A Tight Lip Loosens

Some of the war's best photographs carhe out of the Pacific last week. The up-close, thick-of-battle quality of the pictures was evidence of the bravery and skill of the photographers on Iwo Jima, who worked in such a din of artillery and mortar fire that one of them, the A.P.'s bespectacled Joe Rosenthal, reported that he could not hear his shutter click. The speed with which the pictures appeared in U.S. newspapers was evidence of the Navy's growing press-sense.

Just 17 1/2 hours after the Marines landed on Iwo, the first invasion shots reached the U.S. They had been flown by Navy plane to Guam, sent by radio to San Francisco. News traveled even quicker, thanks to a radio transmitter which the Navy had installed on a warship a mile off the Iwo shore. Each day U.S. readers and radio listeners thus got the direct reports of newsmen on the scene.

It was another notable step toward bringing the Navy's public relations up to its fighting arm's high standards. As short a time ago as the Saipan and Guam invasions, all on-the-spot reporting had to trickle back by courier to Pearl Harbor, which meant it got to the U.S. eight to fourteen days late. Then the Navy yielded to press complaints, sent censors along with its forward units. Finally, at Palau, news was filed directly from an admiral's flagship as soon as radio silence could be broken. Iwo Jima's press arrangements were better still.

The man directly responsible for the Navy's improved press relations in the Pacific is Admiral Chester W. Nimitz' able new press chief, Captain Harold B. ("Min") Miller, 42, an Annapolis-trained airman, torpedo expert, author (short stories in Cosmopolitan, American Magazine), former U.S. Naval Air Attache in London. Captain Miller, who wrote the fast and full communique on the Battle of the Philippine Sea, a model of its kind, is the most likely candidate to become the Navy's top public relations man when and if Rear Admiral A. S. ("Tip") Merrill goes back to sea. Captain Miller's go-ahead stems from the fight of press-conscious Navy Secretary James Forrestal (a -spectator at Iwo Jima last week) to loosen the tongues of the Navy's tight-lipped top admirals. Secretary Forrestal has made it plain that the Navy must make friends with its employer, the U.S. people.

There were other signs last week that a new era in Navy public relations may be at hand:

P: The Navy promptly released casualty figures, issued a tactical explanation of why Iwo could not have been bypassed.

P: Newspapers carried photographs of stern Admiral Ernest J. King--whose smiles are almost as rare as Stalin's--actually laughing; even more startling, both he and Admiral William F. ("Bull") Halsey were shown with drinks in their hands (see cut).

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