Robert W. Grow Court-Martial: 1952

From this point on, argument about the security classification of the diary dominated the proceedings. Prosecution witnesses maintained the contents were "secret" and defense witnesses claimed they were common knowledge in Moscow diplomatic circles. On July 29, Grow himself took the stand, swearing that he had not recorded anything that was not widely known. "I treated the diary in about the same manner as you would treat a personal letter," he commented. "I did not treat it in the sense of a military document, but rather in the sense of a personal classified document." But this statement, coupled with his January 18, 1952, remark that the diary had been photographed "in Germany when my security was lax," counted against him. With deliberations of less than an hour, the court convicted him of two counts of dereliction of duty and two counts of security infractions. He was reprimanded and suspended from command for six months. Only after the trial did the public discover that many of the sentiments that Squires attributed to Grow were forgeries. The case was appealed and ultimately came before President Eisenhower in 1957, who approved the findings but remitted the sentence.

Grow's trial took place during the Korean War and the Red Scare. It displayed the army's lack of finesse in dealing with the effects of Soviet espionage and propaganda, and its desire to be seen to act severely against security breeches. It also demonstrated the persistence of command influence over military proceedings.