The H Bomb Case

Sources

The legal cases:

Near v. Minnesota 283 U.S. 697, 51 S. Ct. 625, 75 L.Ed. 1357 (1931).

New York Times v. United States 403 U.S. 713, 91 S. Ct. 2140, 29 L. Ed. 2d 822 (1971).

United States v. Progressive, Inc. Erwin Knoll, Samuel Day, Jr., and Howard Morland 467 F. Supp. 990 (W.D. Wis. 1979), appeal dismissed, 610 F. 2d. 819 (7 th Cir. 1979).

United States v. Progressive, et. al. 486 F. Supp. 5 (W.D. Wis. 1979) (refusing to vacate preliminary injunction).

Primary Sources:

Day, Jr., Samuel. Crossing the Line: From Editor to Activist to Inmate—A Writer’s Journey (Fortkamp Publishing Co., 1991).

-------. “Erwin Knoll and the H-Bomb Case,” The Progressive (January 1999), Vol. 63, Issue 1, pp. 22-25.

-------. Review of An Enemy of the State, by Bill Leuders, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, May/June 1997, Vol. 57, No. 3.

-------. “The Other Nuclear Weapons Club: How the H-Bomb Amateurs Did Their Thing,” The Progressive (May 1979), p.33.

-------. “What is the Real Purpose of Secrecy on Weapons?” Milwaukee Journal, March 16, 1979, p. 4

Knoll, Erwin. “The H-Bomb and the First Amendment,” 3 William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal 705 (Wtr 1994).

-------. “National Security: The Ultimate Threat to the First Amendment,” 66 Minnesota Law Review 161 (1981).

-------. “Wrestling with Leviathan: The Progressive Knew It Would Win,” The Progressive (Nov 1979), pp. 24-28.

-------. “If…” The Quill (June 1979), pp. 31-32.

-------. “Born Secret: The Story Behind the H-Bomb Article We’re Not Allowed to Print,” The Progressive (May 1979), pp. 12-22.

Leuders, Bill. An Enemy of the State: The Life of Erwin Knoll (Common Courage Press: Monroe, Maine, 1996).

-------. “The H-Bomb Secret Revisited,” Shepherd Express, Vol. 20, Issue 9.

Morland, Howard (with Peter Garrison). The Secret That Exploded ( New York: Random House, 1981).

-------. “The H-Bomb Secret: To Know How is to Ask Why,” The Progressive (Nov 1979), pp. pp. 14-23.

-------. “The Bomb’s a Secret?” New York Times, Mar. 26, 1979.

Informative, non-technical books or book chapters on the case:

Alderman, Ellen and Caroline Kennedy. “Freedom of the Press: United States v. Progressive,” In Our Defense: The Bill of Rights in Action (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1991), pp. 39-54.

Bell, Griffin (with Ronald Ostrow). Taking Care of the Law (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1982.)

DeVolpi, A., G.E. Marsh, T.A. Postel, and G.S. Sanford. Born Secret: The H-Bomb, The Progressive Case, and National Security (Pergammon Press, 1981).

Major newspaper or magazine articles commenting on the case:

Bagdikian, Ben H. “A Most Insidious Case,” The Quill (June 1979), pp. 21-26.

Bolbach, Cyhnthia. “Born Classified: The Lesson of The Progressive Case,” Christian Century, Oct. 24, 1979, pp. 1033-1038.

Burkett, Warren. “The Progressive Case Revisited,” The Quill (Sept. 1979), pp. 35-36.

Consoli, John. “The Progressive Triumphs in H-Bomb Case,” Editor and Publisher, September 22, 1979, pp. 9, 36.

Emerson, Thomas I. “Why We Don’t Need an Official Secrets Act,” The Nation (Mar. 10, 1979), pp. 263-266.

Feld, Bernard T. “Just Two Deletions and Let the Progressive Publish,” The Quill (June 1979), pp. 29-30

Friedman, Robert. “The United States v. The Progressive,” Columbia Journalism Review, July/Aug 1979, pp. 27-35.

Manning, Joe. “H-Bomb Material Readily Accessible,” Milwaukee Sentinel, May 1, 1979, p. 1.

McCrea, Ron. “A Nation Beset by Confusion and Fear,” The Progressive (Nov 1979), pp. 36-37.

Mooney, Michael Macdonald. “’Right Conduct’ for a ‘Free Press’,” Harper’s, Mar. 1980, pp. 35-44.

Stone, Jeremy J. “Giving Away the Secret of the First Amendment,” The Quill (June 1979), pp. 27-28

Swain, Bruce. “The Progressive, the Bomb and the Papers,” Journalism Monographs (May 1982), pp. 1-45.

-------. “Neither Saints Nor Sinners: Initial Reporting of the Progressive case,” Newspaper Research Journal, (May 1980), pp. 37-45.

Weiss, Leonard. “Nuclear Safeguards: A Congressional Perspective,” The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (March 1978), pp. 28-34.

Legal analyses or comments on the case:

Bennett, Sherrie L. “Broadening of the Pentagon Papers Standards: An Impermissible Application of the National Security Exception to the Doctrine of Prior Constraint,” 4 University of Puget Sound Law Review 123 (Fall 1980).

Blanchard, Margaret A. “Filling the Void: Speech and Press in the State Courts Prior to Gitlow,” in Bill Chamberlain and Charlene Brown (eds.), The First Amendment Reconsidered—New Perspectives on the Meaning of Freedom of Speech and Press (Longman, 1982), pp. 14-59.

Cheh, Mary M. “The Progressive and the Atomic Energy Act: Waking to the Dangers of Government Information Controls,” 48 George Washington Law Review 163 (January 1980).

Easton, Eric B. “Closing the Barn Door After the Genie is out of the Bag: Recognizing a ‘Futility Principle’ in First Amendment Jurisprudence,” 45 DePaul Law Review 1 (Fall 1995).

Elliot, Ralph Gregory. “Limits on Freedom of the Press,” Media and the Law Handbook ( Connecticut Bar Association). Available on-line at http://www.ctbar.org

Entin, Jonathan L. “United States v The Progressive Inc.: The Faustian Bargain and the First Amendment,” 15 Northwestern University Law Review 538 (1980).

Ferrugia, Michael A. “Balancing the Interests of National Security and Free Speech: A Proposed Modification of the English Approach Suitable for Adoption in the U.S.,” 4 Touro Journal of Transnational Law 217, 235-239 (1993).

Helle, Steven. “ Prior Restraint by the Back Door: Conditional Rights,” 39 Villanova Law Review 817 (1994).

Litwak, Thomas R. “The Doctrine of Prior Restraint,” 12 Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 520 (Summer 1977).

Martin, Thomas S. “National Security and the First Amendment,” American Bar Association Journal 68 (June 1982)

Mayton, William T. “Toward a Theory of the First Amendment Process: Injunctions of Speech, Subsequent Punishment, and the Costs of the Prior Restraint Doctrine,” 67 Cornell Law Review 245 (1982).

Molnar, Isaac. “Resurrecting the Bad Tendency Test To Combat Instructional Speech: Militias Beware: Rice v. Paladin Enterprises, Inc.” 59 Ohio State Law Journal 1333 (1998).

Neese, Janet M. “ United States v. Progressive, Inc.: The National Security and the Free Press Conflict,” 22 William and Mary Law Review 141 (1980).

Oakes, Judge James L. “The Doctrine of Prior Restraint Since the Pentagon Papers,” 15 University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform 497 (1982).

Peterson, Trev. “The National Security Exception to the Doctrine of Prior Constraint,” 60 Nebraska Law Review 400 (September 1981).

Powe, L.A. “The H-Bomb Injunction,” 61 University of Colorado Law Review 55 (1990).

Sims, John Cary. “Triangulating the Boundaries of Pentagon Papers,” 2 William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal 341 (1993).

Smith, Jeffrey. “Prior Restraint: Original Intentions and Modern Interpretations,” 28 William & Mary Law Review 439 (Spring 1987).

Sobota, Lenore. “Unexploded Bomb: The Progressive and Prior Restraint,” 1980 Southern Illinois University Law Journal 199 (June 1980).

Soifer, Aviam. “The Day the Presses Stopped: A History of the Pentagon Papers Case: Born Classified, Born Free: An Essay for Henry Schwartzchild,” 19 Cardozo Law Review 1369 (March 1998).

Soloski, John and Carolyn Stewart Dyer. “The Cost of Prior Restraint: U.S. v. The Progressive,” Communications and the Law (April 1984), pp. 3-23.

Soper, Michael Campbell. “The Progressive Case and Its Impact on the Doctrine of Prior Restraint,” (Master’s Thesis, University of Maryland, 1984).

Other:

U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Governmental Affairs: Erroneous Declassification of Nuclear Weapons Information. Hearings before subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. 96 th Congress, 1 st session, 1979.

DeWitt, Hugh E. “Nuclear Secrecy, the Atomic Energy Act, and Open Scientific Concepts,” a paper presented at AAAS meeting, Toronto, Canada, Jan. 3-8, 1981.

-------. “Moral Issues Faced by Scientists in Nuclear Weapons Work,” a paper presented at 40th Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs, Sept. 15-20, 1990, Egham, United Kingdom.