Ground in the Marshall Islands is being enlarged to include
Bikini

Atoll and that construction of technical facilities at

Bikini Atoll was to »%egin shortly.
6. It is observed that there has been no censorship of
personal mail for personnel of the Department of Defense since
the end of hostilities in World War II, even for troops on

front line duty in Korea.
7. Many task force personnel are returned to stateside
prior to the completion of the tests,

These persons,

in addi-

tion to Joint Task Force personnel stationed in the United
States, have significant information concerning the testing
operations, and would not be subject to mail censorship.

Per-

sonnel of either group might either deliberately, or through
inadvertence, disclose classified information in their possession
concerning the testing program,

In view of this possibility

and to prevent the public disclosure of test information it
would appear essential to establish voluntary press censorship
of information concerning the test activities to supplement mail
censorship.

The question of whether an arrangement could be

established in which the press would voluntarily agree to
withhold publication of information concerning the testing program pending official Commission clearance has not been pursued,
However,

it is the opinion of personnel of the Division of

Information Services that a voluntary press censorship program
could be established only with great difficulty,

if one could

be established at all,
8. Any type of personal mail censorship is objectionable
to personnel affected,

In support of this observation Division

of Military Application points out that scientific personnel

-6-

Appendix "A"

Select target paragraph3