Zaslavsky v. Baldwin

Hardly a 1944 week passes that Moscow does not shoot a diatribe U.S.-ward. The big blasts usually engage Pravda's old (64), red-faced, always-angry David Iosifovitch Zaslavsky (among his targets: Wendell Willkie, William Randolph Hearst). Last week Triggerman Zaslavsky turned his howitzer on the New York Times''s big gun of military reportage and analysis, Hanson Weightman Baldwin. Comrade Zaslavsky called him "Admiral of an Ink Pool."*

In a documented indictment (citing Baldwin's columns), Zaslavsky charged the foremost U.S. newspaper military expert (which he dislikes to be called) with disbelieving Soviet information, falling for Nazi misinformation. The major Zaslavsky counts: 1) prediction in 1941 of the Red Army's quick defeat; 2) assurance in September, 1942, of the Wehrmacht's victory without doubt; 3) assertions at 1944's start that Russian triumphs were due to the German necessity for great reserves in the west; 4) most recently, assertion that the Germans would hold Odessa, while Red Army columns were even then closing in.

Hanson Baldwin's line at this week's start: "The great retreat in Southern Russia--one of the greatest in history--seems to be coming to an end."

*Commentator Baldwin is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate (1924), served three years with the U.S. Fleet.

Mr. Wallace's "Intolerance"

The polite New York Times this week found it necessary to engage in the impolite business of kicking a guest in the seat of his convictions. The guest was the Vice President of the U.S.

Invited by the Times to write an article denning an "American Fascist," Henry Agard Wallace in five columns of its Sunday Magazine loosed a steaming storm of generalities that boiled down to two favorite Wallace targets: 1) international trade cartels; 2) business monopolies. The demagogues and stooges who "poison the channels of public information," wrote Mr. Wallace, are mere fronts for those who "in case of conflict put money and power ahead of human beings." By that definition he judged there are "undoubtedly several million" U.S. Fascists and "there are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful."

In the same edition with the Vice President's article was a skilled job of editorial surgery upon it. The Times's editorialist found Mr. Wallace approaching the "very intolerance that he condemns. . . . The Vice President of the U.S. ought not to indulge in merely abusive epithets."

The Wallace charges, said the Times, by "their very vagueness, are as difficult to refute as they are to prove.... If [he] knows of any 'American Fascists' he should reveal their names and present the concrete evidence against them. . . . Though he declares that American Fascism is 'not confined to any single section, class or religion,' and 'may be encountered in Wall Street, Main Street or Tobacco Road,' he yet manages to convey the impression in the greater part of his article that business leaders, 'young Wall Streeters,' and the officials of chemical concerns are suspicious through their very function. . . . To treat the word 'monopoly' or 'cartel' as if it were equivalent to Fascism is not a rational way to approach the matter."

Fascist-finding Mr. Wallace wrote: "Many people whose patriotism is their proudest boast play Hitler's game by retailing distrust of our Allies and by giving currency to snide suspicions without foundation in fact."

Advised the Times: "That generalization applies to retailing distrust not merely of our Allies but of fellow Americans. . . ."

Uncle Richard and Ernie

Two men, as unlike as any Chicagoans could be, made newspaper news this week:

P: Richard James Finnegan, who started 43 years ago as a copy boy, prepared to take over as publisher of Chicago's peppery tabloid Times (circ. 403,000).

P: Ernest Lessing Byfield, hotelier, swankster, who has never written a professional line, packed his bags to become a war correspondent for the Hearst-Chicago Herald-American (circ. 472,000).

Up Through the Ranks. Slender, white-haired, benign "Uncle Richard" Finnegan has done everything in newspapering except war correspondence. The late Edward Beck of the Tribune, often called Chicago's greatest managing editor, called Dick Finnegan its best newsman.

When the late Samuel Emory Thomason (TIME, March 27) broke away from Colonel Robert Rutherford McCormick, he teamed up with Editor Finnegan. Together they started the Times as a tabloid in form but not in sensationalism.

The Times was among the first on the New Deal wagon in 1932, waged many an editorial battle with Colonel McCormick. When Marshall Field tried to get an Associated Press franchise for his infant Sun, the Times voted to let him have it. But when the Government stepped in and, as Editor Finnegan put it, "tried to jimmy the Sun in," the Times turned its fight against the Government contention. On the Colonel's side this time, to his distaste, Finnegan led the fight for the A.P.'s appeal (now pending).

This week the Times's stockholders (employes own 37%) will elect Finnegan president-publisher, to succeed Mr. Thomason. This will change neither the policies of the Times nor of Editor Finnegan.

Up Through the "Pump Room." "Ernie" Byfield seldom, if ever, rides the El. He is vice president and general manager of a hotel company that owns and operates the Loop's huge Sherman, the North Side's plushy Ambassador West. A great & good friend of showfolk and other celebrities, he is the host at Chicago's super-posh "Pump Room" restaurant in the Ambassador East Hotel (also Byfield-operated).

Last week chubby, 54-year-old Byfield became a war correspondent overnight (at "around" $10,000 a year and expenses). His assignment: to write about Chicagoans in Britain. His approach to the job: "I think I might give Chicagoans something they want to know [about the war]. My stories will be primarily of Chicagoans and a comparison of present living conditions and habits in England and Scotland with those I knew when I used to visit there. ... I want to see and study the food and liquor situation" (he is Midwest distributor for "Old Rarity" Scotch).

Correspondent Byfield was hired by the Herald-American's Editor Walter Howey after the Daily News had told Byfield that it took on none but skilled newsmen for its prized foreign service. Editor Howey's hope: that Reporter Byfield will write as he talks.

Combat Legmen

The ordinary U.S. infantryman, foot-slogging G.I. Joe, has been grossly neglected by the U.S. press (TIME, April 10). Last week 14 infantry correspondents shoved off for a battlefront. They were the first members of a ground-force news corps which, the Army plans, will soon cover each active division with a similar team.

Unlike the Marines' correspondents, they will not file news. Instead, they will dig in with combat troops, get the story of the infantryman in action, supply it to civilian correspondents--in short, they will be the legmen and cameramen for the newsmen in their theater. All but one of last week's 14 are combat-trained; each is civilian experienced.

They are: Major Paul A. Conlin, ex-Washington Times-Herald reporter; Captain Richard D. Peters, ex-Cleveland Press; Captain James W. Hungate Jr., ex-Spokane Chronicle; Captain Earl M. Hoff, ex-Indianapolis Times; Lieut. Harry McCormick, ex-Dallas News; Lieut. Richard K. Tucker, ex-Indianapolis News; Lieut. Edwin H. James, ex-Los Angeles News Bureau; Lieut. Escar Thompson, ex-Associated Press at Nashville; Lieut. John W. Lueddeke, ex-Movietone News, formerly with the British Eighth Army in Africa; Sergeant John F. P. Tucker, ex-publisher of a Paterson, N.J. weekly; Corporal Edward Farnsworth, ex-Los Angeles freelance cameraman; Private Henry T. McLemore, ex-McNaught Syndicate columnist (his wife now writes it); Private Perry McMahon, ex-Pittsburgh Press; Private Carl Ritt, ex-Evansville, Ind. Press.

Argentine Armistice

The totalitarian Argentine Government last week granted armistice terms to foreign press associations. The terms : unconditional surrender to Government control.

Hereafter in the offices of U.P., A.P. and Reuters there will be a Government interventor to check incoming & outgoing dispatches.

The truce ended a 17-day shutdown of U.P. services (TIME, March 27), but only after Prensa Unida (Argentine subsidiary) had signed an "admission" that it had distributed "false news" about Argentina from Montevideo during its suspension. In Manhattan, U.P. officials said they knew nothing of circumstances under which the "admission" was signed.

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