Free Double Agent by Peter Duffy

the “Brown Bomber” knocked out Hitler’s hero in 124 seconds, perhaps the most lopsided famous fight in boxing history, Lamar Hardy’s assistant argued before a judge in the federal courthouse at 40 Centre Street that the
Post
should be enjoined from publishing confidential information that could taint the jury pool in obstruction of justice. Further, Agent Turrou had broken the law in providing the information to the
Post
in the first place, since his resignation from government service wouldn’t become effective until September. “It is desirable for Turrou to make money,” prosecutor John W. Burke told the court. “I would like to see him make money. It is desirable for the
Post
to extend its circulation. But not at the expense of the federal court.”
    Lawyers for the
Post
and Mr. Turrou countered that it was a central tenet of First Amendment law that the government was forbidden from exercising prior restraint of controversial speech. And anyway, Turrou’s attorney charged, J. Edgar Hoover had achieved national fame by doing the same thing, publishing articles and books that used materials from the “secret files” of the FBI. “If it’s all right for Mr. Hoover to get his name in the papers and his picture in the papers, then it is all right for humble Mr. Turrou to do the same,” said lawyer Simon Rifkind. Understanding that he was being asked to render judgment on what could become a landmark press-freedom case, Judge Murray Hulbert threw up his hands and retreated to chambers, communicating the message that no decision would be forthcoming that day.
    On the next morning, June 24, a reporter asked President Roosevelt during a press conference around his desk in the Oval Office, “Any comment you care to make on the New York spy inquiry—espionage?”
    The president “sat silently considering the question, obviously aware of the significance that would be attached to his reply, and after a long pause he answered in the affirmative,” wrote the
Times
.
    “Yes, I think so,” he said, according to the transcript. “I have been a good deal disturbed by that because it raises a fundamental double question in relation to the press. Perhaps I should not say ‘the press’ because there is only one syndicate involved in this particular thing. The issue is, frankly and squarely, an issue of patriotism and ethics combined. As I understand the facts, a government employee, in the pursuance of his regular duty, unearthed a great deal of information relating to foreign spies in this country. Well, that is a pretty serious thing. It was information which seemed to call for criminal action on the part of the government. The Department of Justice undertook that criminal action. This government employee, having obtained all of the details on which the presentment to a grand jury would be based, and before the grand jury had taken any action and before the trial, resigned from the government services and within fifteen minutes signed a syndicate contract.”
    Press secretary Stephen Early interjected, “Not before the grand jury.”
    “Not before the grand jury,” FDR corrected himself, “but before the trial—thereby in a very serious case relating to the national defense possibly jeopardizing the criminal prosecution by the government.”
    The president continued, “I am not talking about the law of this case, I am talking about the patriotism and the ethics; first, of a government employee doing that, and secondly, any newspaper undertaking to syndicate information of that kind. I think that is the proper way to present this particular problem that faces the government of the United States today. I think that is all the comment that could be made.”
    After dodging a question about whether the US ambassador in Berlin would make a formal protest over the spy issue, President Roosevelt was asked whether “the Army and Navy and their intelligence units should have more money and more men for