In February 1940 American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) president Gene Buck was arrested in Phoenix, Arizona, on extortion charges. The charges, stemming from a licensing dispute between ASCAP and a radio station, were dropped when Arizona governor R. T. Jones refused extradition to New York.

Early in 1942 Rep. Eugene E. Cox of Georgia began a House investigation of FCC chairman Lawrence Fly and the FCC, which was dropped when it was revealed that Cox had taken kickbacks from a Georgia radio station.

On 6 June 1945 six people connected to the foreign policy journal Amerasia, including publisher Philip Jaffe, were arrested and charged with espionage when they were found to have had substantial classified State Department files passed to them by disgruntled officials critical of U.S. support for Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese Nationalists. There was little evidence to support the charge, and...