In New York harbor last week, a U.S. Customs officer briskly climbed aboard the S.S. Mohican, a World War II Liberty ship, as she lay at anchor. The officer informed the captain that the ship was being seized by the U.S. Government. His reason: the U.S. ship, in violation of a 1916 law, was being operated by an alien owner, Stavros Niarchos, a Greek who had bought her as war surplus through U.S. nationals as dummies.
In seven months, Assistant Attorney General Warren Burger, chief of the Justice Department's civil division, has seized 29 such vessels (19 of them oil...
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