[427] 57 Stat. 161, June 22, 1943.
[428] 50 Stat. 121, June 22, 1943, Sec. 8.
[429] 54 Stat. 2668.
[430] 54 Stat. 4, November 4, 1939, Sec. 11.
[431] Proclamation No. 2375, 54 Stat. 2672, November 4, 1939.
CHAPTER VII
Government as a Source of Information
[432] See e.g., the collection of essays edited by Harry Elmer Barnes, Perpetual War For Perpetual Peace (Caldwell, Idaho: 1952, Caxton Press). In his brilliant history of American naval operations during the Second World War, Professor Samuel Eliot Morison leaves little doubt that President Roosevelt recognized the eventual need to come to military grips with Nazi aggression: “President Roosevelt, considerably in advance of public opinion, apprehended the threat to American security contained in the seizure of the Atlantic Coast of France, and the strong possibility of a German invasion of Great Britain.” Samuel Eliot Morison, The Battle of the Atlantic, 1939-1943, (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1947) p. 27. Chapter III, “‘Short of War’ Policy” dramatically describes the efforts of the Administration during the critical months of June 1940-March 1941 to sustain Great Britain by any means at our disposal that did not involve an outright declaration of war by the Germans. In Professor Morison’s estimation, Roosevelt guessed right; Hitler could not afford to bring the United States into the war in 1940 or 1941 despite the trade of destroyers for bases with Britain, Lend-Lease, and American aid to British convoys. Id., p. 36.
[433] In this regard a group of distinguished American historians wrote to the New York Times as follows:
“On May 7 President Eisenhower issued Executive Order 10816 amending an earlier order regarding the treatment of official documents. This order was generally treated in the press as a liberalization of existing procedures, and we have no doubt that this was the intention of its promulgators.