Case Closed

As long as he lived, Edward Kennedy would never hear the last of May 7, 1945. He remembered it as if it were last Monday--the war in Europe was over; 17 newsmen had witnessed the surrender early that morning at Reims; their stories were written. But a top-level order from headquarters kept them from filing the great news.

Then Ed Kennedy, A.P. boss in Europe and veteran of 13 years with the A.P., got word that the Germans had announced the surrender over the Flensburg radio. He tried to reach Brigadier General Frank A. ("Honk") Allen Jr., SHAEF's bumbling press chief, finally got to the chief U.S. censor. "I give you warning now,'' said Ed Kennedy, "that I am going to release the story. I see no further reason for SHAEF to withhold it."

A few minutes later, his biggest A.P. story--and his last--started moving over the military telephone circuit from Paris to London. For jumping the gun, the Army disaccredited Ed Kennedy (TIME, May 21, 1945), and shipped him home. The painfully embarrassed A.P.--which had acclaimed his beat until it soured--clapped him in the doghouse.

Last week, after 14 months as a sort of pariah of the press, Ed Kennedy won what he regarded as vindication, and in a sense it was. To the Senate, California's Senator Sheridan Downey announced that General Eisenhower had reviewed the case and "removed any bar" to Kennedy's reaccrediting as an Army correspondent. Into the Congressional Record went: 1) a memo from Lieut. General Walter Bedell Smith, ex-SHAEF chief of staff, which said the Germans had made their Flensburg broadcast under Allied orders; 2) a War Department letter fixing its time as an hour and 54 minutes ahead of Kennedy's release.

In Manhattan, Ed Kennedy--who has been working half-heartedly on a book--finally felt free to look for a new job. After his return to the U.S., he was kept on the A.P. payroll--but given no work to do. Then, in November, he suddenly found $4,982.80 in his bank account. The A.P. had deposited the money, apparently as severance pay. No one has yet told him that he is no longer an A.P. employe.

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