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11 UCLA L. Rev. 805 (1963-1964)
The Mail Must Not Go through - Propoganda and Pornography

handle is hein.journals/uclalr11 and id is 807 raw text is: THE MAIL MUST NOT GO THROUGH-
PROPAGANDA AND PORNOGRAPHY
Murray L. Schwartz*
On March 17, 1961, the White House Press Secretary an-
nounced that the President, after consultation with the Secretary of
State, the Postmaster General, the Secretary of the Treasury and
the Attorney General, had ordered immediate discontinuance of the
program for the interception of foreign Communist propaganda at
our shores.' On June 29, 1960, the termination of the program had
* Professor of Law, University of California, Los Angeles. The impetus for this
article is a study conducted by the author and Professor James C. N. Paul which has
previously resulted in several publications on the subjects of federal censorship of
obscenity and of Communist political propaganda. See PAUL & SCHWARTZ, FEDERAL
CENSORSHIP: OBSCENITY IN THE MAIL (1961); Paul & Schwartz, Obscenity in the
Mails: A Comment on Some Problems of Federal Censorship, 106 U. PA. L. REV.
214 (1957); Schwartz & Paul, Foreign Communist Propaganda in the Mails: A Re-
port on Some Problems of Federal Censorship, 107 U. PA. L. REV. 621, 796 (1959).
The present article suffers from its sole authorship. However, Professor Paul is
now the Dean of the Law School of Haile Sellassie I University in Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia, and the consequent difficulties made it impossible for this to be a joint
effort. If the debt of the author to Professor Paul does not sufficiently appear in
these pages, it should be made clear at the outset that this work could not have been
undertaken without the prior collaboration in which Professor Paul's contribution
was by far the most significant element.
The author also acknowledges a debt to his colleague, Professor William Cohen,
whose encyclopedic knowledge of constitutional law and telling comments, both
constructive and critical, proved invaluable in the preparation of this article.
The factual information which appears throughout this article was obtained
from the cited published sources, from correspondence with the attorneys involved
in current litigation, and from Deputy Collector of Customs Irving Fishman, As-
sistant Postmaster General Tyler Abell and Post Office General Counsel Louis J.
Doyle, to all of whom the author acknowledges his appreciation.
Needless to say, the author bears sole responsibility for the views expressed
herein.
There is a bit of poetic license in the title. The subject matter of the legisla-
tion discussed is obscenity rather than pornography. It has been suggested, how-
ever, both in judicial decision, see Jacobellis v. Ohio, 84 Sup. Ct. 1676, 1683 (1964)
(concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Stewart) ; Zeitlin v. Arnebergh, 59 Cal. 2d 901, 383
P.2d 152, 31 Cal. Rptr. 800 (1963); and scholarly comment, Lockhart & McClure,
Censorship of Obscenity: The Developing Constitutional Standards, 45 MINN. L. REV.
5, 58-68 (1960), that the constitutional standard required by the Supreme Court is
pornography, despite the fact that the Court has spoken in terms of defining obscenity.
In any event, whatever minor inaccuracy exists seems a small price to pay for the
alliteration.
I The text of the release was:
President John F. Kennedy, following consultation with the Secretary of State,
Dean Rusk, the Postmaster General, J. Edward Day, the Secretary of the Treasury,
C. Douglas Dillon and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, today ordered discon-
tinuation immediately of the program intercepting Communist. propaganda from
805

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