Office of Censorship

The Office of Censorship (OC) was established by an executive order of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt on December 19, 1941, just 12 days after America entered World War II. Its task was to oversee all civilian radio broadcasts and print media, both within the United States and across U.S. borders, to ensure that no information was transmitted or dis-seminated that might be of use to America’s enemies. Under its director, Byron Price, the OC accomplished this task efficiently and with surprisingly little controversy. It remains one of the more successful moments in America’s long-term struggle to balance national security and civil rights.

In World War I, censorship and propaganda functions of the U.S. government had been combined in the Committee on Public Information (CPI), better known as the Creel Committee after its director, George Creel. The arrangement did not work well: censorship was heavy-handed and sporadic, and the committee was accused of overzealousness and infringement upon constitutional rights. In World War II, therefore, the functions were separated, with the Office of War Information (OWI) responsible for propaganda, and the OC responsible for security-related censorship.

The OC operated under the assumption that enemy agents were in the United States and might read any newspaper or magazine, or listen to any radio broadcast. Therefore, all information that might conceivably give the Germans or Japanese any military advantage was banned, including troop movements, the sinking of American or Allied ships (unless the Germans or Japanese certainly knew of them), the location of war factories, the president’s day-to-day movements, and even local U.S. weather. This ban had to be enforced on 901 commercial radio stations, many of which broadcasted 24 hours a day, as well as in thousands of newspapers and magazines. In addition, the OC censored cables, telephone calls, radio-telegrams, letters, and printed matter coming into or going out of the United States. The OC had no responsibility for censorship of the military, including bases on U.S. soil; the War Department and the service branches decided for themselves what information to release, which included censoring soldiers’ mail.

The OC’s job was not only dauntingly large. It also had the potential, given Americans’ devotion to the 1st Amendment rights of free speech and a free press, to generate a great deal of resentment. President Roosevelt acknowledged this when he announced the formation of the Office of Censorship, saying, “All Americans abhor censorship, just as they abhor war. But the experience of this and of all other Nations has demonstrated that some degree of censorship is essential in wartime, and we are at war” (Sweeney, 35).

Price proved to be an inspired choice as the OC’s director. A career journalist and former head of the Associated Press, Price had the confidence of the media, and he consistently fought to keep censorship as limited and unobtrusive as was consistent with national security. Rather than creating a massive bureaucracy, Price opted for a voluntary censorship code that relied on the common sense and patriotism of reporters and editors. Embodied as the Code of Wartime Practices and revised several times during the war, it was sent to every newspaper, magazine, and radio station in the country.

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