GERMANY KNEW ALL

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVI, Issue 22991, 7 September 1944, Page 5

GERMANY KNEW ALL

.Information. From U.S. Embassy Clerk Had Access To Codes By Telegraph—N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright (8.10 p.m.) LONDON. Sept. 5. Mr Joseph P. Kennedy, former American Ambassador in Great Britain, told the Associated Press, that Germany had an exact and complete knowledge of England's position from the beginning of the war to October, 1940, through Tyler Kent, the American Embassy clerk. Mr Kennedy said: “Mr Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, had given me a frank and complete picture of England’s preparedness, military and naval power and placements, the status of her industries and week by week developments for forwarding to President Roosevelt, After Kent's arrest I learned that Kent had copied 1500 documents, and presumably had sent them to Germany. Kent’s manner of communication with Germany was not learned until after his arrest when, during a search of his room, a telephone call for Kent came from the Italian Embassy in London. Italy did not go to war until after Kent’s arrest.” Mr Kennedy denied assertions in the House of Commons that Kent and Captain Ramsay were imprisoned to prevent disclosure of a reported prewar understanding between President Roosevelt and Mr Churchill. Kent saw all the Churchill-Roosevelt messages. “We had two codes,” said Mr Kennedy, “one ordinary and the other more complicated. We thought the later unbreakable. Kent had the unbreakable code book at his elbow. Kent’s friendship with a Russian girl, Anna Wallkoff, led to a photographic shop, where it was found that Kent had the documents copied on microfilm. The trail was lost there until the Italian Embassy telephoned. Copies of the 1500 messages were found in a strongbox in Kent’s room, and a diplomatic blackout went into effect at American Embassies throughout the world after I telephoned President Roosevelt and told about Kent.” Mr Kennedy added that if the United Slates had been at war he w "'O have recommended that Kent be returned to America and shot. The waiving of diplomatic immunity so that Kent could be tried in a British court

was necessary at the time. As it was, the American Government was unable to obtain confidential messages from its Embassies throughout the world for periods ranging from two to six weeks until couriers could deliver new codes. That was in the critical period preceding the fall of France. A message received a few days ago stated: The State Department in a statement revealed that a former employee of the American Embassy in London, Tyler Kent, whom the British courts convicted in 1940 of anti-British espionage activities, had possession, when arrested, of more than 1500 confidential papers of the Embassy, and in addition unauthorised keys to the Embassy’s code room. The State Department declares that .the present statement which contains 2000 words is issued because of recent inquiries and newspaper reports. The question whether the American Government would prefer additional charges against Kent for violating diplomatic secrecy will be decided after he has served his seven years in a British prison.