DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY
 JAG:CA:lB              OF THE SECRETARY
                                            WASHINGTON
                                        JUN 9 1942
 
Sir:
 
          I recommend that immediate action be taken by your department to obtain
indictments under the Espionage Act (50 USC 31) against Mr. Stanley Johnston, a newspaper
correspondent now in this city, Mr. J. L. Maloney, managing editor of the Chicago Tribune and
such other individuals and/or corporations as are implicated in the unauthorized publication of a
newspaper article which appeared in the Sunday Times-Herald, Washington, D.C. on June
7,1942, under the caption "UNITED STATES NAVY KNEW IN ADVANCE ABOUT JAP
FLEET."
 
                           A copy of the aforesaid newspaper article is transmitted herewith for your ready
reference. I understand that this article also appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the New York
Evening News, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Its publication involved the disclosure of secret
and confidential information pertaining to the national defense of this country, for which all those
to blame should be prosecuted as promptly and vigorously as possib!e--not only because the
enormity of their crime demands severe punishment but in order that the action taken by our
Government in this case may serve as a warning to others.
 
                           It is not necessary or desirable that the facts of this matter be fully set forth in
this letter. Our evidence will be laid before the representative of your department who is placed in
charge of the prosecution. For the present, I assume it will be readily apparent to your department
that even the caption of the aforesaid article discloses secret and confidential information to the
detriment of our national defense, in that it puts the enemy on notice that our Navy has been able
to obtain advauce information concerning the strength and movement of his forces, thereby
assisting him to locate and close sources of military information vitally important in our future
conduct of the war.
 
          In somev:hat further detail, I may add that Nr. Johnston was on board a vessel of
our Navy returning from the Coral Sea when a secret and confidential dispatch was received on
board from the Commander-in-Chief of the United States Pacific Fleet. The contents of the article
published in Sunday's Times-Herald and other newspapers