The Forgotten Censorship of
Scientific American
in 1950
Wendy SwanbergUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison
Submitted to the History DivisionAssociation for Education in Journalism and Mass CommunicationAnnual Conference, Chicago IL
August 2008
The Forgotten Censorship of
Scientific American
in 1950
2
Abstract
In March of 1950, the U.S, Atomic Energy Commission forcibly destroyed a 3,000-copyrun of the popular magazine,
Scientific American
. At issue were a few lines of technicalinformation about the hydrogen bomb, written by physicist Dr. Hans Bethe as part of a
Scientific American
series on the worldwide implications of the controversial nuclear weapon -- commonlycalled the “H-bomb” -- which had yet to be perfected.The magazine’s publisher Gerard Piel objected, insisting the article in question containedonly information that previously had been made public elsewhere. While Piel ultimately concededto government demands, his was an early voice of dissent in the relative government-presscomplicity of the early Cold War. Before long the AEC’s censorship animated a simmeringdiscourse among scientists, journalists, and government officials about warfare in the atomic age,and about the parameters of press freedom in the uneasy peace after World War II. The debatesthat followed in 1950 resemble the more famous discussions that arose nearly thirty years later,with the 1979 censorship of
The Progressive
magazine for its technical article on the H-Bomb.Focusing on the role of journalist and publisher Gerard Piel, this essay will explore thenear-forgotten censorship of
Scientific American
in 1950 in light of the broader debate about civilliberty and national security taking place among three groups of professionals during the earlyCold War. It also will compare briefly this censorship’s context with that of the 1979
Progressive
case. Using news accounts, congressional testimony, oral history, and the records of the AmericanSociety of Newspaper Editors (ASNE), this paper describes the struggles encountered byscientists, government officials and journalists as they confronted the intricacies of redefining FirstAmendment freedoms in a nuclear age.
The Forgotten Censorship of
Scientific American
in 1950
3
The Forgotten Censorship of
Scientific American
in 1950
I am committed to the proposition that the wisdom of any government increases in direct ratio with the breadth, depth, and intensityof public discussion that surrounds it.
1
On March 15, 1950, in the early years of the long Cold War, the U.S. Atomic EnergyCommission sent an urgent telegram to the editors of the popular monthly magazine
Scientific American
. The telegram directed the magazine to stop printing immediately its forthcoming Aprilissue, which was at that moment on press at a facility in Greenwich, Connecticut.
2
The magazine agreed.
Scientific American
publisher Gerard Piel
first stopped the presses,then demanded an explanation. He was told that the AEC – which recently had been grantedbroad regulatory authority over all atomic information in the country -- was concerned that certaintechnical material in an article on the H-bomb, written by renowned nuclear physicist Dr. HansBethe, was “restricted data” that must not be disclosed. Piel disagreed, insisting that Bethe’sarticle contained only information that either was common scientific knowledge or previously hadbeen made public elsewhere. But the government insisted on suppressing publication, and afterhasty arrangements a group of AEC security officers arrived at the printing plant to supervisedestruction of the offending article. Some days later Gerard Piel described the censorship processto the
New York Times:
“A total of thirty-two pages were cut apart and burned in the incinerator,”the
Times
reported. In addition to destroying the 3,000 magazine copies themselves, the AECbrought the linotype slugs to the “smelting room,” destroyed the printing plates, and confiscated
1
Gerard Piel,
“Need for Public Understanding of Science.”
Science,
New Series, Vol. 121, No.3140 (March 4, 1955), pp. 318.
2
The Grenwich facility was operated by Conde Nast Publications. See William R. Conklin, “U.S.Censors H-Bomb Data; 3,000 Magazine Copies Burnt.”
New York Times,
1 April 1950, p. 1. Piel’s oralhistory recollection places the facility in Hartford, CT.
