WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice in Washington, moving with great secrecy and speed, launched last night a nation-wide round up of aliens who are in this country illegally. The enormous dragnet was concentrated in the cities along the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards, with New York a focal point in the East. Here squads totaling at least 500 city detectives, United States immigration officers and border patrol-men swept through sections of Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens and Staten Island in the first city-wide round up of aliens since the government first began to crack down on potentially dangerous alien activities last month. — New York Herald Tribune, May 18, 1941