When is a Secret?

Once again last week Secretary of the Navy Knox's rules of "voluntary censorship" made a monkey out of the U.S. press.

British Press Service announced that "Captain Lord Louis Mountbatten* . . . has come to the United States to take command of the British aircraft carrier Illustrious and to supervise her repairs in an undisclosed American shipyard."

Thus the British, as in the case of the Malaya, let a cat out of Secretary Knox's bag. But the cat had long been out prowling publicly in everything except print.

For at least two months several hundred thousand people--and unquestionably several dozen Nazi agents--have known that the Illustrious, which had her flight deck bombed to ribbons when taking a convoy through the Mediterranean (TIME, Jan. 27, 1941), had come over to be patched up. They also knew the name of the "undisclosed shipyard" where she was being repaired, and other details.

But no publication wanted to be accused by Frank Knox of being unpatriotic./- Even when the British finally told the well-known truth, conscientious correspondents who called the Navy Department for authorization to print could not get an affirmative "Yes."

The case of the Illustrious is not isolated. Typical is such a report as the following which was received last week from a TIME correspondent in a city where there is a U.S. Navy Yard--the sort of town where the Axis secret service is extremely remiss if it does not have more than one agent:

"Biggest potential story around here these last few days is the news that H.M.S.-- is at the navy yard at -- for repairs--all of which you doubtless know. . . .

"The --'s crew immediately began getting leave and have been scampering around town for the last week, talking quite freely about their adventures. All Navy Yard workmen talk of little else. By now it is common talk almost everywhere in the city. . . .

"One paper, I know, and I believe several others have stories written about the ship, but are holding them.

"The commandant at the navy yard refuses to countenance any newspaper printing anything although everybody and his dog knows she is here. ... As I suppose is usual in these cases--although this is our first--people seem quite baffled because the papers do not carry a story. . . . At any rate any spies within 100 miles would be pretty dumb if they hadn't gathered the rudiments of the news about her by now. . . ."

Although the "suppression" of such widely known news makes the press almost as big a monkey as Secretary Knox, the biggest monkey of all is made of the general public that is supposed to be kept in ignorance even of things which Hitler must know. But apparently U.S. officials take a childish delight in having a "secret."

Secretary Knox in a recent Collier's article perhaps enjoyed telling the "secret" (kept till then by newsmen) that a U.S. airman was aboard the plane which spotted the Bismarck'and called the British fleet in for the kill. Again, although Winston Churchill was all for letting the public know about his meeting with the President as soon as it took place, Franklin Roosevelt, gleeful over his private secret, interposed every obstacle then and later to letting out even the most innocuous information.

* Able, well-liked cousin of George VI, who has had two destroyers shot out from under him since war began.

/- TIME withholds no news from its readers ex cept a few items of a military nature. The mili tary items withheld fall into two classes: 1) secrets which are secrets in fact (likely not to be known to the Axis powers); 2) phony secrets (which the Axis has every reason to know). The latter class consists principally of cases like the Illustrious. There is obviously no patriotic gain in withholding this information but to reveal it would greatly upset some U.S. agencies that are otherwise cooperative in supplying information to the public. Rather than have not only TIME but very likely the rest of the press and the public cut off from much information that is now available, TIME -- within limits -- unwillingly plays the foolish game of certain officials.

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