◆ SpookStack

HE facts of the Tyler Kent case are these: , The young man, whose father before him had been & State Department career official, was in charge of the code room in our London Embassy back in September 1939, when Prime Minister Chamberlain proclaimed to the House. of Commons that His Majesty's government had decided to declare war on Germany and hoped that they could persuade France to follow suit. ™ 2 a nhonos AROP war hasnamin anen came the days of the phoney war and FDR. was becoming restless in Washington because he didn’t think Chamberlain was pressing the attack on Germany. In fact, there were certain telephone gonversations between Roosevelt in Washington and American Ambassadors Bullitt in Paris and Kennedy in London in which F.D.R. bluntly observed, © “Can't you put some iron in Chamberlain’s backbone?” Then came the Roosevelt coded messages to Chamberlain's lieutenant, one Winston 5. Churchill, then a member of the Chamberlain government. Young Kent got the secret Roosevelt-Churchill messages 45 a - part of his regular job. In the phony war months of *39-'40 he/ copied them, decided to quit the State Department service and | return to Washington and place them before: the Senate and House Committees on Foreign Affairs. Then came the overturn of the British cabinet, the harassed | and ailing Chamberiain was tossed cut. Churchill became Prime | Minister. Kent was grabbed by British security police from Scot- land Yard. 1 Roosevelt and Hull told Kennedy that they didn't want Kent tried in this country where his defense might “create disunity” and that it was O.K. by us to have American Citizen Kent of a neutral America tried under the secrecy of wartime star chamber sessions with the public barred, all evidence impounded and testi- mony of witnesses suppressed, i, HOT of it all was that State Department Employe Tyler Kent received a seven years’ Sentence from the British court in May 1940. j According to former Ambassador Kennedy, Kent had copied some 1,500 code messages exchanged between Roosevelt and the then ambitious Churchill, who in 1939 was eagerly awaiting the day to ditch Chamberlain and get the Prime Minister’s fob. Latest cables from Britain say that Kent will be released from his Isle of Wight confinement October 1 and: be departed to the United States. . American counsel for Kent started a move to halt the de- portation proceeding--on the astounding grounds that the State Department would seek to re-arrest him on similar charges in order to prevent him from making public his knowledge of the Roose- . velt-Churchill messages, ‘ This legal move has now been dropped. Meanwhile, British authorities have reported that because of the shipping situation due to return of U. S. service personnel it may be impossible te deport Kent to his homeland “for months." —y ony