Battle of Bloomsbury

The banning of U.S. correspondents from Iceland last week could not be laid at the door of Britain's Ministry of Information, but London newsmen laid it there anyhow, largely on the grounds that any press mix-up would find the Ministry up to its hips in it.

Determined to make the Ministry mend its muddling ways, London newsmen badger it constantly, refer to the Press v. Ministry feud as the Battle of Bloomsbury. (The Ministry operates out of Bloomsbury from an elephantine white building borrowed from London University.) Typical of the quarrel are snide cartoons of Minister of Information Alfred Duff Cooper.

In the Battle of Bloomsbury the working press is supported by many officials of the Ministry itself and a sizeable slice of Parliament, all of whom think full British news coverage and adequate propaganda are now dangerously hobbled. Opposed to the press is Winston Churchill's War Cabinet, which believes in the notion that Britain's war effort needs no "vulgar publicity." In that notion it is at one with most bigwigs of the armed services.

Britain's war news may officially be credited to Bloomsbury, but the Services and other Government Departments issue all communiques, do all but routine censoring. And all propaganda that the Ministry issues is directed by the Foreign Office. This leaves the Ministry of Information in the unhappy position of having no information to call its own. Sick of trying to serve their country in a vacuum, some officials of the Ministry have resigned. Last month Lord Beaverbrook, himself a publisher, took the Ministry briefly in hand but was lofted to a new job as Supply Minister before he had time to make permanent reforms.

Fortnight ago, threatening his own and still other resignations, Censorship Head Sir Walter Monckton asked the Cabinet to do three things: 1) have the Ministry rather than the Foreign Office direct over seas news and propaganda; 2) give the Ministry direct access to news sources in stead of spoon-feeding it with handouts; 3) give the Ministry authority to release news. Said the Cabinet: No, No, No.

After a hot but inconclusive debate in the House of Commons, the Government fortnight ago announced a series of "im provements." Most important: to have senior officers who are able to make decisions instead of queasy middle-rankers of Army, Navy & Air Force stationed as censors at the Ministry--an improvement similar to that which the U.S. Army & Navy got around to last spring.

The Ministry actually got nothing it asked for, but none of its officials resigned. The Prime Minister made them hang on by stating categorically that it would be unpatriotic to do so. Director-General Monckton summed up their feelings: "If the powers that be want us to attack a tank with a pitchfork, we'll go to it. But don't start telling us our pitchforks are tanks, because we know the difference."

In the midst of all its woes, the British press last week had something to console it: Witty, intelligent Sir Gerald Campbell, recently promoted from a berth as Senior Minister of the British Embassy in Washington to a more important job as headman of the British information services in the U.S., was in London fighting the Battle of Bloomsbury on behalf of better news.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.