Judge, in landmark decision, bars article on H-bomb

Press, 28 March 1979, Page 9

Judge, in landmark decision, bars article on H-bomb

NZPA-Reuter Milwaukee A Federal judge in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has issued ?. landmark decision banning publication of an article describing how the hydrogen bomb works. In the ruling — the first time a United States court has in effect censored the press — Judge Robert Warren held that the duty of the Government to protect national security transcended the Constitutional rights of a free press. Judge Warren issued his ruling after faiHng in a last-minute plea for the voluntary censorship of secret material. The Government maintained the article would

irreparably harm national security and hasten nuclear proliferation by helping foreign powers wanting to develop an H-bomb. Judge Warren, at the request of the Government, granted a preliminary injunction stopping the monthly magazine the “Progressive” from publishing an article by a freelance writer, Howard Morland, a known anti-nu-clear campaigner. The Judge also ordered the magazine to account

to the court for every copy of the article and keep all notes, sketches, and tape-recordings of restricted information in a safe place. Lawyers for the magazine — which is published from the Wisconsin State capital of Madison and has a circulation of about 40,000 — said they would appeal against the decision. The “Progressive’s” lawyers and editors unanimously rejected a proposal from the judge to select a panel of experts from the media and the scientific community to mediate v ith the Government on what should be deleted from the article to satisfy its objections.

The magazine’s principal lawyer, Earl Munson, told the court that the “Progressive” editors were not prepared to compromise their First .Amendment rights to press freedom, which they felt were net negotiable. Judge Warren, who was appointed to the United States District Court by President Gerald Ford in 1974- said he was disappointed, as he had hoped to avoid a situation “which may well establish a dangerous precedent.” The “Progressive” had argued that the workings of the H-bomb w'erc no longer secret and that the article contained no information that was net in the public domain.