Evening star., 1948-09-03
Truman Seen CIoudino
Soy Issue 10 Further
Political Strategy
OverIooks Revelations
On Peters in Repeating
Red Herring Charges
By Dapid Laurence

President Truman was provoked
by reporters question into a re-
iteration of his claim that the cur
rent investigation OF Communists Is
still a political "red herring" But,
unfortunately for the President, he
overlooked the fact that the testi-
mony before the Commissioner of
immigration this week on whether
to deport certain Communists was
not conducted by politicians but was
a part of the legal proceedings of
the Justice Department.
The revelations concerning the
Communist u. Peters" at this hear
ing had nothing to- do with any
political red herring Yet they
tie in directly with and corroborate
some Of the testimony before the
House Committee on un-American
Activities.
The national political campaign
will be over within nine or ten
weeks and congressional committees
will then continue their Inquiries.
They have been doing this kind OF
investigation for several years. When
the election Is over, will Mr. Tru-
man still tell the American people
that the disclosures about Commun-
lists inside and outside the Gov
ernment are a red herring" across
a political campaign?
Repeated Fallacies.
1Kr r,,,,oop want ont of hic WaV
In his press conference to repeat
some of the fallacies which have
been spread in recent weeks about
the disclosure of information by
Americans to Russians during the
war. The President pointed out
that during the war Russia was an
ally. He inferred that it was there
fore all right to tell the Russians
our war secrets.
Yet on the same day that Mr..
Truman was holding his press con-
ference. an article by Gen. Spaatz,
formerly commander of our air
forces was published in Life" maga-
zine, stating that the Russians fired
on an American B-29 in August,
1870, hIlu uClIDCL dOCly SCOlC bAAC
equipment and contents.
Likewise there were, as the Pres
ident we'll knows, certain security
regulations during the war which
did not permit any one. in the Gov
ernment to give out information ex-
cept through authorized channels.
The Chambers and Bentley testi-
IN q
indicates that certain information
was given out to Russian agents
Does the President mean to say that
1t was all right for officials to give
any information indiscriminately to
Russian agents?
Doesn't the President know that
relations between Russia and the
United States were far from close
where military information was con-
cerned? Thus the Russians for a
long time refused to permit Amer
ican military observers to witness
opera tions on the German Russian
front.
Also it is fact that when Ameri-
can intelligence authorities un-
covered, in advance of the Hitler at
tack on the Soviets in June l941
the fact that the Nazis planned on
a certain day to invade Russia and
told it to the Russian Ambassador
in Washington. he promptly went
to the German Embassy and naively
asked the Germans about it.
Careless View of Security.
All through the war there were
suspicious that some of the Russians
who had acted as front in the
United States for the Germans
during the ls3s-to-1941 period OF
the war, when America was theo-
retically neutral, still did business
for the Nazis. Certainly the Ger
man intelligence bureaus were not
so stupid as to employ as their
agents persons who spoke with q
German accent. They preferred to
use persons Of other nationalities
For the President to excuse the
transmittal of information by gov
ernmental officials to outsiders who
claimed to be Russians or friends
of any other country, on the ground
that Russia was an ally and that the
only spies were Germans or Japa-
nese, Is to take a careless viial of
security. One may hope that Mr.
Truman will not allow that innocent