Barring the Door

Worried over possible security leaks, President Truman recently asked a group of editors for advice. Should news from the Government's civilian agencies be checked for security, just like news from the State and Defense departments? No, said the editors, any such censorship of civilian agencies would shut off "much news to which the public is entitled."

Last week the President went ahead anyway; he ordered civilian agencies to set up a security check on news, which will permit them to "classify" (i.e., withhold) any information they think might have military value. The President left it up to each department head to suppress whatever news he chose.

White House reporters promptly protested. They feared that bureaucrats would use the "classified" stamp to hide boners, bottle up many an important (though militarily harmless) story that should be told. What, asked one newsman, would happen if a bureaucrat refused to release information which obviously had no connection with the nation's safety? Replied Presidential Press Secretary Joseph Short: "I dont want to stick my neck out--but, come to me." But with 1,500 reporters in Washington, that was hardly a solution.

The President's pronouncement was barely two days old (and still not in effect) when the Office of Price Stabilization pulled just the sort of trick that newsmen feared would become commonplace under the new order. OPS employees were told to withhold from the press any information that "might prove embarrassing to the OPS." Joe Short spied the news on an A.P. teletype at the White House, hastily and huffily took the price agency to task. OPS, lamely explaining that it had simply wanted to safeguard confidential information which businessmen give the office, canceled the notice.

At week's end, the Associated Press Managing Editors Association asked the President to rescind his "censorship at the source." Said the association: it is a "dangerous instrument of news suppression."

Actually, the order did not infringe "the freedom of the press": the press is still free to publish all the news it can find. But it did mean that the press would find less news about the Government. And the more news the people got about the Government--within reason--the better. The question was: Where did reason stop and security begin?

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