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CSGAS 96 (Rev 12) 16 Apr 47 47938 

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Calendar No. tso 

80TH CONGRESS } 

fZd Session 

SENATE 

{ 

REPORT 

l"f o. 1433 

ENHANCING FURTHER THE SECURITY OF THE UNITED STATES 

BY PREVENTING DISCLOSURES OF INFORMATION CONCERNING 

THE CRYPTOGRAPHIC SYSTEMS AND THE COMMUNICATION 

INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES OF THE UNITED STATES 

MAY 28 (legislative day, MAY 20), 1948.-0rdered to be printed 

Mr. BALDWIN, from the Committee on Armed Services, submitted the 

following 

REPORT 

[To accompany S. 2680] 

The Committee on Armed Services, to whom was referred the bill 

(S. 2680) to enhance further the security of the United States by preventing disclosures of information concerning the cryptographic systems and the communication intelligence activities of the United 

·States, having considered the same, report favorably thereon with 

amendments and recommend that the bill, as amended, do pass. 

AMENDMENTS TO THE BILL 

Page 2, lines 24 and 25, strike out the sentence:. 

The term "cryptographic purposes" as used herein is correspondingly extended 

in the scope of its meaning. 

Page 3, lines 13, 14, and 15, strike out the sentence: 

The terms "communication intelligence activities" and "communication intelligence purposes" as used herein shall be construed accordingly. 

PURPOSE OF THE BILL 

The purpose of this bill is to prevent the revelation of important 

information about United States communciation intelligence activities 

and United States codes and ciphers by persons who disclose such 

information without proper authority, and to prescribe penalties to 

those revealing such information. Stated briefly, this bill makes it a 

crime to reveal the methods, techniques, and materiel used in the 

transmission by this Nation of enciphered or coded messages. It 

does not control in any way the free dissemination of information 

which might be transmitted by code or cipher, unless that information 
REF ID:A39911 

2 • ENHANCE FURTHER SECURITY OF THE :U.ED STATES 

has been obtained by clandestine intercept and cryptanalysis. 

Further, it makes it a crime to reveal methods used by this Nation 

in breaking the secret codes of a foreign nation. It also prohibits 

under certain penalties the divulging of any information which may 

have come into this Government's hands as.a result of such a codebreaking. The reason for the latter prohibition is to prevent the 

indication to a foreign nation that we had broken their code system. 

At present two other acts protect this information, but only in a 

limited way. Those are the Espionage Act of 1917 and the act of 

June 10, 1933 (48 Stat. 122). Under the first, unauthorized revelation 

of infor.rration of this kind can be penalized only if it can be proved that 

the person making the revelation did so with intent to injure the 

United States. Under the second, only diplomatic codes and messages transmitted in diplomatic codes are protected. The present bill 

is designed to protect against publication or any other revelation, 

regardless of intent, of all important information affecting United 

States communication intelligence operations and all direct information about all United States codes and ciphers. 

As the matter now stands, prevention of the disclosure of information of our cryptographic systems, exclusive of State Department 

codes, and of communication intelligence activities rests solely on the 

discretion, loyalty, and good judgment of numerous individuals. 

These individuals are not now prohibited from making disclosures 

which can be most damaging to the security of the United States. 

They are subjrct to the temptations of personal gain and the advantages of publicity in making sensational disclosures of the information within the purview of this act. 

The purpose of the bill is well summarized in the quotation from the 

Joint Congressional Committee for the Investigation of the Attack 

on Pearl Harbor, which recommended, on page 253 of the report, 

that-

* * * effective steps be taken to insure that statutory or other restrictions 

do not operate to the benefit of an enemy or other forces inimical to the Nation's 

security and to the handicap of our own intelligence agencies. With this in mind, 

the Congress should give serious study to, among other things, * * * legislation fully protecting the security of classified matter. 

This bill is an attempt to provide just such legislation for only a 

small category of classified matter, a category which is both vital 

and vulnerable, to an almost unique degree. 

EXPLANATION OF THE BILL 

The bill would make it a crime, punishable by not more than 

$10,000 fine, or 10 years' imprisonment, or both, to reveal two categories of information, namely; (1) Information which would nullify 

the efforts of United States communication intelligence agencies, and 

(2) information which would permit foreign governments to read the 

secret official communications of the United States. Information of 

the first category is covered by the following phrases (qualifying 

''information''): 

* * * concerning the nature, preparation, or use of any code, cipher, or cryptographic system of * * * any foreign government. 

* * * concerning the design, construction, use, maintenance, or repair of 

any device, apparatus, or appliance used or prepared or planned for use by * * * any foreign government. 
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ENHANC.THER SECURITY OF THE UNITED STATES- 3 

* * * concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United 

States or any foreign government. * * * obtained by the processes of communication intelligence from the 

communications of * * * any foreign government. 

Information of the second category is covered by inclusion of the 

words, "the United States or" in the first, second, and fourth of the 

phrases quoted above. The bill does not prohibit the publication or 

disclosure of United States Government messages in general. 

In addition, it should be noted that the restrictions on disclosure 

apply only to the types of classified'information defined in the phrases 

quoted above. 

DISCUSSION 

Earlier versions of this same bill (S. 805, 79th Cong., and S. 1019, 

80th Cong.) would have penalized the revelation or publication, not 

only of direct information about United States codes and ciphers 

themselves but of information transmitted in United States codes 

and ciphers. This provision in not included in the present version. 

Under the bill as now drafted there is no penalty for publishing the 

contents of United States Government communications (except, of 

course, those which reveal information in the categories directly protected by the bill itself). Even the texts of coded Government messages can be published without penalty as far as this bill is concerned, 

whether released for such publication by due authority of a Government department or passed out without authority or against orders 

by personnel of a department. In the latter case, of course, the 

Government personnel involved ~ight be subject to punishment by 

administrative action but not, it is noted, under the provisions of 

this bill. It is noted, further, that in such a case the representative 

of the press who receives and publishes the information could not be 

penalized under this bill, since he should certainly be able to maintain 

unassailably the position that he had received the information in good 

faith from an employee or official whose authority to give it to him 

it was not his business to question. . The bill, while carefully avoiding the infringement of civil liberties, 

extends the protected field covered by the extremely narrow act of 

June 10, 1933 (48 Stat. 122), the latter being of far too limited application to afford to certain highly secret Government activities the 

protection which they need. The need for protection of this sort is 

best illustrated by an account of the very circumstances which 

surrounded the enactment of the act of June 10, i933. In 1931 

there had been published in the United States a book which gave a 

detailed account of United States successes in breaking Japanese 

diplomatic codes during the decade prior to publication. In 1933 it 

was learned that the same author had already placed in the hands 

of his publishers the manuscript of another book which made further 

detailed revelations of United States success in the breaking of 

foreign diplomatic codes. Immediate action secured the passage by 

the Congress of the measure of June 10, which effectively stopped 

publication of the second book. Unfortunately, the first book had 

done, and continued to do, irreparable harm. It had caused a furor 

in Japanese Government circles, and Japanese diplomatic codes had 

been changed shortly after its appearance. The new codes were more 

complex and difficult to solve than the old ones, and throughout the 

years from then until World War II not only the Japanese diplomatic 
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4 -\ .--. 

ENHANCE FURTHER SECURITY OF THE U ~ED STATES 

cryptographers but the military and naval cryptographers as well 

were obviously devoting more study to cryptography than they ever 

had before. In 1934 they introduced their first diplomatic machine 

cipher. Year by year, their codes and ciphers improved progressively 

by radical steps, and United States cryptanalysts had more and more 

difficulty and required more and more time to break them. It can 

be said that United States inability to decode the important Japanese 

military communications in the days immediately leading up to 

Pearl Harbor was directly ascribable to the state of code-security 

consciousness which the revelations of a decade earlier had forced on 

Japanese officialdom. 

RECOMMENDATION OF THE NAVY DEPARTMENT 

There is appended a letter from the Secretary of the Navy which 

recites the views of the Navy Department in recommending enactment 

of this bill. 

Hon. CHAN GuRNEY, 

Dl!:PARTMENT OF THE NAVY, 

Washington, May 7, 1948. 

Chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, 

United States Senate. 

MY DEAR lV!R. CHAIRMAN: There is transmitted herewith a draft of a proposed 

bill to enhance further the security of the United States by preventing disclosures 

of information concerning the cryptographic systems and the communication 

intelligence activities of the United State~. 

The purpose of the proposed bill is to further insure the military security of 

the United States by providing that the unauthorized disclosure by any person of 

classified information concerning the cryptographic systems and the communication-intelligence activities of the United States shall be a statutory offense. 

During the war it was necessary to make a great many matters of a confidential 

nature accessible to a considerable number of service personnel and employees 

who have since been severed from their wartime duties and who may fail to safeguard official information which is within their knowledge. Existing laws do 

not adequately protect the security of information of this character, and it is con- sidered of utmost urgency and importance from the standpoint of national 

security that legislation be enacted which will fully protect the security of classified matter. The joint committee of Congress which investigated the Pearl 

Harbor attack recognized this fact and in its report recommended that Congress 

give serious study, among other things, to "legislation fully protecting the security 

of classified matter." 

The proposed bill represents the combined views of the Army, Navy, Air 

Force, Central Intelligence Agency, and the Department of State, as to the legislation which is necessary to prevent the unauthorized disclosure of such classified 

information. The Navy Department is sponsoring this legislation on behalf of 

all of the foregoing organizations. The proposed bill is submitted as a substitute 

for H. R. 2965, covering the same subject, which was introduced in the first 

session of the Eightieth Congress at the request.of the Navy Department. The 

principal points of difference between H. R. 2965 and the bill now proposed are as follows: 

The clause in H. R. 2965 providing penalties for revealing information transmitted in United States cryptographic systems has been omitted in the proposed 

bill. While there is still a need for a statute to protect United States cryptographic systems by prohibiting, or in some way limiting, the publication or other 

revelation to foreign governments, or individuals, of the texts of messages which 

have been transmitted in those systems, because of its controversial nature this 

clause has been omitted in the proposed bill in the interest of the bill's primary 

purpose. H. R. 2965 would apply only to persons who had acquired information 

by virtue of certain employment by the United States or foreign governments. 

Under this limitation a person who had stolen this information from the Government could reveal it with impunity. Also an individual or group of individuals 
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E•NHANCE F.HER SECURITY OF THE UNITED STATES e 5 

' who had privately engaged in cryptanalysis of foreign systems could publish 

their technical results with impunity, although such publication would be just as damaging to the United States communication intelligence effectiveness as if 

it had been by a Government employee. The proposed bill omits the qualification as to employment. With· the elimination in the proposed bill of the 

employment feature, there is no longer any need for the separate section 1 and 

section 2, which appear in H. R. 2965, one of which applies to persons employed 

by the United States and the other to persons employed by foreign governments. 

H. R. 2965, as introduced, covered "information" of certain categories, while the 

proposed bill covers "classified information" of these categories, and the term 

"classified information" is defined. This change has been. made to overcome certain objections of·the United States Archivist. Where the terms "cryptanalysis" and "cryptanalytic" were used in H. R. 2965, the term "communication 

intelligence" has been substituted in the propos~d bill as being more suitable 

for the conveyance of the intended meaning. The Navy Department, in conjunction with the Army, Air Force, Central 

Intelligence Agency, and Department of State, strongly recommends the enactment of the proposed legislation. 

An identical report has been transmitted to the Speaker of the House of Representatives this date. 

The Navy Department has been advised by the Bureau of the Budget that 

there is no objection to the submission of this report to the Congress. 

Sincerely yours, 

0 

W. JOHN KENNEY, 

Acting Secretary of the Navy. 
BOTH CONGRESS 

2D8ESSION 

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• 

S.2680 

IN THE SENATE OF TH.E UNITED STATES 

MAY 17 (legislative day, MAY 10), 1948 

Mr. GURNEY introduced the following bill; which was read twice and re:feri'.ed 

to the Committee on Armed Services 

A BILL 

To enhance further the security of the United States by preventing disclosures of information concerning the cryptographic 

systems and the communication intelligence activities ."1?f 

the United States. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Represenfa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembl~4., 

. 3 That whoever shall communicate, furnish, transmit, or othe.r:- , 

4 wise make available to an unauthorized person, or publi~h, 

5 or use in any manner prejudicial to the safe!iY or intere.~~ 

6 of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign go-v:7 

7 enrment to the detriment of the United States any classifie,4 

8 information ( 1 ) concerning the nature, preparation, or us~ 

9 of any code, cipher, or cryptrographic system of the Unit~~ 't • 
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• 

2 

1 States or any foreign government; or ( 2) concerning the 

2 design, construction, use, maintenance, or repair of any 

3 device, apparatus, or appliance used or prepared or planned 

4 for use by the United States or any foreign government for 

5 cryptographic or communication intelligence purposes; or 

6 ( 3) concerning the communication intelligence activities of 

7 the United States or any foreign government; or ( 4) 

8 obtained by the processes of communication intelligence from 

9 the communications of the United States or any foreign 

10 government, shall be fined not more than $10,000 or 

11 imprisoned not more than ten years or both. 

12 SEC. 2. (a) The term "classified information" as used 

13 herein shall be construed to mean information which, at the 

14 time of a violation under this Act, is, for reasons of national 

15 security, specifically designated by a United States Govern16 ment agency for limited or restricted dissemination or dis17 tribution. 

... ,, "" 

18 (b) The terms "code", "cipher", and "cryptographic 

19 system" as used herein shall be construed to include in their 

20 meanings, in addition to their usual meanings, any method 

21 of secret writing and any mechanical or electrical device 

22 or method used for the purpose of disguising or concealing 

23 the contents, significance, or meanings of communications. 

24 The term "cryptographic purposes" as used herein is corre25 spondingly extended in the scope of its meaning. 

1, 

f 
- • ' Q. 

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• 

3 

1 ( c) The term "foreign government" as used herein 

Z shall be construed to include in its meaning any person or 

3 persons acting or purporting to act for or on behalf of 

4· any faction, party, department, agency, bureau, or military 

5 force of or within a foreign country, or for or on behalf 

6 of any government or any person or persons purporting to 

7 act as a government within a foreign country, whether or 

8 not such government is recognized by the United States. 

9 ( d) The term "communication intelligence" as used 

10 herein shall be construed to mean all procedures and methods 

11 used in the interception of communications and the obtain12 ing of information from such communications by other than 

13 the intended recipients. The terms "communication intelli14 gence activities" and "communication intelligence purposes" 

15 as used herein shall be construed accordingly. 

16 ( e) The term "unauthorized person" as used herein 

17 shall be construed to mean any person who, or agency which, 

18 is not authorized to receive information of the categories 

19 set forth in section 1 of this Act, by the President, or by 

20 the head of a department or agency of the United States 

21 Government which is expressly designated by the President 

22 to engage in communication intelligence activities for the 

23 United States. 

24 SEC. 3. Nothing in this Act shall prohibit the furnish25 ing, upon lawful demand, of information to any regularly 
"""' .s 

0 ....... 

80TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION S.2680 

A BILL 

To enhanc.e further the security of the United 

States by preventing disclosures of information concerning the cryptographic systems and the communication intelligence activities of the United States. 

By Mr. GURNEY 

MAY 17 (legislative day, MAY 10), 1948 

Read twice and referred to the Committee on 

Armed Services