PEN-FRIEND LETTERS . OVERSEAS

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 14, 12 October 1942, Page 6

PEN-FRIEND LETTERS . OVERSEAS

Official Discouragement

Pen-friend letters are now to be officially discouraged, in terms of a decision of the defence authorities. No penalty will be exacted from those found to be writing pen-friend letters, but very few letters of that type addressed to foreign' countries will be allowed to pass the censorship. It is stated that the decision has been made necessary in the interests of the security of New Zealand and to further the Allied war effort. Pen-friends’ correspondence may seem a harmless enough pastime, says an official statement, but in time of war there is a grave danger that penfriends may be deliberately cultivated by the enemy as a valuable source of information. No loyal New Zealander would like to feel that he was acting as an honorary agent for the enemy, and all pen-friends’ correspondence should immediately be stopped, even if it is of long standing. Letters of all sorts are regarded by all military intelligence organizations as a fertile source of information, aud pen-friends’ letters are in some respect better material than ordinary letters. In general, letters between relatives or friends contain a good deal of personal matter, but having no personal background in common, pen-friends must write of other things, and the danger of giving away information of value to the enemy is correspondingly in- ‘ creased. Picture of Morale. The value of letters to the trained intelligence officer is not so much that they will give away precise military information, but that they will enable a picture of the morale on the enemy home front to be built up, the statement continues! There nifty, of course, also be inadvertent scraps of military information, and these the intelligence man is naturally very glad to have, but the importance of letters is that they show how the people are thinking. It is possible that the civilian population of Germany, as it did in the last war, will crack before the military forces are beaten. Our intelligence keeps ceaselessly on the job of watching for signs of this strain, which inust obviously have a profound influence on strategy. The enemy watches for similar signs of strain in the Allied countries quite as eagerly, and letters are as valuable an indication to him as they are to us. It is well to keep this point in mind when writing any letter overseas. It is known that well before tbe war the Germans set up an organization deliberately to cultivate penfriends in British countries. They had a good deal of success in New Zealand. They organized not only in Germany but in many other countries, particularly Sweden, where many letters from New Zealand went. It was recently discovered that one Swede had an enormous volume of penfriends’ correspondence with this country. So many letters were passing to mid from him that the conclusion was inescapable that he was writing as a job and not as a hobby. There is evidence that he had a staff working for him. It is not possible to establish definitely that his motives were not beyond suspicion, but in war no risks can be taken, and letters to hint have been stopped for some time. Useful to Enemy. A little thought will show where rhe danger of pen-friends’ correspondence lies. It may enable the enemy to establish useful contact will) malcontents and potential fifth columnists in Ibis country; it may give him military information of value; and it will certainly give him a very tiecurate picture of the state of the public mind in New Zealand. Another direction in which penfriend letters may lie useful to lite enemy is in the provision of material for propaganda. There have been many limes during this war when we have been able to broadcast extracts from captured letters containing statements detrimental to Ute enemy-.. 'Hie Germans are notoriously loud of this t.v|ie of propaganda, and are adept at twisting innocent statements to give them a sinister meaning. Tile statement concludes by saying that the decision to discourage penfriends’ letters is dictated simply by experience of their possible danger to our cause. Nobody, therefore, should' endanger the Allied war effort bv writing to pen-friends in any country overseas, neutral or Allied.