Evening star., 1950-12-17
Byron Price Variety
Of Censorship Wanted
Writer Urges Cooperative
Guarding Of VitoI information
By Frank R. Kent

In the war we are fighting in Korea
today and the immensely vaster and
more terrible one with which we are
threatened a very considerable factor
apparently has not been noticed by the
public nor given the attention it deserves
by either our civilian or military leaders.
This is the exceedingly grave matter
OF censorship in the interests of national
security. In no other war in our times
has this been so conSpicuously absent.
In no other period has it seemed so vitally
needed. This is not the fault of the
newspapers or the war correspondents.
Actually, the only request for censor
ship has come from the reporters in the
field and the only unfavorable comment
on its lack has been made by one or two
f1rst-clasS Journalistic military analysts.
Neither the Russian nor the Chinese
Communists seem to need spy system
here. All they need is to tune in their
radios and read our newspapers. Nearly
every day and nearly every night these
spill all the inside information there is.
The number of divisions We lack 70
have an effective Army: the obsolete
character of our weapons; the Shoddy
nature OF our equipment; the reasons
we cannot under present conditions hope
to win either in Asia or in Western Eu-
rope against Russian aggression; the
hopelessness of our position should the
Soviets start something else somewhere
else while the great bulk of our military
power is locked up in Korea; the futility
OF our representatives at the United Ma
tions and the frightful way in which
we are bleeding to death economically
all this and more is being trumpeted to
the world every day.
There are several things to be said in
its defense. The chief one is that mostly
the depressing facts thus presented are
true and that nothing short of the truth
will arouse the people, the Congress
and the administration to the sort Of
action for which this crisis cries. Failure
fully to describe in detail our military
feebleness and shortcomings. it 10
claimed. would do more harm than good.
Conceding all this, there nevertheless
is strong feeling that some limits
should be laid down and some restraints
imposed. No one wants to suppress
news and it is important to give the
American people the facts. But it does
seem that some way might be found to
lessen the hySterical and panicky out
pourings in the press and on the air. A
considerable part of this emanates from
high-level officials of the Government
including some in the armed forces
who for personal reasons ought to be
above feeding this sort of stuff to their
favorite columnists and commentators.
They got into this habit through the
long fight to drive Louis johnson out
of offlce-and it now seems to have be-
come ingrained. Probably the johnson
resignation was necessary, but the con-
tinuation of that kind of campaign, in
volving complete exposure of our in
ternal disabilities, is certainly not desir.
able.
1t is easy to identify some Of these
sources" and growing number Of
newspapermen are restive about the
situation. They do not, of course, want
another absurd Office of information in
charge of another Elmer Davis. They
don't want rigid restrictions that
hamper straight reporting. But most
OF them would welcome such a censor
ship as that conducted in the last war
by Bryon Price, who managed to guard
the national security by securing the
cooperation Of newspaper publishers
and reporters without ever making them
feel the weight of a censorship. In
brief, under Mr.. Prices intelligent
direction they developed sense of
responsibility and censored themselves.