SECURITY IN AMERICA

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26538, 28 September 1951, Page 7

SECURITY IN AMERICA

EDITORS PROTEST AT NEW ORDER

(Rec. 9 p.m.) SAN FRANCISCO. September 26. Leading American editors to-day voted unanimously to prepare resolutions formally protesting against President Truman’s new executive order classifying information. The resolution was adopted at the opening of the annual meeting of the Associated Press Managing Editors’ Association. Mr Truman’s executive order, announced in Washington yesterday, extends authority to classify information to all civilian Government agencies. It is designed to prevent the release of militarily valuable information. Military and diplomatic information is now classified in any of four security categories of top secret, secret, confidential, and restricted. Mr James S. Pope, managing editor of the Louisville “Courier-Journal, said: “It seems that we have been kicked back over our own goal-line in the fight for press freedom’’ Mr Pope added that the order gave the head of each Government department additional authority to classify information. That authority could also be delegated to anyone the Government official chose to designate Mr J. R. Wiggins, of the Washington “Post.” said: “I hope every editor in America will read the announcement extending the security classification.” He added that it made it possible to argue for the suppression of. the most routine data—from crops to industrial production—in the name of security.