The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1952-03-15

ulations will be to make more,
rather than less, information avail
able to the people.
The President defined the order
as intended to protect information
from potential enemies"
But the American Society of
Newspaper Editors. headed Ly Al
exander F. Jones, executive editor
of the ald-Journal and Herald
American of Syracuse, N. Y, pro-
tested that the net effect would be
to suppress news to which the
American public is entitled.
Two days after the President is
sued his directive, reporters
learned that the Office of Price
Sterilization, in an action unrelat-
ed to the Presidents order, had
instructed its staff to withhold any
information that might cause en-
barrassment to the OPS"
The President himself demanded
that the OPS withdraw that one.
The editors, in letter to Jo-
seph Short, the Presidents press
secretary, said they understood
that genuine security informatic..
should be Withheld.
| But they asked what guarantee
there was that those carrying out
the order would confine it to that.
They declared:
I'VE strongly oppose an execu-
| tive order which formally deSig-
mates each head of government
agency an authority to classify in
formation as injurious to national
/ security without defipition of what
breaches national security, and
without appeal or review"
The Associated Press Managing
Editors Association, meet gn in
San Francisco last Sept. 20, de-
scribed the directive as a dan
gerous instrument of news sup.
preston" and called on Mr.. Tru-
man to rescind it.
Mr.. Truman defended his order
at news conference on Oct. a.
He said Yale University survey,
made for the Central Intelligence
Agency, indicated that 95 per cent
of the governments secrets had
been disclosed by newspapers and
slick magazines. That was what
he wanted to stop, he said.
Secretary of Commerce Sawyer
in a Philadelphia speech Oct. 8
attributed some protests to "emo
tional outbursts about censorship.
| He said too much military informa
ton was getting out.
Sigma Delta Chi, professional
journalistic fraternity, said the or
der duplicates in the name OF
national security the practices OF
totalitarian states which, as among
their first steps, seized control of
| the channels Of communication and
Information to the people which
they later enslaved.
Short retorted that this was a
"detestatIe SANDER" and that
"even a cub reporter would know
/ better
Short said last month the White
HClse had received only two com.
plants of withheld news and that
both involved suppression eases
that occurred before the order was
| issued.
The White House took step
toward meeting one complaint
that there was no appeals tribunal
that wClld hear protests concern
ing agencies which suppressed non
/ security news.
| A subcommittee Of the Interde-
partmentaI Committee on Internal
Security (ICIS1, the agency which
\ drafted the original order. was set
up TO keep tabs on potential abuses
ard to hear appeals.
| J. Russell Virgins of the Wash
ington Post, chairman of the AP
Managing EditC.s' Committee on
Freedom of the Press. said he diu
not believe the subcommittee
headed iy Edward r. Trapnell oil
the Atomic Energy Commission,
would answer the objections.
He noted that the Trapnell com
miitee was made up Of agencies
particularly concerned with secur.
ity--the Defense, State, Justice an6
Treasury Departments--and said
| an independent reviewing agency
should be set up.