library  The George Washington University    2130 H Street  NW  Washington  D C  20037    Phone  202 994‐7000  Fax  202 994‐7005  nsarchiv@gwu edu