amount requested for the Service for the fiscal year ending June 30,

1945.

The modus operandi of the Service is as follows: Monitoring stations were set up by the Federal Communications Service at key locations on the coasts and elsewhere in the country. These stations receive and record the short-wave broadcasts from foreign countries. Naturally, the broadcasts are made in innumerable foreign tongues and they are translated by members of the Service staff. The translated material is then disseminated to the various interested agencie of the Federal Government. These agencies include the War and Navy Departments, State Department, Office of Strategic Services, Foreign Economic Administration, and the Office of War Informa tion. The last organization is the one charged with responsibility for short-wave broadcasts of the United States to offset the effect of enemy propaganda.

In the process of translation the Service does an "editing" job or the broadcasts themselves. After the material is received at the Office of War Information it is further edited a second time. And there was testimony during the hearings to the effect that the Office of War | Information would prefer to have the raw material and to do its own complete editing job.

That agency and the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs use the material as completed by the Foreign Broadcast Intelligenc Service in their broadcasts to Europe and to points in this hemisphere. After the material has been edited for the second time, which is done in the Office of War Information, it is made available without charge to press associations, to newspapers generally, and to radio organizations for their dissemination to the public.

In more detail, the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service makes it reports in two forms. The first is by a teletypewriter over wire circuits. An effort is made here to transmit the information s rapidly as possible to those agencies with an especial interest in the subject matter of the reports. The second one is the Daily Report with a wide circulation among Government officials.

Representatives of the Service testified that such reports and wire services are distributed only to officials who have submitted writte requests for such material and who have explained satisfactorily their desire or need for the information. There was documentary evidence indicating that agency users of the Service considered it valuable i their own activities. For instance, it was said this monitoring was one of the principal sources of information from and about Japan and its mandated islands.

Obviously, the United States could not conduct an intelligent program for counteracting enemy propaganda without a reasonably accurate knowledge of that propaganda. Monitoring of foreig broadcasts is the only way in which such knowledge can be obtained fully and promptly. And it was perfectly natural and logical that the Communications Commission was selected to do this job. It had an experience in doing such work closely related to its peacetime duties.

There seemed to be no jurisdictional conflict between the Communications Commission and the military services in connection with the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service. Apparently, no other governmental agency sought to do this work, as was the case with respect to the Commission's Radio Intelligence Division.

3. WAR PROBLEMS DIVISION

The War Problems Division was created under the Communicaions Act. There was no Executive order of the President directing ts formation. It was set up as a unit of the Law Department of the Communications Commission. It was not a situation wherein there was any request for allocation of funds from the President's emergency war funds. Under the appropriation for the Communications Commission provision had been made, with approval of the Bureau of the Budget, for so many attorneys and other employees in the Legal Department. Of that number and from ranks of Law Department employees, a staff was created and placed in a unit which became known as the War Problems Division:

A fairly careful examination of the record failed to disclose the time of the inception of the War Problems Division. However, the Communications Commission's general counsel testified to the effect that existence and functions of the Division had been made known to the Congress by September 1942 and the first appropriation for this Division became effective about the end of October 1942.

When the United States entered the war there were about 200 standard broadcast radio stations operating on a full-time or parttime basis with broadcasts in a foreign language. Programs over many of these stations were in German or in Italian inasmuch as there are a great many foreign-speaking citizens in this country of Italian or German ancestry or who, themselves, were born in one of those countries and, subsequently, came to the United States and were naturalized.

Complaints came to the Communications Commission that such foreign-language broadcasts might be subversive if not even more hostile to the best interests of this country in time of war.

Apparently the Communications Commission took official cognizance of such complaints or it may have felt that, since it had granted licenses to operators of these stations, it had an affirmative responsibility to determine if any of these foreign-language broadcasts were inimical to the best interests of the United States during the war with Germany, Italy, and Japan.

In its own conception of discharging that responsibility evidently the Commission decided to do two things: First to monitor these broadcasts; and, secondly, to check on the loyalty of station personnel. As a part of the monitoring job it was necessary to intercept the broadcasts, then translate them and, finally, analyze the program material. For such a task the Commission was fully equipped. Engineering facilities were available to make recordings of the broadcasts. Its Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service had a staff qualified to translate some 30 foreign languages. That same Service also had a staff of analysts doing similar work with respect to short-wave foreign broadcasts of propaganda. Unquestionably, such employees were well equipped to recognize similarity or comity between domestic foreign-language programs and short-wave propaganda broadcasts from enemy countries.

The Communications Commission itself seemed to recognize that it was not as well equipped to inquire in to the loyalty of station employees, for it requested the Federal Bureau of Investigation to make such inquiries. Much work of a similar nature was being done by that Bureau and by the Civil Service Commission as well. From the stand

point of experience either of those agencies should have been better qualified to do a more satisfactory job of personnel investigation.

However, the Federal Bureau of Investigation declined to take on this additional assignment when so requested by the Communications Commission in view of full commitments for its complete staff on regular assignment and on war activities. No reference was found in the record indicating that any similar request was made to the Civil Service Commission.

This situation was reported to the Appropriation Committees of Congress after which funds were made available by the Congress for the conduct of investigation of station personnel in the domestic foreign language field.

In the matter of these investigations the War Problems Division and members of the Communications Commission's Law Department worked in rather close cooperation with representatives of the Office of War Information. It was only natural for the War Information people to desire to have its counter propaganda broadcast over these domestic foreign-language stations in this country.

The charge had been made that the Communications Commission and the War Information Office urged, required, or threatened foreign language broadcast station owners with denial of the renewal of their licenses or with difficulties and delay in securing such renewals if they failed to comply with various requests of the investigators.

There seems to be no clean-cut disinterested testimony to sustain these charges. Inferences may properly be drawn that the investiga tion of the Commission as to loyalties of personnel did result in individuals, whether rightfully or wrongfully, ceasing broadcasting activities.

Various station personnel were taken off the air or discharged at or about the time such character investigations by the two agencies were being made. There is doubt as to why some of these men were removed, although such removals were made by the station operators

It must be recognized, however, that the proper purpose of such an investigation was to remove from our air lanes those whose disloyalties were established or sufficiently under distrust to make their retention on the airways inconsistent with national security. It was not a situation where doubt should be resolved against national security.

It is altogether probable that the average station operator, if advised by a representative of the Commission that his employee was disloysi or distrusted, would be immediately concerned if convinced of the fact of disloyalty or in doubt about it; or, if he knew that the Commission considered such employee disloyal, he would be interested in disassociating such employee from the services of his station. The responsi bility carried by an agent of the Commission with reference to such investigations might easily lead him, through misguided zeal, to s judgment that was unfair to the employee. It is rather a matter of conjecture as to how far such an influence may have been responsible for the severance of employees due to this investigation.

An investigation of this character, if conducted by some other qualfied agency independent of the Commission which had regulatory control over such stations, might have relieved the investigation of some of the criticism directed at it under these circumstances. If criticism is warranted, it perhaps should be directed at the lack of an

1

dependent agency for the conduct of the investigation rather than t what was actually done in the matter.

During hearings before the committee, representatives of the Comnunications Commission testified that in a similar situation in the uture any such investigation should be made by a joint interdepartnental committee composed of representatives of the Justice Department of the Office of Censorship and of military and naval authorities vithout any representation or participation by the Communications Commission.

An independent agency for such an investigation should be able to conduct its work with less distrust. Such an investigation, in any event, could be expected to meet criticism and opposition.

The Communications Commission's general counsel testified as to the justification before the House Appropriations Committee in 1942 and funds were appropriated at that time. However, when the Commission sought to renew the appropriation for the following year, they were made available by the Appropriations Committee. which attached a statement to the effect that it questioned the wisdom of continuing the division.

This resulted in a reorganization of the Law Department in which the Division had been located, which reorganization effected a substantial saving. This saving was used for payment of overtime for Commission employees. Neither the 1943 nor the 1944 appropriations requested funds for the War Problems Division nor for work in the foreign-language broadcast field.

The committee approves the suggestion that so far as practicable such an investigation in case of a similar situation in the future should be made by some agency which does not have control over the granting and revocation of licenses.

4. MISCELLANEOUS SUBJECTS OF INQUIRY

A. Temporary radio station licenses.

In connection with its work in the field of foreign language broadcasts, the charge was made that the Communications Commission made extensive and illegal use of a device known as temporary broadcasting licenses for coercive purposes.

The charge was characterized as false by the Commission's general counsel and detailed information relative to the use of temporary licenses was submitted by him to the committee during the hearings. in open session.

In and of itself, a practice of issuing temporary licenses is neither improper nor illegal. Nevertheless, in view of the charges about them, the committee sought out the origin and extent of the practice and attempted to find out the reasons for the use of temporary Aicenses.

Temporary licenses were used by the old Federal Radio Commission back in 1928 when it was trying to straighten out the havoc it found at that time. It was testified that a full report on the practice and reason was given to the Congress by the Radio Commission in its first annual report. Thereafter the same licensing provisions were enacted by the Congress in the present act of 1934.

The Communications Act of 1934 does not expressly authorize the use of temporary licenses, but merely empowers the Commission to

issue radio station licenses for periods not exceeding 3 years. Manifestly, the whole includes its parts where the Commission has power to issue licenses for 3 hears that involves the power to issue the licenses for any less period.

The committee's investigation disclosed that during the 2-year period from June 1, 1941, to May 31, 1943, there had been 463 standard broadcast stations on temporary licenses. In many of these cases the temporary ones were in effect for as brief a period as 1 month with regular licenses following later on. While in other cases, stations remained on a series of extended temporary licenses for considerable periods of time.

Of the 463 temporary licenses 213 were issued because they failed to file renewal applications on time. In such cases the Commission was unable to issue a regular license and had a choice of either of two alternatives: first, to permit the station to go off the air, or secondly, to issue a temporary license.

In a number of other instances renewal applications had been set for hearing and those proceedings were in progress when the old license expired. Therefore the only practical step which the Commission could take was to issue temporary licenses.

In still another group, renewals could not be granted because of requests for further study by the various departments of the Commission. Nothing was presented to indicate these requests were inappropriate.

While 463 standard stations were on temporary license during the above 2-year period, since Pearl Harbor there have been only 10 stations in the foreign-language field on temporary business. There were none of the latter on such basis at the time that testimony was given.

So far as the legal authority of the Commission is concerned, its right to issue licenses for not exceeding 3 years carries with it the right to issue a license for any shorter period. So the question is not one of legal authority to issue these licenses, but whether or not the discre tionary power as to their use has been abused. From the testimony presented we find no such abuse of this power as would justify censursing of the Commission. The exercise of this power neces sarily involves the exercise of discretion. Something more than s mere discretion as to the wisdom of what was done should appear order to justify the condemnation of the Commission in this respect. The committee believes every practical effort should be made te limit the use of temporary licenses, but it recognizes that under variety of circumstances the issuance of temporary licenses is not only desirable, but necessary.

B. Interdepartmental Radio Advisory Committee.

in

The radio spectrum. which today has a useful range from 10 kilocycles to 30,000,000 kilocycles (Federal Communications Commission Rules and Regulations, rule 2.5, footnote No. 3), is not sufficiently large in scope to accommodate everyone who wishes to use radio communication. Accordingly, it is necessary that the utmost caution be observed in the matter of the assignment of particular channels to specified users of radio communication.

There are international agreements fixing the various classes of services which may operate in particular portions of the radio spec