GOVERNMENT >
Information:
Is It Held Back?
House subcommitte begins probe of government information policies and alleged "censoring" of news information policies concern two agencies: (1) the Department of Defense, -'*~fU\JXX*' which has been accused of holding back unclassified information unless it M I N N E A P O L I S STAR meets a "constructive" criterion. Freedom's bulwark . . . (2) the Office of Strategic Informa. . . does it still stand? tion of the Commerce Department, which says it is endeavoring to keep • Defense Industries Cautioned* American technical data and know-how Government contractors have been from potential enemies. warned by the Defense Department to In practice, the operations of the b e extremely careful in releasing ecotwo agencies in the information field nomic or technical data, even though it are significantly different. The D e - is unclassified. Information such as fense Department has charge of a contract award details, expansion plans, great deal of classified information and production methods comes under about defense weapons and systems. the Defense directive. Management is One function it must perform is t o cautioned t o carefully evaluate this determine that information released information before including it in brodoes not violate security classifications. chures, press releases, or stockholders The OSI, on the other hand, deals reports. with only unclassified, "strategic" data. "This material, when assembled, colThis type of information is defined as lated, and evaluated could contribute professional, scientific, or technical data materially to an accurate appraisal of —including models and blueprints— the strategic intentions of the United which are concerned with industrial States,'* explains the department. processes or operations. Plant managers are told that even Both agencies have made important though such information is not classichanges recently in their information fied in a military sense, it could be valpolicies. The Defense Department has uable to a potential enemy. Military clamped down on information released officers connected with such plants will by its industrial contractors, while Com- "advise" management on the release of merce has eased its regulations on t h e technical information. This advice will export of technical data. h e given when it may affect the industrial defense of the facility, it was said. The present restrictions were issued originally in January, although they Export Control Licenses—What Are They? were announced officially late last month. The order was signed by D e VALIDATED LICENSE: Persons wishing t o ship items subject to export fense Secretary Charles E. Wilson. The controls must apply t o the Government for a license. If approved, the regulations are similar to the pronouncelicense is issuea t o the exporter. Before shipment abroad, the license ments of OSI on technical data. R. must be deposited with the Customs Bureau. Karl Honaman, OSI's first director, is now D e p u t y Assistant Secretary of D e GENERAL LICENSE: No application is necessary and no license docufense for public affairs. Honaman is ment is issued. Articles shipped simply must be marked with the type not responsible for the Defense reguof general license which is applicable. lations, however, which were put into FOR T E C H N I C A L D A T A , three general licenses have been authorized: effect before he joined the department. In addition to the new regulations, GENERAL LICENSE GTDP—covers unclassified technical data genDefense has issued a manual on safeerally available i n published form, such as scientific journals. guarding classified information. The GENERAL LICENSE GTDU—covers unpublished technical data which various classification categories are exis not being shipped t o Iron Curtain countries. plained and revised rules for handling GENERAL LICENSE GTDS—covers unclassified scientific and educasecret information are listed. tional technical data not related to design or production facilities for In reply to criticism on "censorship" industrial processes. grounds, Defense spokesmen say the new regulations are merely extensions
V^ONGRESS WELL TURX
an
inquiring
spotlight on Government's information policies soon. The House Government Information subcommittee, headed b y Rep. John E. Moss (D.-Calif), begins hearings Nov. 7 o n information practices of 6 0 government agencies. The committee -will look into cases of alleged "censorship" b y certain agencies. Press representatives have complained that some agencies withhold legitimate information without sufficient reason. Offending agencies will b e asked to explain why they held back inform*iHon in thes£» instances. The present inquiry will b e based o n answers t o a questionnaire sent b y the subcommittee to executive and independent agencies regarding their overall information activities. The 80-question, five and one-half page questionnaire covers methods of making data available to the public, business groups, and Congress. Each agency polled by the subcommittee completed the information questionnaire. Answers to the queries will be published and used as a guide for the present hearings. The inquiry may he broadened to cover other phases of the information problem, it was indicated. • Center o f Controversy. Major complaints about present government
4520
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195 5
What's Your Trice I.Q." on These Furan Chemicals from Du Pont? TETRAHYDROFURAN
•
75c lb. TCL
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35c lb. TCL
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55c lb. TCL
You're right if you checked 35# lb.* as the price of this powerful solvent for polyvinyl chlorides. And this same low price warrants investigating tetrahydrofuran as a chemical intermediate, a use of increasing importance today. Tetrahydrofuran is finding increasing use in applying top coats of high molecular weight polyvinyl chlorides to polyvinyl chloride sheeting and supported fabric. THF and mixtures of THF and other solvents commonly used for polyvinyl chlorides can be recovered in standard carbon adsorption units with minor modifications to insure efficient recovery without formation of hazardous peroxides. For 8-hour daily exposure, it is recommended that the concentrations of THF in air be held below 100 ppm. In this respect, toxicity of tetrahydrofuran is of the same order as that of many commonly used industrial solvents.
FURAN HC
CH WSfii
1,4-DICH10R0BUTANE
•
20e lb. TCL
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49c lb. TCL
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33c lb. TCL
You get a perfect score on this part of the quiz if you chose 33£ lb.* as the price of furan. The furan ring structure appears in many physiologically active, naturally occurring compounds. For this reason, the chief interest in furan has centered on its use as an intermediate in the production of pharmaceuticals and plant growth regulants.
D32.lb.TCl
•
62. lb. TCL
•
78. lb. TCI
For the price of 1,4-dichlorobutane, 32# lb.* should have been your choice. The low price and availability of this alpha, omega dihalide in tank car quantities should now permit the commercial development of many syntheses formerly considered too expensive to be practical. Informative Technical Bulletins on the properties and applications of these furan chemicals are available from Du Pont. For your free copies, just nil in and mail the coupon below. *Tank Cars—F.O.B. Niagara Fails
MAIL C O U P O N FOR MORE
DU PONT
ELECTROCHEMICALS DEPARTMENT
WW
INFORMATION
E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. (Inc.) Electrochemicals Dept., Wilmington 98, Delaware Please send me more information on the 3 new Du Pont intermediates for possible use as indicated. FURAN—For use in . 1,4-DCB—For use in THF—For use in
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Name Firm
««« U.S.PAT.Of*
BETTER T H I N G S
FOR BETTER LIVING . . . THROUGH CHEMISTRY
Address _ City
. State.
OCT. 24, 1955
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4521
GOVERNMENT of rules set up during thte Truman Administration. Some of Lhe regulations, they add, are "voluntary" for defense contractors. • Mandatory Controls. Lifted. After a long soul-search the Office of Strategic Information lias d«ecided to ease some of its regulations concerning the export of technical data. From now on, mandatory controls on the export of such information w^ill be discontinued. In practice this means that t h e long list of technical data, requiiring validated licenses (see box) is abolished. Included on the list w a s information on toluene of petroleum* origin, plastic film, and synthetic resin_s. Heretofore, anyone wishing to export: techn-ical data relating to these comrmodities would have to apply to the Connmerce Department for a license. Replacing the mandatory controls will be an expanded pn>gram o f voluntary control procedxires. Heart of the voluntary program is t h e caref-ul evaluation of technical data by exporters before shipping the infoE*mation abroad. Commerce says it stands ready to help industry and other grouaps in evaluating so-called "strategic*** information. Under the revised regulations, technical data may be expoirted to> friendly countries under a syste?m of "general" licenses. These licenses requixe no action b y the Govemmerat. A notice is required on the shippimg wrapper that the material is being semt abroad under a general license. ( A C S techrtical publications sent abroad ane stamped with the initials denoting a general license.) The latest action cloes not affect technical data being consigned to the Soviet bloc or satellite nations. Some generally published (Lata can g o to communist-dominated countries, but other technical data is still subject to mandatory controls. OSI recently has relaxed its rules on certain types of scientific inEormation. A new general licensee (GTDS) has been established to cover unclassified "scientific and educational" technical data. The general licemse can be used for information not directly xelated to design or production im industrial processes. This general license includes personal correspondence and participation in scientific meetings. Also permitted under this section is instruction given at academic institutions or laboratories. • For OSI, Three J o b s . Since OSI was formed late last y e a r , tlie agency has been seeking to develop policies for the release of strategic information. The program has shaken d o w n into three major jobs. T3iese tasks were described by lawyer Eirwin Seago, OSI's 4522
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24.
1955
acting director, at meeting of SOCIETY.
the
the
AMERICAN
Minneapolis CHEMICAL
An exchange program covering shipments of technical information t o the Soviet bloc is being worked out. I n return for any American data sent t o Iron Curtain countries, a comparable amount of Russian information would be returned to this country. OSI hopes to increase the flow of such exchanges, so that the Soviet will not get something for nothing. The next project OSI is tackling concerns leaks of information found i n government .publications. Critics of the Government's information program have pointed out that some of the most flagrant abuses of secrecy have come from federal agencies themselves. OSI hopes to correct this situation b y setting u p uniform information policies for various agencies. The third, and probably most important, job facing OSI is its policies on publication by business and industry. After programs have been worked out for government agencies, similar guides will b e offered to industry. I t is hoped, Seago asserts, that these suggestions will b e "voluntarily followed." Critics of the program maintain that
their basic fear—unjustified censorship —still is a real danger even under OSI's relaxed regulations. Despite the lifting of mandatory controls, exporters of technical data are still liable for fines and imprisonment if they violate export control regulations. What constitutes a violation? That's a question facing individuals and industrial firms which have overseas contacts. For example, patents on industrial processes come under the definition of strategic information i n some cases. Licensing agreements also might run afoul of strategic information restrictions. To provide interpretations for all the implications of technical data rules, OSI would need an extensive staff of experts o n a * riety of subjects, it is said. Wartime experience showed that such an organization is almost impossible to establish. This is only the beginning, opposition spokesmen believe. OSI and its regulations are still not widely known, they point out. When industry and other groups become acquainted with the myriad implications of the program, the result will be confusion and uncertainty, according to the agency's critics.
What People Are Saying About the Government's Information Policies ^ The n e w regulations . . . "threaten the access of American citizens to the facts about the Nation's defense" . . . thus they "menace the democratic process." —J. R. Wiggins, chairman Freedom of Information Committee American Society of Newspaper Editors ^ "Some people . . . have come to identify secrecy with national security. Persons of that turn of mind have grown so secrecy-minded that they object to the publication of just about everything except obituaries, scores of National League baseball teams, and the name of the winner of the Kentucky Derby." —Carroll Binder, editorial editor The Minneapolis Tribune ^ "Suppression of classified material, while necessary, is bad enough but the suppression of non-classified information—strategic information as we call it now—is much worse." —Malcolm Henderson Catholic University ^ "Today any intelligent military organization, operating under t h e present rules, would certainly classify the equivalent o f Planck's work so that it would be denied to a potential Einstein." —Lloyd Berkner, president Associated Universities
