Robert W. Grow Court-Martial: 1952

The army chose not to challenge the truth of Squires's account. The chief of staff had ordered Grow not to make any public statements, so there was no official contradiction of Squires's accusations. The lack of any rebuttal led to public and congressional pressure to remove Grow from the army. In April, despite the opposition of the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Grow was charged under Army Regulation 380-5. The case against Grow was classified as "secret," which allowed the army to exclude the press from the trial. The army publicly stated that it had charged Grow with improperly recording classified information in private records and failing to safeguard that information.

Grow selected a Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps attorney, Colonel Robert E. Joseph, to defend him, even though the recently enacted Uniform Code of Military Justice allowed him to have a civilian attorney. Joseph immediately ran into trouble in mounting a defense. His request to declassify the charge sheet without deletion or alteration so he could prepare for trial was denied, as were his repeated requests to be temporarily transferred to Europe to interview potential witnesses. During the pretrial investigation—a form of preliminary hearing—Joseph attacked the army's case on two points. He alleged that the inspector general had improperly taken the diary from Grow in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights, and that the officer who signed the charge sheet, Colonel C. Robert Bard, was not Grow's actual accuser. When Joseph asked Bard who had told him to sign the charge sheet, Bard replied that Ernest Brannon, the judge advocate general, had ordered him to do it, but Brannon refused to say who had ordered him to proceed against Grow, claiming this information was covered by attorney-client privilege. Joseph insisted that Grow had the right to know the identity of his real accuser, but this argument got him nowhere. Other shadows arose. When Joseph questioned Bard about the specifications he had prepared concerning the classification of military information, Bard quickly admitted he was not a security expert and that he was an "Indian" and not a "Chief," which further suggested improper command influence over the proceedings.

Joseph faced other roadblocks, although the pretrial investigation was supposed to be a "thorough and impartial investigation of all matters." Joseph was unable to view all the pertinent documents, and several of his requests for copies were denied. He moved, unsuccessfully, to suppress and return the diary, pointing out that Generals Dwight Eisenhower, Mark Clark, and Omar Bradley had all kept—and published—personal journals. He also questioned General Bolling about his or General Taylor's influence over the proceedings. Bolling refused to answer any questions about his conversations with Taylor, and Taylor was equally uncooperative.

After the pretrial investigation, the army filed an additional charge against Grow, saying his recording of reported plans of the Soviet Far Eastern Revolutionary Committee for a large offensive in Korea in April 1951 by the Chinese Army was a violation of Article 134 of the UCMJ. On May 31, 1952, Colonel Frederick Matthews, the pretrial investigating officer, recommended a general court-martial. Like the pretrial hearing, the court-martial was closed to the public.

During the trial, Joseph was unable to call General Bolling, who was said to be "unavailable," and he only received a prepared stipulation from General Taylor. The trial proceeded along the same lines as the pretrial investigation. Grow's counsel moved to dismiss all charges and specifications for lack of jurisdiction, claiming that the convening authority, General Brooks of the Second Army, was inferior in rank and command to the actual accuser, (Bolling, Taylor, or the Secretary of the Army). The law officer, General Hubert Hoover, denied both motions. During the trial, Grow's counsel again objected to the diary's being entered into evidence. The prosecutor maintained that Grow had surrendered it voluntarily, so that there had been no unlawful seizure. The law officer agreed that the diary was admissible.