Census Bureau Confidentiality During World War II



Draft 3-12-2007

Census Confidentiality under the Second War Powers Act (1942-1947)

by

William Seltzer

(Fordham University)

and

Margo Anderson

(University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee)

Paper prepared for presentation at the session on

“Confidentiality, Privacy, and Ethical Issues in Demographic Data,”

Population Association of America Annual Meeting,

March 29-31, 2007, New York, NY

Contact Information

William Seltzer

Department of Sociology and Anthropology

Dealy 407

Fordham University

441 East Fordham Road

Bronx, NY 10458

email: seltzer@fordham.edu

Margo Anderson

Department of History

University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee

Milwaukee, WI 53201

Email: margo@uwm.edu

Abstract

The Second War Powers Act was enacted in March 1942. One section of this law authorized the Secretary of Commerce to provide information to other Government agencies, including micro data collected under a pledge of confidentiality, if the data were needed “for use in connection with the conduct of the war.” The extent to which this provision was actually used has been disputed.

The present paper, based on recent research, provides evidence of specific disclosures made between 1942 and 1947 of micro data collected by the Census Bureau under the confidentiality assurances of Title 13. The examples cited pertain to both businesses and persons, including micro-level information on persons obtained from the 1940 Census. Based on the materials so far located, it appears that Census Bureau staff and management at that time considered such disclosures to be routine. The paper places these disclosures in the context of broader issues related to statistical confidentiality.

Table of Contents

I. Introduction and historical background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

II. Section 1402 of the Second War Powers Act and Presidential Executive Order 9157 . . . 9

III. Interim list of section 1402 disclosures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

A. Business records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

B. Population and housing records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15

B.1. Disclosures to the U.S. Secret Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

B.2. Disclosures to the FBI and other Justice Department agencies . . . . . . . . . . . 26

B.3. Other personal disclosures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

C. Closing the gate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30

IV. Context of these disclosures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

A. Societal and political . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34

B. Internal Census Bureau matters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

V. Discussion and recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Tables:

A. Summary of Section 1402 Disclosures Identified . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

B. Present or Future Census Bureau Personnel Associated with Correspondence related to Section 1402 Disclosures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Figures:

1. Letter from Treasury Secretary Morgenthau to Commerce Secretary Jones, 8/4/1943 . . 63

2. Letter from Acting Commerce Secretary Taylor to Morgenthau, 8/7/1943 . . . . . . . . . . . 64

3. Letter from Taylor to Morgenthau, 8/11/1943 (copy from Commerce files) . . . . . . . . . . 65

4. Letter From Taylor to Morgenthau, 8/11/1943 Original from Treasury files) . . . . . . . . . 66

5a. List of Japanese in Washington, DC area from the 1940 Census (upper part) . . . . . . . . 67

5b. List of Japanese in Washington, DC area from the 1940 Census (lower part) . . . . . . . . 68

Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

I. Introduction and historical background

Statistical confidentiality is an essential element of modern demographic and economic data-gathering and related statistical research. Today, the term “statistical confidentiality” encompasses in shorthand form a bundle of now widely-recognized activities. These may include legal protections, standards of professional conduct, a set of non-disclosure assurances provided to respondents, and compilation and dissemination practices designed to protect data providers from improper use of their answers.

It wasn’t always this way. As we and others have discussed, the practice of statistical confidentiality has a history. Generations of statisticians and demographers came to define the principles and practices we take as givens as they built the data production infrastructure of official statistics and social science that evolved in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

These developments took place in many countries both in the public and private sector, and there is a rich international literature on their experiences. The United States has been an important player in the development of the principles and practices of statistical confidentiality and within the U.S. federal statistical system, the U.S. Census Bureau has played a key role in these developments.

Numerous analysts from the Census Bureau have explored this census experience, for example, Eckler (1972), Barabba (1980), Bohme and Pemberton (1991), Habermann (2006), US Census Bureau (2004). Other important chroniclers include Duncan and Shelton (1978), Duncan et al. (1993), and McCaa and Ruggles (2002). All these accounts affirm the importance of US Census practices on the larger development of statistical confidentiality.

The function of much of these historical treatments has been to provide guidance to current practitioners, and perhaps more importantly in the minds of those writers at the Census Bureau, to reassure the public of the integrity of Census Bureau practices. The history, in short, has a pedantic function. As such, it has tended to emphasize the successful development of best practices. However, the value of this narrative, both as a guide to policy and practice and to provide needed reassurances to potential data providers, depends to a large extent on the accuracy of the account provided.

In previous work, we pointed out what we considered to be inaccuracies in this narrative or at least the need for more emphasis on the failures and difficulties encountered. Anderson and Seltzer (2007; 2005) treat the history of census statistical confidentiality for population data and business data respectively, from 1900 to 1965. Seltzer and Anderson (2003) presents a broader view of this work and treats the history of disclosure, harm and risk in U.S. federal statistics in the twentieth century, focusing particularly on breaches, known and potential. Seltzer and Anderson (2000) provided a preliminary examination of the Census Bureau role in the internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry during World War II. In this work we (and, intermittently, some of those at the Census Bureau as well[i]) have noted that the overall trajectory toward the development of more rigorous and controlled practices of statistical confidentiality in the Census Bureau was reversed during and shortly after World War II, when Section 1402 of the Second War Powers Act explicitly authorized the Secretary of Commerce to provide any official in the federal government access to confidential data from the Census Bureau “for use in connection with the conduct of the war.”

Seltzer and Anderson (2003) and Anderson and Seltzer (2007) recounted the history of the passage of this law. The current paper continues the historical review of the Census Bureau experience by examining available information on the disclosures made under Section 1402 and proposes a revision of the master narrative of the history of statistical confidentiality at the Census Bureau in light of the Second War Power Act experience.

As we have recounted elsewhere (Anderson and Seltzer, 2007; Seltzer and Anderson, 2003, pp. 12-14), beginning in late 1939 the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the military intelligence agencies[ii] sought legal sanction to relax the confidentiality provisions of Title 13[iii] so that they could gain access to individual-level data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau for investigative purposes in connection with national defense preparations. This effort was initially unsuccessful as the Census Bureau, under its then-director William Lane Austin, mobilized opposition to this proposed legislation even before it could be introduced into Congress.

However, in early 1941 after the 1940 Presidential election, the administration forced Austin’s retirement as Director. His replacement, Mr. J.C. Capt, was a long-time political functionary first in the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and then as a confidential assistant to Austin handling patronage appointments in connection with the 1940 Census. Within days of his confirmation, Capt arranged to have this legislative effort revived. Indeed, a bill was introduced and passed in the Senate, but got tied up in inter-committee bickering in the House. Immediately after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 Capt attempted to again revive the effort to waive the confidentiality protections provided by Title 13.

The Second War Powers Act was passed by Congress and became law on March 27, 1942. As a result of Director Capt’s persistence, it included a provision – section 1402 – that authorized the Secretary of Commerce to provide information to other Government agencies, including micro data collected under a pledge of confidentiality, if the data were needed “for use in connection with the conduct of the war.” One element in Capt’s success appears to have been the linking of this legislation with the perceived need for information to assist in mopping up operations related to the forced removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. (Anderson and Seltzer, 2007; Seltzer and Anderson, 2003, pp. 12-14; National Research Council, 2003, p.119)

Section 1402 remained in effect until the end of March 1947, when it was allowed to lapse along with many other provisions of the Second War Powers Act. To date, there has been no systematic analysis of the use and impact of section 1402, although there has been considerable dispute about the extent of actual use. For example, members of the Japanese American community have often asserted that micro-data from the 1940 Census was used to target them (see, for example, Okamura, 1981). Other historians also raised questions about the involvement of the Census Bureau in actions directed against the Japanese Americans (see, for example, Daniels, 1982). On the other hand, Census Bureau leadership and staff have generally denied that any such disclosures at the micro-level occurred, although from time to time over the years individual census staff have explicitly acknowledged in unpublished papers and correspondence that business data were disclosed (see, for example, Clemence, 1986 and Jones, 2005). On the other hand, all Census Bureau research and statements have concluded that no identifiable micro data pertaining to individuals was disclosed during the World War II period under section 1402 or otherwise.

These denials ranged from the guarded to the categorical. For example, former Census Director Barabba (1980) wrote that “we have no evidence ... that identifiable confidential information was ever released during this period because of the [War Powers] act.” Long-time Bureau staff member, Ed Goldfield (1991) seemed more definite in his oral history, admittedly based on information provided by others,

From what Calvert [Dedrick] said to me, the relocation of Japanese is to this day misunderstood and an embarrassment to the Census Bureau. There have been oral and printed allegations that the Bureau turned over a list of names and addresses of all the Japanese living in the United States to the War Department. It identified these individuals from our list and then picked them up. That was not the case! ... As I understand it, what was finally worked out in the Japanese relocation and similar cases was that the Census Bureau provided what amounted to statistical information, but it did not identify individual Japanese. I do not think it even gave specific addresses, even without names, but rather small-area tabulations.

Dedrick himself was equally unambiguous. In his 1981 testimony before the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) Dedrick asserted “at no time were the names and addresses of individuals or families received or requested from the Bureau of the Census” (Dedrick, 1981, p. 4). Thirty five years earlier, using similar language, he had written “... the name and individual identification data from the 1940 Census for the Japanese were not provided to the War Department nor were such data requested” (Dedrick, 1946, p.2).

Writing around the time of Dedrick’s CWRIC testimony, the Library of Congress’s Congressional Research Service (1980, p. 124) was, if anything, even more categorical and explicit stating

The Bureau persisted in its refusal to release personal information despite the passage of the War Powers Act (P.L. 507, Mar. 27, 1942) which Act appeared to authorize the release of any census data to any Federal agency if such release would help the war effort.

After we documented the information available as of early 2000 on the Bureau’s involvement in the roundup of Japanese Americans (Seltzer and Anderson, 2000), the then Census director Prewitt (2000, cited in US Census Bureau, 2005, p.16) wrote,

The historical record is clear that senior Census Bureau staff proactively cooperated with the internment, and that census tabulations were directly implicated in the denial of civil rights to citizens of the United States who happened also to be of Japanese ancestry. The record is less clear whether the then in effect legal prohibitions against revealing individual data records were violated.

Most recently former Deputy Director Habermann (2006) observed, “A review of the historical record conducted by the Census Bureau concluded that there was no violation of the confidentiality provisions of the existing Census Law and no individual records were used in the program. The historical record and various accounts support this assertion.” He also concluded,

The Census Bureau uses the authority of Title 13 to make a promise — a pledge — to the individual to protect the confidentiality of their information. In the history of the Census Bureau, there is no record of intentional violation of this pledge. Over time there have been allegations this pledge was violated. When examined, however, they have always been found to be wanting.

Somewhat inexplicably, he cited the work of Jones (2005) to support his position. Jones’ findings seem far more circumspect:

While the Census Bureau’s archives offer examples of such data requested and provided to agencies such as the War Production Board and the Office of Emergency Management, there is no record of a War Department request for data on individual Japanese persons in the Census Bureau’s archives. (Jones, 2005)[iv]

In short, the record requires review. The present paper is an attempt to clarify the historical record by presenting the results of ongoing research into the actual application of section 1402 of the Second War Powers Act. Section II of the paper describes section 1402 and the related Presidential Executive Order, section III presents information on disclosures of identifiable microdata under section 1402 of the Second War Powers Act, and section IV discusses the context of these violations of Title 13 and the policy of statistical confidentiality. The final section of the paper contains a discussion of the implications of our findings for current statistical policy as well as our recommendations for needed further research and action.

II. Section 1402 of the Second War Powers Act and Presidential Executive Order 9157

Section 1402 of the Second War Powers Act specified

That notwithstanding any other provision of law, any record, schedule, report, or return, or any information or data contained therein, now or hereafter in the possession of the Department of Commerce, or any bureau or division thereof, may be made available by the Secretary of Commerce to any branch or agency of the Government, the head of which shall have made written request therefore for use in connection with the conduct of the war. (U.S. Code Congressional Service, 1943, P.L. 507, 77th Congress, 2d Session (S2208))

The phrase “notwithstanding any other provision of law” referred specifically to the confidentiality provisions of Title 13. As originally enacted, the entire Act was set to expire in 1944, but Congress subsequently extended it periodically at the President’s request.

The same section also specified that “The President shall issue regulations with respect to the making available of any such record, schedule, report, return, information or data, and with respect to the use thereof after the same has been made available.” These regulations were provided in the form of a Presidential Executive Order (# 9157), “Regulations with respect to the Making Available of Records, Schedules, Reports, Returns and Other Information by the Secretary of Commerce, and with respect to the Use Thereof After the Same Have Been Made Available,” dated May 9, 1942, about a month and half after the law’s enactment.

The Executive Order prescribed the proper form for such requests and specified arrangements for reimbursing the Commerce Department for the costs incurred in providing the requested information. The Executive Order also provided that

If the information requested [from the Census Bureau] by the head of the department or agency is of a statistical character, a copy of the request shall be submitted to the Division of Statistical Standards of the Bureau of the Budget [the predecessor of OMB’s Office of Statistical Policy] at the time the request is submitted to the Secretary of Commerce.

and

The Secretary of Commerce shall inform the Division of Statistical Standards of his action upon each request made, under section 1 of this order, if the information is of a statistical character. (U. S. Code Congressional Service. 1943)

The statutory language of Section 1402 and corresponding regulations in EO9157 implied that the Commerce Department and the Census Bureau would keep written records of the requests for and transmissions of confidential data. When the requests were of a “statistical character,” the Commerce Secretary had an additional reporting requirement to the Division of Statistical Standards in the Bureau of the Budget. Such reporting requirements should have made it possible to audit the uses made of Section 1402 for statistical purposes.[v] In fact, the records that were kept and archived are very uneven. Thus the analysis that follows is not based upon a thorough audit of the archival record in the Bureau of the Budget, the Commerce Department, or the Census Bureau since we have not found such a record.

The primary archival records we have used for this paper are the transmittal files of the Chief Clerk of the Commerce Department, through whom all interdepartmental communications were to be routed, since Section 1402 directed that agencies seeking confidential census information make their requests to the Secretary of Commerce. We then tracked the requests through the requesting agency’s records as best we could. We do not believe the Chief Clerk’s files are complete. Moreover, as noted below, once the data transmissions of Section 1402 became routine, it appears that even this reporting channel was dropped, and requesting agencies often contacted Census officials directly.

III. Interim list of section 1402 disclosures

Table A contains a summary listing of 15 disclosure episodes related to section 1402 of the Second War Powers Act that we have documented so far in Commerce Department records. These documented disclosures occurred between August 1942 and November 1945. Each episode is based on documentation involving correspondence from the Department of Commerce to a requesting agency forwarding the requested confidential material or conveying a policy decision that the requested confidential information would be released. In addition, additional documentation is available for a few of the episodes, sometimes from other archival sources.

From other evidence we also know that our list of 15 cases over a 40 month period is a lower bound and that section 1402 disclosures appear to be far more extensive. The upper bound is still very much in doubt, but a hint of the extent of the use of the provision can be seen in Assistant Director for Statistical Standards Director Stuart Rice’s correspondence. On August 14, 1942 Rice wrote to officials in the War Production Board, the Tariff Commission and the Office of Price Administration reminding them that EO 9157 required the requesting agency to copy the Division of Statistical Standards when making requests for confidential information of a statistical character. He listed 26 requests made by the War Production Board between May 9, 1942, the day EO 9157 was signed, and July 30, 1942 (Rice, 1942a), a July 22 request from the U.S. Tariff Commission on “oil sulphonating establishments” (Rice, 1942b), and 4 requests made by the Office of Price Administration between May 27 and July 30, 1942 (Rice, 1942c). In other words there were at least 31 requests in the 96 days between the promulgation of the Executive Order and Rice’s letter, a rate of about one every three days.[vi]

The disclosures involved both business records and population and housing records. The legislative history of section 1402 makes clear that the supporters of the provision intended to permit both types of disclosure. In our list, nine of these episodes involved business records and six related to population and housing records.

On the business side, the requesting agencies were the Department of Agriculture (Food Distribution Agency and the Bureau of Agricultural Economics), the Department of Labor, the Treasury Department, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and four war-time agencies, the War Production Board, the Office of Price Administration, the Defense Plants Corporation, and the Civilian Production Administration. Five of the nine requests for information related to businesses pertained to mailing list information (i.e., company names and addresses), in a few cases clearly designed to assist in the statistical data-gathering operations of the requesting agency. In the remaining cases, specific production data pertaining to individual plants were requested. Many of these disclosures of business-related information appear to involve wartime economic planning or procurement.

With respect to the six disclosure episodes involving population and housing information, the requesting agencies were the Justice Department (the FBI and possibly other Justice Department agencies), the Labor Department (Bureau of Labor Statistics), and the Treasury Department (Secret Service). With the exception of the request from the Labor Department, all the requests for such information appear to involve criminal investigation, intelligence-gathering, or the investigation or prevention of subversion and come from law enforcement or surveillance agencies. We detail the cases in depth to reveal the bureaucratic procedures put in place for the disclosures, and to provide the background that prompted the agency requests for confidential census information.

A. Business records

The first request for confidential Census Bureau information we have so far identified was contained in a letter from Donald M. Nelson, Chairman of the War Production Board to Jesse Jones, Secretary of Commerce, dated August 17, 1942. Nelson, citing section 1402 of the Second War Powers Act and Executive Order No. 9157, requested that “confidential industrial and economic information in possession of the Bureau of the Census needed by the War Production Board for use in the conduct of the war” be provided to his agency (Nelson, 1942).. Nelson indicated that detailed specifications for the “documents and information desired” would be provided by Stacy May, Director of the Statistics Division of the War Production Board and concluded by stating that “any conditions and restrictions imposed by you upon the use of the documents or information so furnished will be followed.” A reply dated August 21 and prepared for Jones’ signature, but actually signed by Wayne C. Taylor, as Acting Secretary, stated that “this Department is very glad to comply with your request” (Taylor, 1942). However, on August 18, even before the reply to Nelson was signed, Malcolm Kerlin Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of Commerce sent a routing slip to Census Director Capt, marking the request “for appropriate action” (Kerlin, 1942).

The next documented request was from the Assistant Secretary of Agriculture to the Secretary of Commerce. It was dated February 1, 1943 and sought mailing lists maintained by the Census Bureau for use by the Agriculture Department’s Food Distribution Administration. On February 4, 1943 Wayne C. Taylor, Under Secretary of Commerce replied

The Department of Commerce will be very glad to comply with your request. These lists will be furnished you pursuant to Section 1402 of the Second War Powers Act ... and ... Executive Order 9157 ... with the understanding that the information contained therein will be kept strictly confidential and will not be published in any form. (Taylor, 1943a)

Unlike the letter to Nelson, which had been drafted by the Commerce Department’s Assistant Solicitor, E. T. Quigley, the file copy of Taylor’s reply to Hill indicates the letter was drafted by Ray Hurley, who later in his career at the Census Bureau headed the Bureau’s agriculture statistics program from 1946 to 1968, and it carried the distinctive initials of Census Director J. C. Capt (“JC”) and Malcolm Kerlin (“mk”). This file copy also indicates that in accord with normal administrative practice all the supporting papers sent forward with the letter for signature were returned to the originating Bureau -- in the present case, the Census Bureau.

On February 20, 1943 the Executive Director of the Treasury Department’s War Savings Staff wrote Secretary Jones requesting mailing lists from the files of the 1939 Census of Business (Sloan, 1943) and on February 27 the Under Secretary of Commerce replied indicating (a) that to comply with Executive Order 9157 the request should be resubmitted under the signature of the Secretary of the Treasury and (b) that “to avoid delays, the lists are being prepared and forwarded” as instructed (Taylor, 1943b). Almost three weeks later, the needed letter from Treasury Secretary Morgenthau was forthcoming (Morgenthau, 1943a). In addition to specifying the types of businesses in which the War Savings staff was interested (for example, Department Stores, Men’s Furnishings, Hats, Clothing Stores, Women’s Ready-to-Wear, Shoes, Furniture Stores), the letter stated why the lists were wanted (“mailing War Bond and Stamp posters and other materials”). Two days later, on March 18, Taylor (1943d) replied to Morgenthau writing that as he had indicated in his initial response to Sloan, the materials had already been provided as requested.[vii]

Subsequent correspondence indicates the requests for individual-level plant, establishment, or farm data were made by the Defense Plants Corporation (Taylor, 1944c and 1944d), the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) (Wallace, 1945a and 1945c), the Department of Agriculture (Wallace, 1945b), the Department of Labor (Wallace, 1945d), and the Civilian Production Authority (Wallace, 1945e) under the provisions of section 1402 of the Second War Powers Act. Except for the request made by the TVA, all requests for disclosures were granted as requested. In the case of the TVA, a problem arose because a substantial portion of the data were collected privately by a business association and while the Commerce Department and the Census Bureau were willing to disclose the information obtained by the Census Bureau, they were reluctant to disclose the privately-gathered information. As the Commerce Secretary put it, “the collection problems with some producers were such that the Bureau of the Census might be subject to severe criticism from the Industry, if the suggested information were made available to the Tennessee Valley Authority” (Wallace, 1945c). After informal consultations, the TVA decided to withdraw its request.

Overall, the extant record of disclosures of confidential business data by the Census Bureau under section 1402 indicates ongoing and wide ranging requests and that the requested information was provided in a fairly routine manner between 1942 and 1945. Many agencies made requests, and the available correspondence indicates easy communication between the Commerce Department and Census Bureau and the requesting agencies.

B. Population and housing records

The record for disclosures of population and housing information is at this point far sparser and first emerges later (i.e., in 1943 not 1942). From the evidence available, at least initially the Census Bureau unhesitatingly provided the requested micro data. However, over time, and certainly in retrospect, Census Bureau came to realize that the provision of information gathered under a pledge of statistical confidentiality to law enforcement and intelligence agencies was antithetical to the Bureau’s statistical mission.

B.1. Disclosures to the U.S. Secret Service

The earliest and so far the most fully documented of the population-related disclosures was initiated by an August 4, 1943 letter from Henry Morgenthau Jr., Secretary of the Treasury, to Jesse Jones, Secretary of Commerce, invoking “the provisions of Executive Order 9157” requesting “for the exclusive and confidential use of the U. S. Secret Service in connection with the protection of the President of the United States, “a list of the Japanese residing in the Metropolitan Area of Washington, D.C., as reported in the 1940 Census, including information as to addresses, occupations and whether citizens or aliens ... You are assured that the information will be handled under rigid confidential conditions.” (Morgenthau, 1943b) A copy of this letter is reproduced in Figure 1.

As noted in the out-going Treasury Department mail log, the letter was signed by Morgenthau and initialed by HEG (Assistant Treasury Secretary Herbert E. Gaston whose responsibilities included the Secret Service) and WNT (W. Norman Thompson, Administrative Assistant to the Secretary) with one copy marked for the “Diary”[viii] and another to Mr. Gaston (U.S. Treasury Department, 1943).

This disclosure request appears at first reading to be oddly timed. Why, 20 months into the war, was the Secret Service suddenly concerned with a threat to the President by Japanese residents in the Washington, DC area? After all, immediately after the declaration of war in December 1941, the Justice Department had apprehended and interned all Japanese enemy aliens who were thought to threaten US national security, along with similarly classified Germans and Italians. In the spring and summer of 1942, the Roosevelt administration had evacuated and incarcerated the entire West Coast Japanese ancestry population on the grounds of military necessity. Certainly these measures had resolved any security threats to the President in the nation’s capital. In fact, we suggest, the Secret Service request was connected to these earlier round ups - - in a truly ironic way.

By late 1942, it was clear that the Japanese military no longer posed a threat to the American mainland, and some military and civilian leaders began to look for a mechanism to end the incarceration of the more than 100,000 West Coast Japanese Americans then held in “relocation camps.” Officials such as Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy and Dillon Myer, Director of the War Relocation Authority (WRA), the agency responsible for running the camps, as well as leaders in the Nisei community proposed measures to begin the release of “loyal” Americans of Japanese ancestry. The army announced the creation of an all Nisei combat unit, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, in January 1943, and the WRA announced plans to fulfill its mission to “relocate” Americans of Japanese ancestry outside of the West Coast military zone.

The West Coast politicians and anti Japanese lobby that had whipped up fears of fifth column activity by the Japanese population in the months after Pearl Harbor were deeply distressed by these emerging plans and renewed their campaign of anti-Japanese propaganda. Organizations such as the Native Sons of the Golden West and the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce once again mobilized to keep the Japanese American population incarcerated for the duration of the war and to prevent their return to the West Coast at the war’s end. Their congressional allies also mobilized to investigate the WRA and oppose any softening of sentiment on the threat posed by the incarcerated Americans. In this context the House Special Committee on Un-American Activities,[ix] held a series of hearings on the West Coast and in Washington, DC in June and early July of 1943. Drawing on the Committee’s extensive investigative files Committee staffers shared stories with interested journalists about disloyal Japanese Americans, alleged spy rings in the camps, the WRA actions in “pampering” camp residents, and the collusion of “New Deal” cabinet members with these activities. A number of witnesses at the Committee hearings repeated or elaborated on these charges and called upon Congress to keep the Japanese locked up.

The hearings and, even more, the investigative “findings” leaked by Committee staff were extensively covered in the West Coast press. On June 20, 1943, the Los Angeles Times reported that an evacuee, Juichi Uyemoto, had made threats against President Roosevelt, and that a Japanese American living in Washington, Paul Yozo Abe, had ties to the Japanese embassy (“Drive for Return of Japs – Dies Group gets Evidence Indicating High Government Officials Are Working to That End,” 6/20/1943, p. 1). The story alleged that “on a train to the Owens Valley [i.e., Manzanar] relocation camp ... Hawaiian-born Kibei, Juichi Uyemoto voiced the feeling that ‘we ought to have enough guts to kill Roosevelt.’” (The source of the newspaper account of this Presidential threat was a letter written by Karl Yoneda, a fellow Manazanar inmate who wrote he was sitting three seats away from Uyemoto when the threat was made on March 23, 1942. Both the letter (Yoneda, 1942a) and an August 1942 account of a meeting in the Manzanar camp at which Uyemoto spoke (Yoneda, 1942b) are available in the Committee files.) The LA Times story also referred to the unspecified “activities of the local J.A.C.L. unit [i.e., the Washington, DC chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League], including Paul Yozo Abe, former clerk at the Japanese Embassy who was recommended for a scholarship at a local university by the Tokyo Foreign Office.” Further information about the Committee and its investigation of the threats posed by persons of Japanese ancestry, may be found in Ogden (1944) and Goodman (1968), although neither Ogden nor Goodman referred to Uyemoto’s alleged Presidential threat or to the LA Times story.

On June 25, 1943 the Secret Service opened an investigation into the matter. Frank J. Wilson, the head of the Secret Service wrote to John J. McGrath, Supervising Agent of the Secret Service’s Washington D.C. office requesting “an extensive investigation be conducted to identify all known Japanese in Washington, D. C. and environs for the purpose of the security of the President of the United States” and an investigation of two specific “Japanese,” Juichi Uyemoto and Paul Yozo Abe (Wilson, 1943).

In response to Chief Wilson’s request Secret Service Agent Lee A. Montgomery was assigned to carry out the investigation and he rather quickly determined that neither Abe nor Uyemato posed a threat to the President. By August 12, 1943 Montgomery was able to report that Abe had moved to New York, [x] and that according to the Office of Naval Intelligence, Uyemoto, who was

alleged to have made a threat against the life of the President has been taken from Manzanar Relocation Center ... to the Los Angeles County Hospital for mental observation, and ... he was committed to the Camarillo State Hospital, Camarillo, California as the victim of dementia praecox [i.e., schizophrenia] of the catatonic type (Montgomery, 1943, p. 8)[xi]

According to Montgomery, Uyemoto’s removal from Manzanar and commitment took place in October 1942, which was about seven months after his alleged Presidential threat in March 1942.

There the matter might have ended, but Wilson’s initial directive had also asked for an investigation of “all known Japanese” in Washington, perhaps motivated by a reprise of the 1942 anti-Japanese American hysteria reflected a number of Spring 1943 press accounts. Accordingly, Montgomery’s investigations continued on broader grounds and he reported on his progress to his superiors from August 1943 through at least the fall of 1944.

Under this broader mandate to investigate “all known Japanese” in Washington, DC Montgomery contacted officials from a variety of agencies, including head of the Employment Division of the War Relocation Authority, an Assistant Director of the FBI, several sources in the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Army’s Military Intelligence Division as well as one source in the Army’s Provost Marshal General’s Office. Most of the information contained in Montgomery’s report related to this part of his investigation dealt with the presumed continuing threats of posed by Japanese Americans generally and much of it reflected the stereotyped views so prevalent in 1942. Indeed, Montgomery (1943, p. 13) concluded his report by essentially recommending that an exclusion order be issued for East Coast Japanese Americans, “in as much as Japanese traits and customs differ from all other nationalities, and ... any one of them may be deemed potentially dangerous.”

One focus of Montgomery’s broader investigation was the work of the Japanese American Joint Appeals Board, an inter-agency group responsible for clearing Japanese Americans for work in defense plants and for those incarcerated in the WRA camps for any work release or to continue their education in other parts of the country. As part of this aspect of his field work, Montgomery reported that on July 14, 1943, he met with Dr. Calvert Dedrick, then working in the Office of the Provost Marshal General on the Japanese American Joint Appeals Board. (Dedrick was then on leave from a senior position at the Census Bureau and he had played an important role in the West Coast round-up and internment operations.) Montgomery met Dedrick in the latter’s office in the Munitions Building in Washington, and extensively covered his experiences with the Wartime Civil Control Administration in San Francisco and in his current assignment (Montgomery, 1943, pp. 9-11). We cannot be certain that the Secret Service learned from Dedrick that the 1940 Census was a possible source of information useful to the more general investigation of “Japanese in the Washington, DC area” and thus prompted Morgenthau’s August 4 request to Commerce Department. Montgomery, for example, did not identify Dedrick as a former Census Bureau official. However, Montgomery’s extensive account of Dedrick’s views, including the latter’s assessment of communist and fascistic influences on the Japanese American community, indicate that he felt that Dedrick had provided him with relevant information on the Japanese American population and his July 14 interview with Dedrick occurred about three weeks prior to Morgenthau’s August 4 request to the Department of Commerce. Furthermore, as discussed below, a later report by Agent Montgomery does thank the Census Bureau and presents an “analysis” of 1940 Census data for Washington (Montgomery, 1944).

In any event, three days after Secretary Morgenthau’s letter to Jones, on August 7, 1943, Wayne C. Taylor, as the Acting Secretary of Commerce replied,

arrangements have been made for preparing a list of the Japanese residing in the Metropolitan Area of Washington, D.C., as reported in the 1940 Census. It is possible that there may be a little delay in completing this list because of the fact that the census schedules for this area have not yet been put back in the regular files after having been microfilmed. It is hoped, however, that the list may be completed and sent to you within a week.

The file copy of the letter indicates it had been drafted by Leon E. Truesdell, then “chief statistician for population” at the Census Bureau. It also clearly bears the initials of Census director J.C. Capt and the Commerce Secretary’s administrative assistant, Malcolm Kerlin. This file copy also has stamped on bottom: August 7, 1943, and indicates that the original papers were returned to the Census Bureau. (Taylor, 1943e) This file copy is reproduced in Figure 2.

Such a prompt response clearly indicates that no new policy decision had to be made by the Department of Commerce or the Census Bureau. Moreover, the fact that the response was drafted by Truesdell indicates the process for responding to such requests was handled by the Bureau’s technical staff as an apparently routine matter.

Somewhat sooner than had been anticipated in the interim response that the Census Bureau had drafted for Acting Secretary of Commerce, Taylor was able to write to Morgenthau again on August 11, 1943,

The list of Japanese residents in the Washington Metropolitan Area which you requested under data of August 4, and to which I referred in my reply of August 7, has now been completed by the Bureau of the Census and is transmitted herewith. I hope that this information may be of service for the purposes mentioned in your letter requesting it.

Again the file copy of the letter indicates it was drafted by Leon E. Truesdell of the Census Bureau and it bears the initials of J.C. Capt (Census Director) as well as two others, one of whom may have been Truesdell. There is a clear typed notice that the letter contained an “Enclosure.” A mixture of handwritten and stamped notations indicates that the text is an “Exact Copy as signed by Wayne C. Taylor,” that it was mailed on August 13, 1943, that a copy was provided to the Under Secretary [i.e., Taylor], and that, as usual, the underlying papers were returned to the Census Bureau. (Taylor, 1943f) However, no copy of the enclosure was found with the August 11 letter in the files of the Commerce Department’s chief clerk. (This is not particularly surprising since copies of tabular material accompanying letters from the Census Bureau were often not kept in the chief clerk’s files.) [xii] The file copy of this letter is reproduced in Figure 3.

The original of the Commerce Department letter, along with its enclosure – a listing in tabular format entitled “Japanese Residing in the Metropolitan Area of Washington, DC, April 1, 1940” – was saved in the Morgenthau Diary and we located a copy of it at the FDR Library. The table is a typed list of 79 Japanese Americans enumerated in the 1940 Census residing in the District, Arlington and Alexandria Virginia, and Bethesda, Chevy Chase, and Edmonston, Maryland, showing for each person, name, address, sex, age, marital status, citizenship status, status in employment, and occupation and industry (U. S. Census Bureau, 1943a). At the time of enumeration, the youngest person enumerated was age 1 and the oldest age 76, while 35 were recorded as aliens and 44 as native born (i.e., citizens). The original letter is reproduced in Figure 4 and the enclosed listing is reproduced in Figures 5a and 5b. To help preserve the confidentiality of these respondents to the 1940 Census, we have blacked out the names and house numbers of those included on the list. Of course, the names and house numbers were clearly readable in the list as provided by the Census Bureau to the Secret Service and were so in the list as we found it in the FDR Library. The label bearing the notice “Determined to be an administrative marking” on the right side of the top margin of the list was added by the staff of the FDR Library after consulting with NARA when they provided us the photocopy of the list. It refers to the handwritten notation “Confidential.”

A close examination of the table complied by the Census Bureau reveals several anomalies. First, the table contains a footnote next to the name of one of the entries “This man was born in Puerto Rico. He was reported “Japanese” but the name is Spanish.” Not noted by the table’s compilers or reviewers was that several other persons listed seemed to have non-Japanese names (for example, Appold, Moy, and Smith). If a person with a non-Japanese family name was wrongly included on the list provided by the Census Bureau, in modern-day terminology, each such person would be classified as a false positive.

The list as typed also provides a hint of another issue that arose during its compilation. The 79 persons listed are each assigned a serial number (1, 2, 3, ...) in the leftmost column of the table. In addition, at the end of each group of persons listed for any geographic area an extra line is provided to facilitate readability. Within the group listed for Washington, D.C. persons appear to be arranged by Enumeration District. There are three related exceptions to these regularities. After the last person listed for the District of Columbia (No. 65) and before the first person listed for Virginia (No. 66), an additional person was listed in a line that should have been blank and he was assigned a serial number of “65½”. According to his address in the District, it appears he should properly have been listed as No. 15 in the table. The person listed as number 65½ was a young Japanese American biostatistician then employed by the Census Bureau in its vital statistics program. We would conjecture that during the initial compilation of the table his colleagues attempted to protect him by leaving his name out of the table. However, at some stage after the list was initially typed, the omission was discovered in the review process (either Truesdell or Capt would have almost certainly noticed the omission), and the missing Japanese American staff member was inserted in the list in a manner that did not require retyping the entire table.

The existence of this tabular listing of Japanese Americans enumerated in the 1940 Census and the Census Bureau’s ability to produce it within 7 days (August 4 to 11) from the initial request and within 4 days (August 7 to 11) from the earliest date that the schedules became available, demonstrates that the Bureau not only provided identifiable micro-data on Japanese Americans to other federal agencies but also had well-developed procedures to do so expeditiously. Operationally, this could have been accomplished by first sorting the main 1940 Census population card (Card A) to obtain a full listing for all persons in a given locality with a “Jp” in column 14 for the color or race item. While the punch card itself did not contain information on name or street address, as indicated by Truesdell (1965, pp. 195 and 201-202) and the Census Bureau (1982b) each card did contain broader geographic identification information including Enumeration District (ED) number in columns 1 to 6 and the sheet and line number for each person enumerated within each ED in columns 7 to 10. Based on the technology then-available, the cards for those reported with a Japanese “race” could be readily used to produce a printed listing of the ED and sheet and line number for each person identified as “Japanese.” It was then possible to go back to the enumeration forms (which did contain information on name and street address and which were stored by ED number) to generate the listing provided to the Secret Service.

As already mentioned, Agent Montgomery’s August 1943 report made no mention of the Census Bureau or the 1940 Census as a possible source of information on Japanese Americans. In a later report dated August 10, 1944, Montgomery explicitly listed the Census Bureau as a source of such information (Montgomery, 1944, p.3). He also presented the following summary of the available data

It was learned that ... according to the last Census taken in Washington, D.C. there were approximately 59 Japanese residing in this city. About 36 of these were attached to the Japanese Embassy in Washington, and with the exception of six, all were interned and later returned to Japan. The others residing in Washington were either in business or acting as domestics in various fields. (Montgomery, 1944, p.1)

In other words, it seems that the Secret Service through its investigative work between August 1943, when it received the listing from the Census Bureau, and August 1944, when Montgomery wrote his second report, had confirmed that among 66 persons classified as Japanese in the listing seven were false positives. This would imply that the gross false positive rate for Japanese Americans in the District in the 1940 Census was just under 12 percent. Other aspects of Agent Montgomery’s investigation and analysis seem to have been far less accurate. For example, looking at the age, sex, and occupations of the 66 Japanese Americans shown in the Census Bureau listing, we doubt that “about 36 of these were attached to the Japanese Embassy in Washington.” To begin with, foreign diplomats were not to be enumerated in the census. We think it far more likely that Agent Montgomery simply subtracted the number of those Japanese “attached” to the Embassy that he obtained from another source from the census-based number.[xiii]

B.2. Disclosures to the FBI and other Justice Department agencies

The available dated documentation of section 1402 disclosures to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) begins only in 1944. From the information so far obtained, it appears that the FBI only began to invoke section 1402 of the Second War Powers Act in 1944 after its Director, J. Edgar Hoover, removed a principled objection he had with complying with the provisions of Executive Order 9157. In March 1944, FBI Director Hoover wrote to his boss, Attorney General Francis Biddle, calling his attention the Executive Order and noting that the requesting agency must provide

an explanation of the reason for which the information is desired ... [and] ... must indicate the exact distribution that is intended to be made of the information which is received, and thereafter no other dissemination may be made without express approval. (Hoover, 1944)

He then explained why the FBI could not adhere to these restrictions:

Obviously, this Bureau could not comply with such a requirement in that if the data, when combined with other [data] in our files, affects the internal security of the country, it is our responsibility to see that any governmental agency, which from time to time might be affected thereby, is promptly and fully advised. Similarly, it is impossible for us to foretell the exact disposition to be made of information secured since, in the event of prosecution, we would be governed by the wishes of the Department of Justice and the United States Attorneys involved.

After he went on to recount the great value the information in the files of the Census Bureau would be to the important national defense work of the FBI, Director Hoover summarized the fruitless negotiations involving the Department of Commerce, the FBI’s representative Alexander Holtzoff [then a Special Assistant to the Attorney General], and the Bureau of the Budget to exempt the FBI from the problematic provisions of Executive Order # 9157. Hoover concluded,

Since the availability of the information contained in the files of the Department of Commerce would in many instances contribute immeasurably to the efficiency and economy of the work of this Bureau [i.e., the FBI], it is suggested that appropriate steps be taken to have this information made accessible to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In a letter dated March 22, 1944, Attorney General Biddle immediately forwarded Hoover’s memorandum to Commerce Secretary Jesse Jones expressing the hope that “something can be worked out so that strict compliance with Executive Order No. 9157 will not be required of the FBI” (Biddle, 1944b). By March 29 the Assistant Solicitor of the Commerce Department was able to inform the Administrative Assistant to the Commerce Secretary that the matter had been resolved, writing “at a recent conference in this office, attended by representatives of the Department of Justice and the Bureau of the Census a plan was worked out to take care of this matter. No reply to the Attorney General’s letter is required” (Quigley, 1944).

On April 3 the Attorney General wrote to Commerce Secretary Jones (Biddle, 1944d) and Jones replied to Biddle on April 12 (Jones, 1944). Jones began by acknowledging the Attorney General’s letter which according to Jones requested

that certain confidential records of the Bureau of the Census be made available to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in connection with investigations of violations or possible violations of statutes relating to espionage, sabotage, Selective Service, or subversive activities.

The Secretary of Commerce continued,

It is agreed that the Director of the Bureau of Census will make this information available upon written request by the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Such requests by the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation should, in each instance, specify:

“The information desired is requested under Section 1402 of the Second War Powers Act, approved March 27, 1942, Executive Order No. 9157, dated May 9, 1942, for the purposes listed and for use in the manner described in the Attorney General’s letter of April 3, 1944.”

The letter concluded by reiterating that the Census Bureau’s understanding that it would be reimbursed by the FBI for any costs incurred. The letter was drafted by A.W. von Struve, a Census Bureau staff member, and initialed by Census Director Capt as well as by Quigley and Kerlin from the Commerce Department. The copy of the letter contains the standard note, “Papers returned to the Bureau – Census.”

Three features of this agreement between the Census Bureau and the FBI are worthy of note. First, the agreement reduced the Executive Order’s requirement that the “manner of use” be stated by the requesting agency to a generic boiler-plate text. Second, contrary to the language of both Section 1402 of the Second War Powers Act and the Executive Order, the FBI was permitted to make its disclosure requests directly to Census Bureau Director J.C. Capt, rather than routing the requests first to the Attorney General and then to the Secretary of Commerce. Finally, the FBI was freed entirely from any restrictions on how it might further disseminate any information it obtained through Section 1402.

We have been unable to locate any correspondence in the Census Bureau archives (Record Group 29 of the National Archives) related to this agreement and only one to disclosures that appeared to flow from it. Since, under the agreement, the process of disclosures to the FBI of materials from the Census was direct and, not through the Commerce Department, one would have expected to find some sort of paper trail related to these disclosures in the Bureau files.

The single exception to the absence of references to any section 1402 disclosures to the FBI in Record Group 29 that we have identified is a very brief reference in a one page document that appears to be the draft text of the portion of the Census War History that covered the Personal Census Records Section of the Publications Division. Toward the bottom of the page, after listing several categories routine searches, the report lists the following, “Additional requests occasioned by World War II. Information requested for: ... War Man Powers Act, Army and Navy Personnel (Minors), F.B.I. (Draft Dodgers)” (U.S. Census Bureau, 1946). We believe that operational work on personal census records check activities was overseen by the Personal Census Records Section, and that this section worked under A.W. von Struve’s supervision.

The Commerce Department files do reveal two name searches undertaken at the request of the Justice Department under the provisions of Section 1402 by the Census Bureau at about the time the agreement with the FBI was being developed, but it is not clear whether these requests were initiated by the FBI or by other investigative or prosecutorial programs in the Justice Department. The first was relayed to the Secretary of Commerce by the Attorney General in a letter dated March 21 (Biddle, 1944a), and led to a successful name search of a specific individual. Accordingly, the Acting Secretary of Commerce was able to inform the Attorney General on March 29 that “I am furnishing you herewith a copy of the 1920 Census record of one John E. Lenning ...” (Taylor, 1944b).

On March 23, the Attorney General made a similar request to the Secretary of Commerce (Biddle, 1944c). This time Acting Commerce Secretary (Taylor, 1944a) wrote that the named individual could not be found after searching the enumeration records for two Georgia counties and adjoining Enumeration Districts. The search seemed to have involved the 1940 and 1930 Census files. Taylor also enclosed a blank Census name search form on which the Justice Department was invited to provide alternative address information to assist in the search since “neither the 1930 nor the 1940 Census records have been alphabetized.” He also helpfully noted

It is understood, of course, that it [i.e., the form] need not be signed by the subject of the search since this information has been requested by you under provisions of the Second War Powers Act and Executive Order No. 9157.

Both Commerce Department responses to the Attorney General (Taylor, 1944a and 1944b) were drafted by Census staffer, A. W. von Struve, with some help from the Department’s Assistant Solicitor in the case of the second request.

B.3. Other personal disclosures

The only other disclosure so far identified in the population and housing area was based on August 29 and September 6, 1944 requests by the Secretary of Labor on behalf of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for confidential data from the 1940 Census of Housing. The Acting Secretary of Commerce responded on September 11, 1944, indicating he had directed the Census Director to make the requested data available (Taylor, 1944e).

C. Closing the gate

The Second War Powers Act was an omnibus piece of legislation. Although it was adopted as a single legislative act, individual provisions were repealed or permitted to expire on different dates and by different legislative acts, with the bulk of them, including Section 1402, repealed with effect from March 30, 1947 (Chapter 29, Public Law 29, 50 U.S.C.A. Appendix, Section 644a). Having opened the gate to the disclosure of census information hitherto protected by Title 13, the Census Bureau found the process of closing the gate to be an extended and difficult – but important – effort.

The first hint of some of the issues involved can be found in a letter drafted in the Census Bureau but sent from the Secretary of Commerce to the Chairman of the Civilian Production Bureau in November 1945, three months after World War II had ended (Wallace, 1945). We quote extensively from Secretary Wallace’s letter since it summarizes so clearly both the “short-cut” practices that had evolved to speed disclosures during the war and the new pressures the Census Bureau faced to end such confidentiality-breaking disclosures as rapidly as possible:

During the war the Bureau of the Census of the Department of Commerce with the approval of the Secretary of Commerce ... supplied the War Production Board with confidential data from the 1939 Census of Manufactures and other records collected by the Census Bureau.

The Chairman of the War Production Board in order to expedite the transmission of information between the agencies delegated the authority to make requests to the Director of the Bureau of Program and Statistics who, on a restricted basis, subsequently delegated such authority to the Director of the Office of Survey Standards of the War Production Board.

Now that hostilities have ceased and the War Production Board has been succeeded by the Civilian Production Administration, we would like to revert to the original procedure in which the head of the agency makes each request to the Secretary of Commerce. This procedure would appear to be more appropriate to present conditions. Also, we would like to emphasize in every way possible the confidential nature of information collected by the Bureau of the Census for statistical purposes. Numerous business establishments now reconverting to peacetime production have called this matter to our attention since the surrender of Japan.

It should be noted, however, that Secretary Wallace’s letter, in accordance with the law, permitted disclosures to continue.

With respect to confidential information on persons, the FBI sought to continue the access it had gained under the Second War Powers Act to Census Bureau files even after Section 1402 expired at the end of March 1947. Accordingly, the Attorney General wrote to the Secretary of Commerce toward the end of January 1947, three months before section 1402 was due to expire, but without any reference those provisions of law, that,

The records of the Bureau of the Census of the Department of Commerce contain information which would be of great value in connection with confidential investigations conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation dealing with internal security of the nation and with other important confidential investigative work.

It would be of great benefit if you could authorize the appropriate officials of the Bureau of the Census to provide information upon request of Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who hold credentials certifying to their status as such. Such authorization would be of great benefit to the Government in connection with the official investigations made by the Special Agents of the FBI. (Clark, 1947)

This request was notable in two respects. First, it made no mention of the arrangements then in place at least since April 1944 (see Jones, 1944), but presumably due to expire on March 31, granting the FBI access to confidential Census Bureau records, and second, it proposed an arrangement for obtaining access (i.e., requests from individual FBI agents) that was even less subject to oversight than the one developed in 1944 (i.e., requests from the Director of the FBI to the Census Bureau Director). It may be recalled that the 1944 arrangement was, in turn, even less restrictive than that specified in the 1942 law and Executive Order (i.e., requests from the Attorney General to the Secretary of Commerce).

Commerce Secretary Harriman replied in early March to this request in a letter drafted in the Department’s Solicitor’s office (Harriman, 1947). His response provided a clear indication how far Census Director Capt had moved from the views he had held in 1941 and 1942 when he had worked so diligently to provide the FBI and other agencies access to confidential information that had hitherto been protected by Title 13.

After citing the relevant portions of Title 13 and observing that “under these provisions of law the Director of the Bureau of the Census is the official designated to protect these records – not the head of Department,” Secretary Harriman’s letter to the Attorney General continued,

In connection with your request, the Director of the Census informs me that it would be impossible for him to agree to your request, because it has been the long-standing practice of that Bureau not to furnish such information either to private persons or officials of the Government. The Director pointed out that such practice is in accord with the views expressed in the Attorney General’s opinion to the Secretary of Commerce ... of September 29, 1930 (36 Op. At. Gen. 362).

Harriman’s letter concluded, after referring to Section 1402 of the Second War Powers Act as “an exception to this rule” and noting that it would terminate at the end of the month, “in view of the foregoing, I am unable to reply with your request.” Several weeks later the Commerce Department Solicitor also wrote a legal memorandum to the Secretary supporting the position taken by the Census Bureau and the Secretary in the Department’s response to the FBI’s request (Fisher, 1947).

However even after Section 1402 was repealed, various regulatory and investigative agencies continued to be keenly interested in obtaining information provided to the Census Bureau under the confidentiality protections of Title 13. This gave rise to a number of administrative and judicial efforts over the next two decades to restore the war-time access provided to such information. For example, in late 1947, the Federal Munitions Board sought means to receive confidential information from the Bureau’s Census of Manufactures. After considerable correspondence between the Commerce Department and the Attorney General’s office and extensive consultations involving the Justice Department, the Budget Bureau, the Commerce Department, the Census Bureau and the Munitions Board, an agreement was reached that disclosures would only be made after the Census Bureau secured affirmative waivers of confidentiality from the individuals and firms who provided the information to the Census Bureau (Foster, 1947; 1948a; 1948b).

In July 1948 the Census Bureau proposed a similar approach in a letter that W. P. McInerny and A. Ross Eckler of the Census Bureau had drafted for signature by the Secretary of Commerce to respond to a request by the Internal Revenue Service that it be provided information collected by the Census Bureau from the Zigler Canning Company (Sawyer, 1948). However, Secretary Sawyer wondered “if this is good government practice. In other words, ... if the prohibition against giving this information applies to the heads of other government departments – such as the Commissioner of Internal Revenue.” Accordingly, he held up signing the draft until the matter could be reviewed by the Department Solicitor (Easton, 1948). Within three days the Departmental Solicitor wrote to Secretary Sawyer a memorandum strongly endorsing the position taken by the Census Bureau (Stokes, 1948) and the letter to the Internal Revenue Service was sent out as drafted by the Census Bureau. As we have shown elsewhere with respect to business data, efforts by the Justice Department and numerous federal regularity agencies to breach statistical confidentiality at the Census Bureau and elsewhere in the federal statistical system continued for at least another two decades (Anderson and Seltzer, 2005).

In the post World War II period, the Census Bureau vigorously sought to end the confidentiality violations sanctioned by the Second War Powers Act. This was not always an easy task as a number of investigative agencies had grown accustomed to the relatively easy access they had had to Census Bureau micro-data during the war years. Indeed, the history of war time disclosures puts a somewhat new light on Ed Goldfield’s recollection that,

Later on, when I had some major responsibilities for Census Bureau policy, including policy on access to individual records, I had the occasion to turn down people from the Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and elsewhere who came to the Bureau thinking that I could provide them with names and addresses of businesses or individuals. I always had difficulties persuading them that even though they represented an important Government concern, the Census Bureau would not cooperate with them, at least not to that degree. (Goldfield, 1991)

IV. Context of these disclosures

A. Societal and political

After its lengthy hearings and deliberations, the Congressionally-mandated U.S. Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) that reviewed the wartime round-up and incarceration of Japanese Americans on the West Coast, concluded that the main causative factors leading to this mistaken national policy were “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership” (CWRIC, 1982, p. 459.) Unfortunately, these same factors seemed to be present in the Census Bureau’s actions and some of its leaders at this time. Certainly, Calvert Dedrick’s views about Japanese Americans reflected in his July 1943 interview with Secret Service Agent Montgomery and contained in some of the memoranda he wrote in connection with his work for Provost Marshal General’s Office in Washington, D.C. at about this time seem to reflect many of the same racial stereotypes as those of Col. Bendetsen and General DeWitt and the other military and civilian leadership responsible for the round up and internment. Similarly, J. C. Capt’s eagerness to remove confidentiality protections for Census Bureau records almost from the moment of assuming his duties as Census Director and his persistence in pursuing this goal from May 1941 to March 1942 reflected both a failure of leadership and war hysteria.

We would also observe that the bulk of the disclosures documented in this paper, particularly those related to information about individuals, took place in 1943, 1944, and thereafter. This was well after the first half of 1942, when there was some real concern whether the United States and its allies would prevail. Nevertheless, the “war hysteria” and broad race-based stereotyping identified by CWRIC seemed to define both the Secret Service’s actions in the summer of 1943 and the Bureau’s response. For example, Secret Service Agent Montgomery’s earlier report mirrored both in his characterizations of Japanese Americans previously cited (1943, p. 13) and his full acceptance throughout of the notion that the WRA was insufficiently vigorous in dealing with the “threats” the Japanese Americans community continued to pose. On the other hand, his 1944 report was largely free of such perspectives (Montgomery, 1944).

Moreover, between April 1944, when the Census Bureau and the FBI reached agreement on a disclosure procedure, and March 1947, when Section 1402 expired, the FBI was increasingly shifting its attention from potential Axis saboteurs to subversives and likely Soviet spies and sympathizers.

Another factor present during this period in Washington was a growing practice of subterfuge to hide measures of questionable legality or otherwise viewed with distaste. For example, beginning in 1940 and refined over the next three years, FBI Director Hoover instituted a “Do Not File” procedure to keep sensitive memoranda pertaining to warrantless wire-taps, “bugs,” break-ins and the like, out of the Bureau’s central records system and held in separate files that were periodically purged (Theoharis, 1989, p. v; Poveda, 1998, p. 183). While there is no evidence that Capt and others at the Census Bureau were aware of these contemporaneous FBI procedures or employed them at the Census Bureau, as more fully discussed in the next section, we find that the apparent absence of any clear description of the Census Bureau’s Section 1402 disclosures of information on individuals in its annual reports to the Commerce Department at that time or in its 1946 write up of the Bureau’s wartime activities, coupled with the absence of a paper trail in its archived files (RG 29), leaves open the possibility that similar processes may have been followed at the Census Bureau.

B. Internal Census Bureau matters

A careful review of the correspondence related to the disclosures under section 1402 makes it clear that knowledge of these disclosures was relatively widespread at the time and was common among the leadership of the Census Bureau well into the late 1960s. Many of those who in the 1940s drafted the covering letters providing confidential information to external agencies under section 1402, in later decades rose to some prominence at the Census Bureau (see Table B). These included, in addition to Leon Truesdell already referred to in connection with the list of Japanese American provided to the Secret Service, John Albright, who became a Branch Chief in the Business Division, Max Conklin who became Chief of the Industry Division and an Associate Director, Ray Hurley who became Chief of the Bureau’s Agriculture Division, and A. W. von Struve who became the Bureau’s Publication Information Officer. In addition, Charles B. Lawrence , Jr., who when working for another agency was a recipient of confidential information provided by the Census Bureau under section 1402, after he joined the Census Bureau became first Assistant Director for Operations and then Calvert Dedrick’s replacement leading the Bureau’s International Statistical Program.

A. W. von Struve’s role deserves special mention, both because he is largely unknown today and because the central role he appears to have played in disclosures made to the FBI and possibly other agencies, and in subsequent efforts to obscure the existence of such disclosures. Like Capt, von Struve had came from Texas and worked in the WPA, under David K. Niles. At the WPA von Struve wrote several published articles on historical topics and by 1938 he was chief of the Periodicals Section at WPA (von Struve, 1939). In late 1938 Harry Hopkins resigned as WPA Administrator and was appointed by President Roosevelt as Commerce Secretary. Niles also moved from WPA to the Commerce Department and became Hopkins’ principal political assistant with special responsibilities for the Census Bureau. Shortly thereafter, in 1939, Capt and von Struve moved from WPA to the Census Bureau, Capt as a confidential assistant to the Census Director with responsibilities for patronage in connection with the 1940 Census and von Struve as a public relations assistant in the newly-established Division of Information, 1940 Census, which was quickly renamed the Division of Public Relations. In June 1941, just after Capt became Census Director, the Division was reconstituted as the Information and Publications Division. By 1943, von Struve was Acting Chief of the Division and in 1944 he was cited as Division Chief (von Struve, 1944). Eventually, when the Bureau’s long-time Chief Information Officer, Frank R. Wilson, retired, von Struve was named as the Bureau’s Public Information Officer, serving from 1956 until his death in 1962.

As the Annual Report of the Census Director for July 1, 1943 to June 30, 1944 makes clear, the responsibility for name searches rested with the Bureau’s Information and Publications Division (U. S. Census Bureau, 1944, p. 14). Accordingly, von Struve’s role in drafting the three letters pertaining to disclosures to the FBI and the Justice Department seems bureaucratically appropriate. Whether the name searches were assigned to von Struve’s Division because Capt placed special trust in his former colleague to handle the sensitive issues involved in requests from the FBI and other such agencies is unclear.

The annual reports during these years, while documenting in some detail the name searches carried out for individuals to establish their citizenship or eligibility for pensions, are virtually silent about the record searches carried out for other government agencies and the other disclosures made under section 1402 of the Second War Powers Act.[xiv] Similarly, the Census Bureau’s War History project initiated as part of a government-wide activity to provide “a record of ... [agency] contributions to the war which would be of value to the Government in the case of another emergency, as well as to provide material for historians” (Capt, 1946), also omits any mention of such disclosures that we could identify. For example, by the time the Census War History was transmitted to Commerce Secretary Harriman in the fall of 1947 in manuscript form, the planned chapter on the Publication Division was cut and the portion of the history dealing with the “Personal Census Service Section” was renamed “Age Searching and Microfilming” (Trimble, 1947).

In any case, in the years following the war, von Struve was well placed to play a central role in building the image of the Bureau as a defender of the Japanese Americans during the war and as an agency that had never wavered in its defense of census confidentiality. Thus, in an informational pamphlet published by the Census Bureau in September 1947, at the end of chapter 1, after celebrating the Bureau’s important war work, “the marshaling of facts on materials and manpower during World War II ...[helped to make] ... possible the winning of the War,” the chapter concluded with a clear reaffirmation of statistical confidentiality, “Your reports to the Census Bureau are CONFIDENTIAL ... your census reports cannot be used for purposes of taxation, regulation, or investigation” (US Census Bureau, 1947, pp. 4-5). Other examples of the Census Bureau’s evolving descriptions of its World War II activities may be found in Seltzer and Anderson (2000, pp. 13-18).

V. Discussion and recommendations

In thinking about the specific disclosures we have described in this paper, along with the numerous others that took place during the period that Section 1402 of the Second War Powers Act was in effect and have as yet remained undocumented, it is important bear in mind that those Census Bureau officials assisted in these disclosures broke no law, unless they had at some point sworn under oath that no disclosures took place. What is far more complex is the issue of the ethical culpability of the Census staff and leadership involved in these disclosures. With respect to those involved in disclosures related to information solely about businesses, and that is the bulk of the census staffers listed in Table B, there would appear to be little or no ethical blame. This is not so much because their actions were authorized by law or that they were following Director Capt’s orders, but rather because most of the disclosures were done to facilitate war-time production coordination and related measures, processes that the bulk of the concerned enterprises apparently recognized as necessary. With respect to staff clearly involved with disclosures related to persons (i.e., Truesdell, von Struve) and Director Capt, who both worked to have Section 1402 enacted into law and initialed virtually all disclosure correspondence, the ethical responsibilities are far greater. Many of those persons identified or located through the confidential Census materials provided to the FBI, the Secret Service and possibly other agencies, were exposed to the possibility, if not the fact of individual harm from the federal government.

Moreover, we consider that the findings presented here, particularly the 1943 release of the listing of Japanese Americans in Washington, DC based on the 1940 Census and the speed with which this release was accomplished, suggest that lists of Japanese Americans from the 1940 Census were provided to assist in the mopping up stages of the round-up of Japanese Americans on the West Coast. This, indeed, was the legislative purpose of section 1402 as stated in 1942 by the New York Times, the Washington Post and Sen. Austin (Seltzer and Anderson, 2003). Even more broadly, a full reassessment of already reviewed archive material and the work of Calvert Dedrick is in order knowing that disclosures of micro data did, in fact, take place.

Also in need of re-assessment is the historical research carried out over the years that has led to the many unqualified denials that any disclosures of personal information from the 1940 Census took place. In our view three factors seem to account for this profound misunderstanding of the Bureau’s history during the 1942-1947 period: first, the reliance placed on the continuing assurances of Calvert Dedrick given from 1946 to the early 1980s that no disclosures took place, second, a misunderstanding about Director Capt’s early attitudes toward census confidentiality and the actions he initiated to undermine confidentiality, and third, what historical research that was undertaken by members of the Bureau’s history staff and others at the Bureau appears to have been confined RG29, ignoring other related archived files (for example, those of the Department of Commerce), newspaper accounts, or other public records.

It is clear that Dedrick was repeatedly consulted by Bureau staff in the 1970s and 1980s for an authoritative account of events during the World War II period (see, for example, Bohme, 1975; Barabba, 1980, p. 2; Clemence, 1980a; Clemence, 1982)[xv], despite that fact that over the decades he gave conflicting accounts on such critical issues as whether or not the War Department had requested the names and addresses of Japanese Americans from the 1940 Census (Seltzer and Anderson, 2000, pp. 13-14).

With respect to Census Director Capt, an official statement from the Office of the Director issued in 1983 stated, “Former Bureau officials who worked closely with Director Capt have said that disclosing information about individuals would have been unthinkable” (US Census Bureau, 1983, pp. 1-2). The same language was included in a 1991 update of this statement (US Census Bureau, 1991, pp. 1-2). Those who researched, wrote, and approved these statements were clearly unaware of Capt’s statement to the contrary at a January 1942 meeting of the Census Advisory Committee (1942, p. 21) and his persistent and successful efforts to relax the legal protections governing census confidentiality once he became Census Director that we summarized in section I of this paper. It may be noted that the minutes of the January 1942 Census Advisory Committee meeting listed Dedrick among the Census Bureau staff present (1942, p.1).

Perhaps the most telling example of the shortcomings of Census Bureau research on this entire subject relates to prior Bureau research concerning to the Second War Powers Act itself. For example, in 1980, Ted Clemence an able and well-respected staff member in the Director’s Office, who had some responsibility for monitoring census confidentiality issues, made an initial examination of section 1402 in connection with concerns raised by the Japanese American community (Clemence, 1980a; 1980b). From Clemence’s observation that “the only new thing I have learned ... [is] that Congress clearly intended through the Second War Powers Act to suspend census confidentiality temporarily” in his memorandum to Director Barabba (Clemence, 1980a), it seems apparent that discussions of census confidentiality during the World War II period had proceeded for some months in the Director’s Office without this knowledge. Unfortunately, after making this important rediscovery, Clemence’s apparent inexperience in historical or legal research was reflected in his memorandum to the file on the subject (Clemence, 1980b). This report (a) failed to mention the role of Director Capt in securing the adoption of section 1402, (b) stated that the Act expired at the end of 1944, (c) failed to catch the significance of the colloquy he quoted from the House debate about section 1402 (compare Clemence, 1980b, pp. 1-2 with Anderson and Seltzer, 2007, pp. 25-26), and (d) was unable to say whether the Executive Order called for in the legislation had ever been issued or whether any information had been requested or released under the provisions of section 1402. Seven years later, in Clemence (1986), he seemed to be far better informed about some aspects of the implementation of the section 1402 (for example, he knew that the Executive Order had been issued and that disclosures related to industrial enterprises had been made). However, he still completely misunderstood the situation with respect to the release of information about persons. For example, in his 1986 letter Clemence stated that the legislative record was silent about the release of personal information, ignoring one of the sentences he had quoted from the House colloquy on the measure in his 1980 memorandum, “if the purpose of this title is to investigate aliens or get information related to them for the purpose of preventing sabotage or espionage, that is one thing. But if the purpose of it is along the lines that the National Resources Planning Board is working, namely a communized state, I think the Congress ought to know about it.” Unfortunately, Clemence had apparently overlooked the key reassurance by the bill’s manager, “Specifically answering the gentleman’s question, I believe the matter is in safe hands.” Clemence also seemed to be unaware of the newspaper stories that appeared in 1942 in both the NY Times and the Washington Post relating to Congressional action on the Second War Powers Act. These articles not only focused on the release of identifiable information from the 1940 Census, but also explicitly linked that release to targeting Japanese Americans.

The Census Bureau has rightly been proud of its success in the six decades since the repeal of the Second War Powers Act in resisting efforts of other government agencies that sought access to micro-data collected under the protection of Tile 13. What seems more problematic has been the persistent efforts to obscure the fact that such disclosures ever took place. Initially, both the leaders of the disclosure program, Capt, Dedrick, and von Struve and the like and many of those around them were aware of the truth, and either actively assisted in efforts to obscure what took place or were silent. Together they were the active and passive enablers of a legend. At some point, we conjecture, no one knew the truth anymore and Bureau research and statements on the matter in the 1980s, and beyond, were unfortunately compromised by the belief that they knew the truth.. Thus, we have no reason to doubt that the subsequent denials made in recent decades by senior Bureau staff and management were in good faith.

Although the disclosures documented in this paper took place many decades ago and under the special conditions of war time, the implications of these findings remain highly relevant today. Accordingly, we briefly review the implications of the new findings presented here for four current issues:

First, since 9/11 we have in many respects been on war-time footing; we frequently hear today many of the same arguments that were used to justify such war time measures as the exclusion of Japanese American citizens from the West Coast as potential saboteurs or section 1402 of the Second War Powers Act to assist in the mopping up of Japanese Americans still at large. Indeed, in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attack, the USA Patriot Act was enacted into law. One provision of the Patriot Act, section 508, permitted the Department of Justice to gain access to micro-level information collected by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) collected under a pledge of statistical confidentiality (Seltzer and Anderson, 2002). The parallels between section 1402 of the Second War Powers Act and section 508 of the Patriot Act (and its subsequent absorption into basic Department of Education legislation) are obvious.

Second, efforts at using U.S. Census data for racial and ethnic based targeting seemed to have re-emerged (see for example, El Badry and Swanson, 2007 (in press); Habermann, 2006; and Seltzer, 2005).

Third, in the 2000 Census the Census Bureau appears to have abandoned its traditional operational safeguard of separating name and address information from other information. This reduction in protection was initially justified on the grounds that it was needed to permit computer-based case-by-case matching of the 100 percent census file to assist in the post-census evaluation program. The evaluation studies were completed several years ago, but the linked data file apparently remains. (Seltzer and Anderson, 2002; 2003). Certainly, for the 2010 Census we need new ground rules that restore the Census Bureau safeguard of separating identification information from information on the characteristics of person at the level of the individual record.

Fourth, the Census Bureau’s unconditioned pledge of statistical confidentiality, based on the strong language of Title 13 and a staff committed to its defense, has been the gold standard of such protections in the United States and around the world. Do the new findings presented here alter the ethical, policy, or practical circumstances of demographic data collection?

We conclude by suggesting additional avenues of further scholarly research, as well as the possibility of legislative inquiry, to (a) better determine the extent of Census Bureau disclosures in the 1942-1947 period and (b) assess and, if needed, enhance current policies and arrangements designed to protect such disclosures now and in the future.

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Trimble, South Jr. 1947. Letter from Department Historian to W. Averell Harriman, Secretary of Commerce, 10/2/1947, and attachments. NARA, RG40, Records of the Department of Commerce, Entry 4, Department History of World War II, Box 1, Monographs, folder “Bureau of the Census War History.”

Truesdell, Leon E. 1965. The Development of Punch Card Tabulation in the Bureau of the Census, 1890-1940. Washington, D. C:, U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census.

U. S. Census Bureau. 1941. “Table 2. – Japanese Population of the United States by Regions, Divisions, and States: 1940.” Typed table, 12/8/1941, p. 2. FDR Library, Field Papers, Box 44, Folder “Japanese in the United States, 1941.”

______ . 1943a. Japanese Residing in the Metropolitan Area of Washington, DC, April 1, 1940. Typed listing with handwritten notation “Confidential.” FDR Library, Morgenthau Diary, Book 655, August 10-12, 1943, Microfilm reel 190, frame 197.

______ . 1943b. Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940. Population, Volume II. Characteristics of the Population. Part 1 United States Summary and Alabama-District of Columbia. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office. “District of Columbia, Table 2 – Race by Nativity and Sex, for the District of Columbia: 1850 to 1940,” p. 956. Accessed at on 12-13-2006.

______ . 1944. “Annual Report of the Director of the Census, July 1, 1943 – June 30, 1944.” Mimeographed, NARA, RG29, Administrative Records of the Bureau of the Census, Records of the Assistant Director for Statistical Standards, .General Bureau Records, entry 192, Annual Reports.

______ . 1945. “Annual Report of the Bureau of the Census, July 1, 1944 – June 30, 1945.” Mimeographed, NARA, RG29, Administrative Records of the Bureau of the Census, Records of the Assistant Director for Statistical Standards, .General Bureau Records, Entry 192, Annual Reports.

______ . 1946. “Census War History, Personal Census Records Section.” One page typed document. NARA, RG 29 Records of the Bureau of the Census, Administrative Records of the Bureau of the Census, Records of the Publication Division, Entry 156 Records Relating to the War History Project (Mar. – Sept. 1946), Box 106 Industry -- Vital Statistics, Folder “Publications Division.”

______ . 1947. Fact Finder for the Nation. Washington, DC: Department of Commerce, September 1947.

______ . 1982a. “Statement on Census Bureau Actions at the Outset of World War II as Reported in Infamy: Pearl Harbor and its Aftermath by John Toland,” NARA, RG 29 Administrative Records of the Bureau of the Census, Entry 362L Office of the Director Dr. John G. Keene (1984-89), Subject Files, Box 18 “Japanese Americans (WWII) to Leonard, Walter J.,” Folder “Japanese Americans (WWII)”

______ . 1982b. “Statement on Census Bureau Actions at the Outset of World War II as Reported in Infamy: Pearl Harbor and its Aftermath by John Toland, Attachment B, ... Population Individual Card, 1940.” Papers of the U.S. Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC), Microfilm, Reel, 28, box 30, frame 29634.

______ . 1983. “Census Confidentiality – An Inviolate Tradition.” Statement on the Office of the Director’s letterhead, 6/1983. NARA, RG 29 Administrative Records of the Bureau of the Census, Entry 362L Office of the Director Dr. John G. Keene (1984-89), Subject Files, Box 18 “Japanese Americans (WWII) to Leonard, Walter J.,” Folder “Japanese Americans (WWII).”

______ . 1991. “Confidentiality – A Census Tradition.” Statement on the Office of the Director’s letterhead, 11/1991. NARA, RG 29 Administrative Records of the Bureau of the Census, Entry 372L Files of C. Louis Kincannon, Deputy Director (1981-1992), Alphabetic Files (Advisory Committee – Voting Rights), Box 20, CIE to Confidentiality, Folder “Confidentiality.”

______ . 2004. “Census Confidentiality and Privacy, 1790-2002.” Available at .

U.S. Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC). 1982. Personal Justice Denied: Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.

U. S. Civil Service Commission. 1940. Official Register of the United States, 1940. Washington, D. C.: U. S. Government Printing Office.

U. S. Code Congressional Service. 1943. Acts of 77th Congress, Second Session, January 5 to December 16, 1942. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Co.

U. S. Treasury Department. 1943. Mail log, December 1942-September 1944. FDR Library, Henry Morgenthau Jr. papers, Box 369, folder “August-September 1943.”

Wallace, Henry A. 1945a. Letter from Secretary of Commerce to David E. Lilienthal, Chairman, Tennessee Valley Authority, 3/9/1945. NARA, RG40, General Records of the Department of Commerce, Office of the Secretary, General Correspondence, 104262-104279, Box 1078, File 104262-104276.

______ . 1945b. Letter from Secretary of Commerce to the Secretary of Agriculture, 4/5/1945. NARA, RG40, General Records of the Department of Commerce, Office of the Secretary, General Correspondence, 67104 (Part 2) – 67104 (Part 5), Box 144, File 67104 (Part 3).

______ . 1945c. Letter from Secretary of Commerce to David E. Lilienthal, Chairman, Tennessee Valley Authority, 4/7/1945. NARA, RG40, General Records of the Department of Commerce, Office of the Secretary, General Correspondence, 104262-104279, Box 1078, File 104262-104276.

______ . 1945d. Letter from Secretary of Commerce to L. B. Schwellenbach, Secretary of Labor, 8/2/1945. NARA, RG40, General Records of the Department of Commerce, Office of the Secretary, General Correspondence, 67104 (Part 2) – 67104 (Part 5), Box 144, File 67104 (Part 3).

______ . 1945e. Letter from Secretary of Commerce to John D. Small, Chairman, Civilian Production Administration, 11/29/1945. NARA, RG40, General Records of the Department of Commerce, Office of the Secretary, General Correspondence, 102517/106-108, Box 973, File 102517/106.

Wilson, Frank J. 1943. Interoffice Communication from Chief, U.S. Secret Service, to John J. McGrath, Supervising Agent, Washington, D.C., June 25, 1943. Cited in Montgomery (1943, p. 1).

Yoneda, Karl G., 1942a. Letter to E. R. Fryer, Regional Director WRA San Francisco, 7/11/1942. NARA, RG 233, Entry 11, Exhibits related to Committee Investigations, Box 193 War Relocation Authority –War Relocation Camps, Folder “War Relocation Centers – Los Angeles, California Exhibits re above, Jun 8-18, 1943.”

______ . 1942b. “Notes and Observations of Kibei Meeting held August 8, 1942 at Kitchen 15 – only Japanese spoken.” NARA, RG 233, Entry 11, Exhibits related to Committee Investigations, Box 193 War Relocation Authority –War Relocation Camps, Folder “War Relocation Centers – Los Angeles, California Exhibits re above, Jun 8-18, 1943.”

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Figure 1. Letter from Treasury Secretary Morgenthau to Commerce Secretary Jones, 8/4/1943

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Source: Morgenthau, 1943b.

Figure 2. Letter from Acting Commerce Secretary Taylor to Morgenthau, 8/7/1943

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Source: Taylor, 1943e.

Figure 3. Letter from Taylor to Morgenthau, 8/11/1943 (copy from Commerce files)

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Source: Taylor, 1943f (NARA, RG 40)

Figure 4. Letter From Taylor to Morgenthau, 8/11/1943 (original from Treasury files)

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Source: Taylor, 1943f (FDR Library)

Figure 5a. List of Japanese in Washington, DC area from the 1940 Census (upper part)

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Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 1943a.

Figure 5b. List of Japanese in Washington, DC area from the 1940 Census (lower part)

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Source: Same as Figure 5a.

Endnotes

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[i] See, for example, Barabba (1980) drawing on Clemence (1980a and b) and Jones (2005).

[ii] During the period covered by the paper for the Army this was the Military Intelligence Division (MID), sometimes referred to as G-2, and for the Navy, the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI).

[iii] Technically, today the confidentiality provisions governing the U.S. Census Bureau can be found in the 1954 recodification of the Census Act, known less formally as Title 13, while during the period discussed the present paper, the relevant protections were contained in the 1929 Census Act. For convenience, we refer to both as Title 13.

[iv] In our own work we had, until now, maintained the position that there was substantial evidence both for and against the use of micro-data from the 1940 Census to assist in the war-time measures directed against the Japanese Americans and for other investigative purposes (Anderson and Seltzer, 2007; Seltzer and Anderson, 2003, table 2). The Committee on National Statistics’ Panel on Institutional Review Boards, Surveys, and Social Sciences Research reached a similar conclusion (National Research Council, 2003, p. 120).

[v] It is unclear if these reporting requirements represented an effort by Stuart Rice, then the Assistant Director for Statistical Standards in the Bureau of the Budget, to control Census Director Capt’s enthusiasm to open the records of the Bureau to the war agencies or simply an effort by Rice to advance his long-time goal of promoting the role of his office in statistical coordination. Unfortunately, since the most egregious violations of statistical confidentiality were not for statistical purposes, it was not necessary to provide information reports to the Office of Statistical Standards in these cases. Moreover, it should be noted that we have not been able so far to locate any reference to the filing of an information report as required under Executive Order 9157 in the archive files for the Bureau of the Budget even for the section 1402 disclosures that were of a purely statistical character. As more fully described below, we did find three letters from Rice among his papers at the Harry Truman Presidential Library to different federal agencies pointing out their failure to notify his office of such requests as required by EO 9157. We were also able to locate a single instance of such a report in the archive files of the Department of Commerce (Taylor, 1944c). This letter pertained to a request from the Defense Plants Corporation for plant specific production data from the 1939 Biennial Census of Manufacturing for certain specified chemical products.

[vi] If requests for disclosures continued at this rate for the five years that Section 1402 was in force, approximately 600 disclosure requests would have been made for business data alone.

[vii] This request from the Treasury Department and the Bureau’s response was not unprecedented. During World War I, Treasury requested and the Bureau provided similar materials to assist in the promotion of Victory Bonds.

[viii] The so-called Morgenthau Diary was not a diary in the traditional sense of the word. It was instead a massive file, organized by date, maintained by the Treasury Department for archiving almost all paper work received and originated in the Department during the years (1934-1945) that Morgenthau served as Secretary of Treasury.

[ix] The Special House Committee on Un-American Activities, also known as the “Dies Committee,” after the name of its initial Chairman, Congressman Martin Dies, was in existence from 1938 to 1944 as a temporary committee. Thereafter it was established as a permanent House committee, often referred to as HUAC, until it was discontinued in 1975.

[x] WRA records indicate that Juichi Uyemoto was single, born in 1902, and had lived in Los Angeles prior to his confinement in Manzanar. He was born in Hawaii and both his parents were born in Japan. Much of his education was in Japan and his primary occupation was classified as Skilled Occupations in Production of Beverages. NARA, RG 210, “Japanese-American Internee Data File, 1942 – 1946.” Accessed at 12-7-2006. Furthermore, despite Montgomery’s report of Uyemoto’s ominous psychiatric diagnosis and instutionalization, Uyemoto appears to have survived to 1969 (U.S. Social Security Death Index, accessed at

2-6-2007).

[xi] With respect to Abe, Montgomery reported that he and his wife had moved to New York City just after Pearl Harbor and prior to that he had lived in Washington, D.C. since 1936, moving there from the West Coast. In Washington, he attended George Washington University and worked at the Japanese Embassy. Montgomery also reported that Abe was recently called before a congressional committee. He testified before the House Special Committees on Un-Americans Activities on July 1, 1943, indicating that he was born in Seattle (House of Representatives, 1943, p. 9391), his employment at the Japanese Embassy ran from 1936 to September 1940 (1943, p. 9392), and during this period he had several housemates who were also working at the Embassy (1943, p. 9392-9393). The fact that Abe and his housemates were all employed by the Embassy may explain why he (and his housemates) do not appear to be among the list of Japanese Americans enumerated in the Washington area in the 1940 Census, since it is easy to believe that a census enumerator encountering a group of young men with Japanese names all working at the Japanese Embassy incorrectly decided that they were all diplomats and not properly included in the census count. Despite the implications of the LA Times story and the hostile questioning he was subjected to the at the July 1 Committee hearing, Montgomery reported (1943, p.4) that the Washington field office of the FBI had “uncovered nothing regarding this man [i.e., Abe] that would warrant criminal prosecution.”

[xii] Despite the notation that the papers had been returned to the Census Bureau, no copy of this letter, the enclosed listing, or any reference to either appears to exist in Record Group 29 of the National Archives where Census Bureau materials are kept, based on our own research and the reports of the research of many Census Bureau staff over the past 25 years (see, for example, Barabba, 1980 and Jones, 2005).

[xiii] Compounding the analytic and investigative confusion even further is the fact that the official 1940 Census tabulated count of persons of Japanese race for Washington, D.C. was 68 (U.S. Census Bureau, 1941; 1943b). It is not known whether the loss of two persons by the Census Bureau between the officially tabulated count and the August 1943 list was as the result of a deliberate edit or inadvertent, for example, by the loss or destruction of two punchcards.

[xiv] Some indirect hint of the section 1402 disclosures of information about individuals may be found in the careful language of the section of the Bureau’s report for the 12-month period ending June 30, 1944 dealing with Population. A brief subsection labeled “Other projects” begins: ”Population and housing material – both published and unpublished – have formed the basis of for a large number of special compilations for military and civilian uses” (U.S. Census Bureau, 1944, p. 12). In the Bureau’s reports for these years, a clear distinction seems to be made between the terms “tabulation” and “compilation.” Disclosures related to business data were implied far more directly by using such phrases as “the Bureau’s function as collecting and compiling agent for the War Production Board and other war agencies” (U.S. Census Bureau, 1945, p. 7).

[xv] Dedrick retired from the Census Bureau in 1966 and thereafter “served as a consultant to the Census Bureau for several years.” He died in 1984. [Washington Post, “Calvert Dedrick, Census Retiree, Dies at Age 83,” 6/4/1984, p. D6]

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