NEWS CENSORSHIP

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 129, 2 June 1945, Page 7

NEWS CENSORSHIP

TO BE MAINTAINED FOR GERMANS

Rec. 12.30 p.m. WASHINGTON. June.l. Mr. Elmer Da\iis> director of the Office of War Information, telling the House Appropriations Committee that Germany for some time will face an internal news censorship because General Eisenhower does not want to give them the chance to misuse democratic rights, said: "We do not know of any Germans we can trust at the moment, and therefore they will not be permitted to publish domestic newspapers in the early stages of the occupation. The Germans appear to feel that they have a first claim to words of sympathy and a first right to any distribution of food, and so on. "One of the first responsibilities of the Office of War Information, working in co-operation with the occupation forces, is to show the Germans what they have done to the rest of the world and why the rest of the world feels it must be made impossible tor them to do that sort of thing again. Mr. Byron Price, Director of Censorship, told the committee that the censorship constitutes so ruthless an intrusion upon the rights of individuals that no part of it should be prolonged beyond the point of absolute necessity It "should also be recognised that the continuance of strict controls over communications at a time when they were entering a period of reconstruction could work great harm to the national interest, by retarding _ the establishment of international friendship and understanding. "It would give me great pleasure to recommend that the censorship should be abandoned entirely without delay, he said, "but this cannot be done wisely so long as there is war against Japan. I will certainly recommend that the censorship be terminated the moment American lives are no longer in danger without waiting for a treaty which would technically and legally end the war." ,->«,„„ nf The committee reduced the Office of War Information appropriation by 7 000.000 dollars to 35,000 000 dollars, and the censorship appropriation by 1,350.000 dollars to 13,000,000 dollars.