Secret Spilled

Mortal fear of the U. S. armed services, particularly the Navy, is uncontrolled publicity. They also fear that given a free rein, reporters, radio commentators and photographers are likely now & then to spill secrets that the Axis powers would dearly like to know.

But unless the public is informed the services cannot rely on public support which they need for a hundred important matters, from conscription to battleship building. Hence, except in actual wartime, compulsory press censorship is out of the question. Few weeks ago the Navy got an idea. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox put it down on paper and mailed signed copies to some 5,000 newspapers, magazines, picture agencies, radio stations, etc. He marked it "confidential." Last week Frank Knox's cat was let out of the bag, not by any recipient of his unusual letter, but by the mimeographed publication Uncensored, a Manhattan weekly with an isolationist slant. Uncensored had received no letter from the Navy's Secretary, felt no compunctions of confidence in publishing Secretary Knox's letter for all to see.

Newspaperman-Secretary Frank Knox in his confidential letter asked the U. S. press to cooperate (after Jan. 15) "in the avoidance of publicity unless announced or authorized by the Navy Department on the following subjects: 1) actual or intended movements of vessels or aircraft of the U. S. Navy, of units of naval enlisted personnel . . .; 2) [mention of] 'secret' technical U. S. naval weapons or developments thereof; 3) new U. S. ships or aircraft; 4) U. S. Navy construction projects ashore." Since these four classifications cover practically all the significant news there is about the Navy, his request if followed by the press will mean that the public will hear practically nothing good or bad about the Navy unless the Navy itself sees fit to hand it out.

Meantime there was another source of information about the services, over which they had not yet devised any means of control: the Congress. Playing ball with Congress (e.g., giving out secret information to Congressmen to back up requests for appropriations) often lands naval secrets in the Congressional Record, to which any foreign agent can subscribe for $1.50 a month. Many a time the fullness of Navy information in the Record has been enough to give the Office of Naval Intelligence an acute attack of indigestion.

Last week, while the House Naval Affairs Committee approved a $300,000,000 appropriation to modernize the Navy's out-of-date anti-aircraft defense (TIME, Oct. 14), its square-rigged chairman, Georgia's Carl Vinson, had a Navy secret in his pocket--an official tabulation, prepared by the Navy's Bureau of Ships, of vessels under construction, showing types, numbers and the location of yards where they are being built.

Chairman Vinson spilled the secret after telling the Bureau of Ships that he intended to do so. One morning Rear Admiral Walter Stratton Anderson, director of Naval Intelligence, woke up to find the Navy's precious table printed in an extension of Vinson's remarks in the Congressional Record (whence it was speedily extracted by the press). Put down in one place for all to see, the Navy's summary was probably more complete than any that a foreign agent could compile from the most careful collection of individual contract announcements.

The two-ocean navy, complete with the swarms of auxiliaries and little boats (like Patrol Craft) that it will need for the full life at sea, is being built in 72 private yards and eleven Navy yards, from Bath, Me. to Cavite, P. I. Most of the big ships (17 battleships, twelve carriers, 54 cruisers) are being built on the Atlantic coast, but 204 destroyers are parceled out all over the place--to such firms as Gulf Shipbuilding Corp. of Chickasaw, Ala., Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corp., Consolidated Steel Corp. at Orange, Tex. Exclusive of combat types, Chairman Vinson's summary listed 1,770 other craft, ranging from 564 rubber boats (built by Goodyear, presumably for Marine landing parties) to lighters, harbor tugs and minesweepers. Summarizing this intelligence, Carl Vinson announced that during 1940 the Navy had set down $6,558,068,570 in contracts for 2,048 assorted craft (including small boats). The Navy had also spent $75,060,610 for 189 auxiliaries in commercial and private services, ranging from passenger liners (converted to transports) to yachts (to be used for patrol and utility work).

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