No Time for Censors

Should the press submit to voluntary censorship in peacetime? When Defense Secretary James V. Forrestal put the question to a committee of press, radio and newsreel representatives last spring (TIME, March 15), he got a short no. The responsibility for keeping military secrets, the committee decided, rested on the armed services; they should not give out "secret" information.

With this view many working newsmen wholeheartedly disagreed; they felt that such a policy would be an open invitation to military men to slap the "top-secret" stamp on matters of legitimate public interest. Such newsmen felt that the press has the right to know what is going on; it should be responsible for keeping vital military secrets in peacetime just as it did in wartime.

In his first annual report last week (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), Secretary Forrestal agreed. Wrote he: ". . . It is the responsibility of the press, radio and other agencies which gather and disseminate news, not to publish information which would violate the national security . . . I agree, that in peacetime no type of [official] censorship is workable or desirable."

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