obligated to handle the business properly in the technical areas. A group of them were taking a good attitude here several weeks ago about their advertising. They had been sort of drifting into an increasing category of more and more information in their advertising, and they sort of agreed to change it and stop it a bit.

Mr. NORRIS. Weren't they all cleared, all the advertisements, by your own security review?

Secretary WILSON. Well, they were, in a certain sense, but the pressure was so great to keep putting more and more information out there. You do it for one, and then another says, "Well, you did this," and I have looked some of them over. There is some astonishing information that went out in some of these technical bulletins and papers, and

Mr. NORMAN (Chicago Tribune). Mr. Wilson, what I don't understand, what has really happened, then, is all of those advertisements were cleared through your security review and with other officials. What you have done, apparently, is created a fourth category of classified information which has no legal basis. You have got secret, top secret, and confidential, and the President knocked out restricted in order to provide a greater flow of information to the public. Now the Defense Department has brought in a new category of sort of twilight zone, you can't have it because I don't think you should have it.

Now if the other three categories that the President set up about a year and a half ago were valid, I can't see any reason why you should now have to set up this fourth twilight zone where nobody knows exactly where they are. What you are doing, in a way, is a sort of ruling out libraries. You say a compilation tells the Russians a great deal. Well, why don't we close our libraries and newspaper files?

Secretary WILSON. Oh, no, no. Just because we want to move over about like that [indicating] to do a better job for the country, you say I am clear over here [indicating] now. Well, that is not it. We are just going to be a little more practical. We are going to treat everybody fairly.

Mr. KENNETT (Newark News). Isn't it a fact, Mr. Secretary, that your directive is actually a censorship dealing?

Secretary WILSON. No, no, of course not.

VOICE. Mr. Secretary, Senator Monroney suggested yesterday-and he is a former newspaperman-that the Government ask a group of editors to, wellknown editors, to set up some kind of long-range information policy. Do you think that would be a good idea?

Secretary WILSON. I hadn't thought about it. I do know this, that when the country's actually in war, you people have been pretty good about it. The difficulty of this so-called cold-war position, you quite properly, feel that you have got more latitude than you have, actually, during a war, and just exactly how far you ought to go, I think maybe it might be a good thing for a group of editors and publishers and newspaper people to talk it over and see what they do think is in the national interest.

I am a very strong believer in the freedom of the press and speech, etc.; I recognize the problem.

Mr. DAVIS (Newsweek). Mr. Secretary, when this problem came to your attention and you got to be bothered about it, did you consult with any people in the journalistic profession about this, and if so, can you tell us who they were? Secretary WILSON. No; I didn't.

Mr. GEHRICHT (Fairchild Publications). Mr. Wilson, you are relying upon your intent, and what we are saying is practice. For instance, the technical Services of the Army now are refusing either to accept or answer, directly, any information, even of a normally routine kind, that comes to them, and they direct all those requests for information to the Army desk. Is there anything in the new directive of Mr. Stevens' that is going to change that practice?

Secretary WILSON. I think it is going to straighten itself out and you will find everything going along pretty smoothly.

Mr. BOURJALLY (Army Times). Did you review Mr. Stevens' directive before it was put out?

Secretary WILSON. Yes.

Mr. HENKIN (Army, Navy, Air Force Journal). Can you tell us, sir, why there is more authority for the public information officer at Fort Knox, say, to put out information than an Army Chief of Information?

Secretary WILSON. How is that, now?

Mr. HENKIN. As I read Mr. Stevens' directive, the man in the field has-Army man in the field-has more leeway to put out information, to answer questions than the man does at the Pentagon.

Secretary WILSON. No, that is not quite right, but he has got leeway out in the field because there is no possible way, except he doesn't need to talk about something that he thinks he shouldn't talk about. He is responsible, clearly responsible and, certainly, he is a man that has responsibility and is recognized as a man of judgment or he wouldn't have the job, ordinarily, so I don't think we are going to have too much trouble over it.

Mr. CORDORY (UP). Mr. Secretary, you say in your statement we must stop giving our potential enemy so much information about the performance and capabilities of new weapons.

Secretary WILSON. That's right.

Mr. CORDORY (UP). You do not mean to confine that statement to secret information, or do you mean that we have been giving them secret information? Secretary WILSON. Perhaps the way it is going to work out is that we will classify some of our information a little differently, with a little more understanding or clarity. One of our problems that we have certain technical ways of handling this different information, depending on what it is called, and that gets into a lot of trouble, too. We will keep working at it all the time so we will get the right things done some way or other.

Mr. CORDORY (UP). But I mean, have we been giving them secret information up to now, not under your new classification, but under your present one? Secretary WILSON. Well, we have been putting out information that our top folks think would be much better if we didn't put it out.

Mr. NORRIS (Washingon Post and Times Herald). Mr. Wilson-excuse meyou mean that we have been declassifying information?

Secretary WILSON. That's right. Our whole process of doing it has resulted in a certain has caused a certain result, and

Mr. NORRIS (Washington Post and Times Herald). Isn't it, then, a matter of tightening up the classification, rather than trying to withhold information that is already

Secretary WILSON. Also, now, classification is handled—whether we, ourselves, are promoting some of these things without intending to, perhaps, or some of it comes about, quite frankly, through service rivalries. One of the services has a missile and the other two services wants to prove that they have got a better one and that they are further along with their development or something, and they talk too much about it.

Mr. CORDORY (UP). Or do they want to tell the people what they have got to defend themselves with, Mr. Secretary?

Secretary WILSON. Well

Mr. CORDORY (UP). Isn't it encouraging to know that you have a missile you can use in the far north from an airplane?

Secretary WILSON. Well, it may be, but you can't get into the whole story of appraising the details of it, without getting into a whole big review of the military position of the enemy and everything else. We don't have to go that far.

Mr. CORDORY (UP). Mr. Secretary, are you going to tighten up on your classification of information?

Secretary WILSON. I think the answer is that we are going to try to, and we are going to try to be more practical about it. Part of the time we seem to classify the nuts and bolts and then we put out something that oughtn't to go out.

Mr. NORRIS (Washington Post and Times Herald). Well, isn't the classification problem process-declassification process-worked as the development of the weapons progresses and that when it becomes necessary to show it publicly, it becomes known around an aircraft plant, then to a great degree there is no point in keeping it highly classified. It only holds up.

Secretary WILSON. I think we have overdone that a bit, because you'd be surprised how little of the technical details the people in a plant really know about a whole device, and I think we have jumped to the conclusion that because a few people knew about it, that we'd finally have to tell everybody, and give them a lot of additional detail about it. Oh, I am a curious person, too. I like to read about a lot of new things and things that are different, etc., but just exactly to satisfy curiosity is not quite the answer for going to extremes.

Mr. NORRIS (Washington Post and Times Herald). Well, are you going to do anything about tightening up on the information available at scientific meeting, SAE meetings and that sort of thing? Isn't there a great deal of information that is declassified that passes freely there, but yet you all say you can't put out here.

Secretary WILSON. You are talking about the problem all right, and that is

there.

Mr. NORRIS (Washington Post and Times Herald). I am talking about the problem.

Secretary WILSON. Sure it is.

Mr. NORRIS (Washington Post and Times Herald). Seems to me so far you are tackling it only on this level.

Secretary WILSON. No, we are, going to try to do it fairly and properly in the country's interest to the best we can. We may not improve the situation as much as we hope, and you put your finger on a very important point because scientists historically have liked to-as soon as they make a new step ahead in human information they like to tell the world about it, and national security in this sense is an increasingly greater problem than perhaps it has ever been before in the history of the world in any equivalent period of time, and I remember reading about the efforts back just before the war, in the early stages of the war in this atomic area, and some of the scientists over the world wanted to promptly tell everybody about it.

Mr. DAVIS (Newsweek). Mr. Secretary, in retrospect would you prefer that the American public today didn't know of the existence of the Nautilus? If you could do it over again do you think that would be better?

Secretary WILSON. I would have tried to get a little farther along with it before I would talk so much about it. I really would.

Miss CRAIG (Maine papers). Mr. Secretary, why do you do this now? Do you expect the cold war to get hotter?

Secretary WILSON. I suppose your judgment on that is just as good as mine. You are just back from the other side, aren't you? I haven't been over there. Miss CRAIG (Maine papers). That is why I worry about how you talk about what is proper for people to know.

Mr. LEVIERO (New York Times). Mr. Secretary, I know you wouldn't want to tip off our hand on any specific thing that has happened, but could you see from the inside that the Russians have gained some important information through publication? Do you know of some concrete examples?

Secretary WILSON. Well, there isn't anything I can talk in detail about.
Mr. LEVIERO (New York Times). Yes, I know.

Mr. NORMAN (Chicago Tribune). Mr. Wilson, there have been reports, apparently fairly authentic, that the Chinese Reds have been moving their planes, jetplanes into airfields around the Formosa area. Do you think that there is a possibility of something breaking out there in the near future? Mr. HIGGENBOTHAM (CBS). By Friday, for instance.

Mr. NORMAN (Chicago Tribune). And if you do know, would you tell us?
Secretary WILSON. I don't mind you having a laugh at my expense.

know I am not going to talk about that.

Mr. CORDORY (UP). Thank you.

(The press conference ended at 4: 30 p. m.)

You men

Hon. CHARLES S. THOMAS,

EXHIBIT VII

JUNE 11, 1956.

Secretary of the Navy, Department of Defense,

The Pentagon, Washington, D. C.

DEAR MR. SECRETARY: The House Government Information Subcommittee has been informed that the Navy Department has a designation of "Private-Official" which is currently being placed on certain documents. I would appreciate knowing what specific types of information are covered by the above designation. If the information is not available to the public, is it available to congressional committees? If the information is held confidential in either case, under what statutory authority is this action taken? Is there a departmental rule or regulation covering this specific refusal of information? If so, please provide the subcommittee with copies.

If the refusal of information is on the basis of a discretionary action, please explain fully.

I hope that you can answer this letter in the near future so that this matter may be settled before Navy spokesmen are asked to appear before the subcommittee later this month.

Sincerely yours,

JOHN E. Moss, Chairman.

THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY,
Washington, D. O., June 30, 1956.

Hon. JOHN E. Moss,

Chairman, Government Information Subcommittee,
Committee on Government Operations,

House Office Building,

Washington, D. C.

MY DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: This is in further response to your letter of June 11, 1956, in which you requested information on the use by the Navy Department of the designation "Private-Official" on certain documents.

I have had my staff contact all offices and bureaus of the Navy Department and am informed that the designation "Private-Official" has been used to a limited extent within the Navy Department on correspondence dealing with personnel matters. These documents are internal departmental working papers dealing with the possible assignment, capabilities, or below-standard performances of duty of individuals, both military and civilian, who work for the Navy. In addition, this designation has been used to guard against the untimely early release of tentative plans affecting the organization or movement of naval activities. Naturally, the availability of such material to the public at large or to a congressional committee would depend upon the facts in each individual case. While there is no statutory authority which specifically provides for the use of the above marking, it has been utilized, as explained above, for some period of time. Instructions will be issued to mark all papers in the future strictly in accordance with DOD Directive 5200.6 which authorizes the term "For Official Use Only" for papers of this type.

Please call upon me if I can be of further assistance in this or other matters. Sincerely yours,

CHARLES S. THOMAS,
Secretary of the Navy.