The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-04-17

In contrast, the traditional prac- ticc of established agencies such as the State and War Depart ncnts Is to publish the salaries of every official in the annual register.
 Again, the REC at first refused to reveal the salary of Senator Cotton Ed' Smiths son-in-law who is on It's payroll; and 1t was forthcoming only after the question was put up to the REC Board and debated there.
 The Bureau of Foreign and Domestict Commerce, like the REC, is ruled with an iron fist by Secretary Jessie Jones. Re- gently Carroll Wilson, executive of the Bureau, assembled all its employees and threatened them with "severe consequences" If they gave any information to newsmen about the sweeping re- organization now under way. One of the new officials Jones has brought into the Bureau is Robert Fitz-Martin, former research di- rector of the anti-New Deal Na- tional Association of Manufactur- CTS.
 CONFUSED RED TAPE
 Height of ridiculous censorship was the refusal of the National Defense Commission to disclose the salary of Mrs. Margaret Hol- mead, daughter of William IT. McReynolds, White House secre- tary, who had installed her as per- sonal director of the commission although she had no experience in this field.
 Tn addition to this squean1ish- ness about revealing facts to which the public IS entitled, there has grown up a maze of red tape in the Defense agencies which ham pers and confuses the average reporter and has the effect Of censorship.
 The OfI,ce of Production Management, for instance, has some 90 different publicity agents, each fin charge of . dif- ferent section. A cell to any of them is taken down in short hand by sten0grapher and transcribed for the OPM's per- manent files.
 Of an entirely different nature is the censorship exercised by the Navy in It's attitude toward the press. t.s
 In the suppression of certain kinds Of information, such as naval secrets, the press is glad to cooperate. For months, nothing appeared In print about the new device for detecting the approach of airplanes, until isolationist Senator Senator Nye made a speech about 1t. The press also has cooperated in protecting ship movements and the Navy's new pombsight.
 CENSORED CRITICISM
 In recent weeks, however, the Navy has gone further, has even threatened censorship as Q means of protecting high naval officers from criticism. Navy brasshats have long been sensitive about press criticism, but have never brought such pressure to stop 1t as today.
 Today, there Is definite evi-
 dence that Naval Intelligence
 has been tapping telephone wires and shad0wing newsmen who have unearthed news which the navy does not like. Even the FBI does not tap wires, as the result of Supreme Court ruling.
 Naval secrets are not involved merely criticism of certain brass hats. And Naval Intelligence ap- pears to be chiefly interested in the source of the information: in other words, when officers in the Navy, or officials in other government agencies, have dis closed inefficiencies.
 When this cosumn revealed the fact that thirty of the Navy's new destroyers were so top-heavy that they tended to turn turtle in claimed that 1t had traced part of the news leak to a civilian engineer employed in a private company. And the admirals made 1t hot for the firm which em. ployed this engineer that he almost lost his job.