Creeping Censorship

At their Manhattan convention last week, U.S. newspaper publishers took up a growing problem: "creeping censorship," notably by Government departments. Said Charles F. McCahill, general manager of the Cleveland News and president of the American Newspaper Publishers' Association: "Many bureaucrats in government appear to prefer to function without knowledge of the people . . . We have had too many instances of efforts to suppress information . . ."

The bureaucrats were encouraged by President Truman's often belligerent attitude towards the press and by his executive order (TIME, Oct. 8) giving each bureau authority to declare any of its information secret. As the publishers knew, the order had encouraged bureaucrats to 1) keep more & more information from the press, 2) put statements "off the record" which did not belong there, and 3) try to intimidate reporters in quest of the news.

FBI agents have repeatedly questioned or investigated columnists, and Pentagon reporters are frequently followed by the Army's intelligence agents, to identify their sources. No reputable reporter wanted to give away genuine military secrets. But stories had been held up for "security" when the real reason was interservice rivalry, e.g., the Air Force has tried to suppress stories on the guided missiles which the Army had already approved. In many cases, no question of military security is involved. In civilian areas, Government tax agents hide most of their activities, including shenanigans, under an official policy of secrecy. And Presidential Assistant John Steelman recently set up barricades in the corridors outside his offices to keep reporters from getting to steel-strike negotiators to find out what was going on.

As if taking their cue from Washington, local officials are trying to keep their doings out of sight of the public. At last week's meetings, publisher after publisher told of closed meetings held by school boards, city councils and others handling public funds. Not all the reasons were sinister (explained one alderman: "If you quoted what we said, we would sound like fools"). But there seemed a growing assumption that public business is none of the public's business. Samples:

P: In Danville, Va., police suppressed, for "security reasons," the fact that General Mark Clark was arrested for speeding,

P: In Providence, it took the Journal & the Bulletin four years and seven court actions to force tax officials to open their records of tax abatements.

P: Illinois' attorney general ruled that reporters may be barred from committee meetings of county boards of supervisors.

P: In Shreveport, La., the Planning and

Zoning Commission meets in secret, for no valid reason.

P: In & around Albany, N.Y., 368 bars had been caught watering their whisky. The Internal Revenue Bureau let them off with token fines, and the bureau's Chief Counsel Charles Oliphant declared that such "confidential compromises" were none of the public's business. (Oliphant resigned during the investigation of tax scandals.)

The problem of creeping censorship has reached such a stage that U.S. editors at their own convention last fortnight stated: "The biggest uncovered story of the time might simply be the story of how much information the people [are] being denied--the uncharted map of that enormous area of Government activity behind the red-tape curtain."

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