Return of the Committee

Although media censorship had ended on 2 September 1945 (and postal and telegraph censorship almost entirely by 30 September), the Ministry of Information lingered on. ⁴¹ Admiral Thomson was charged with implementing reactivation of the Admiralty, War Office, Air Ministry, and Press Committee. By mid-September he was ‘beginning to despair of Mr Will’ of the NPEC for moving too slowly, and he asked Burnham (still running War Office Public Relations) ‘to take some firm and positive action regarding the question of establishing machinery for the preservation of military secrets in peace-time.’ ⁴² It took some weeks formally to obtain agreement from diverse parts of the Media, not due to reluctance, merely to seeking volunteer members. ⁴³ Meanwhile the Interdepartmental Committee on Security continued to debate the desirability (in the eyes of the Security Service and the War Office) of retaining Defence Regulation 3 (reporting of spy arrests and trials) ‘for a little while longer, as its mere existence acted as a deterrent against persons who would otherwise divulge war secrets’. The Home Office asked DGSS to reconsider this position, feeling it would be difficult for government to justify retention now that censorship had ceased. Fortuitously at this moment the Media formally agreed to reactivate the AWOAMPC, and the Security Service therefore agreed to revocation of the Regulation from the beginning of October; the War Office following suit on courts martial. ⁴⁴