Drawing the Line

The day after the North Korean Reds invaded South Korea (TIME, July 3), Editor Wesley Izzard of the Amarillo, Texas Globe & News (circ. 60,079) jeered at the Truman Administration for its indecisive policy in the Far East. Wrote Izzard: "Will we go to war over Korea? Not now. Maybe later--many years from now. You see, Russia plans her moves knowing [that we will merely] issue protests and adopt resolutions [while] the Reds will move right along . . ." But the next day, when President Truman ordered U.S. military aid to the South Koreans, astonished Editor Izzard stood up and cheered: "Today we are proud to be an American. At last the United States has come to an abrupt halt on the long road from Yalta to Korea . . ."

The Amarillo Globe's overnight switch was duplicated by many another U.S. newspaper last week. From New York to Los Angeles, there had not been such an impressive near-unanimity of editorial reaction since Pearl Harbor. Editorialized the Fair Dealing Nashville Tennessean: ". . . face the issue now . . ." Agreed the Republican Portland Oregonian: ". . . no choice in honor or in duty . . ."

Strange Bedfellows. Politics, as usual, made some strange bedfellows. Almost the only all-out opposition to the President's action came from the Communist and the extreme isolationist press. Manhattan's Communist Daily Worker and its West Coast echo, the People's World, attacked the "U.S. military and diplomatic establishments" for "starting" the war. The Worker, parroting broadcasts from Moscow, blandly stated that the South Koreans had done the attacking instead of the other way around, headlined:

RIGHTIST ATTACK REPELLED IN KOREA.

Colonel Bertie McCormick's Chicago Tribune sounded so much like the Communist press that the Washington Post lamented that people might soon label it "the prairie edition of Pravda." Cried the Trib: "Mr. Truman's statement on Korea is an illegal declaration of war . . ." But the New York Compass, which has often walked the Communist line, this time jumped off. It blamed the Reds and got a characteristic reward from its former friends: Compass Columnist I. F. Stone was accused of "slimy Titoism."

Extra, Extra. All over, newspaper circulations soared. In Dallas, the Times-Herald (circ. 140,534) doubled its street sales in one afternoon. Portland's Oregon Journal (circ. 190,844) put out a daily extra, increased its sales by 35,000 copies for the week. (The Journal's copy desk also invented a more convenient headline word to describe the North Korean Communists: KO-REDS.) Though newspapers quickly took on their old wartime look with Page One photos of General MacArthur, B-29s and tanks, and the first casualty lists, most of the U.S. press followed Harry Truman's advice: "Don't make it alarmist."

There were exceptions: Hearst's tabloid Boston Daily Record, New England's biggest (circ. 383,574), shouted: EXTRA.

RUSSIANS IN TANKS INVADING SO. KOREA.

Hearst's New York Journal-American ran an equally inaccurate scare head (RUSSIANS JOIN FIGHT). On the other hand, many a paper ran optimistic "reliable reports" that also turned out to be untrue. First Blood. For some of these early inaccuracies and confusions, the newspapers could be excused: when war came to

Korea, there was only a corporal's guard of correspondents on hand. The first man with news of the North Korean attack was Jack James of the United Press, whose flash from Seoul reached Washington shortly after 9 p.m. on a sweltering Saturday night--more than 20 minutes before the coded cable from U.S. Ambassador John Muccio.

Shortly after the fighting began, a handful of correspondents, already in the Far East, flew to Korea. One of these was the New York Herald Tribune's Marguerite Higgins, only woman correspondent on the spot. Winsome, blonde Reporter Higgins, a World War II correspondent, filed a series of stories that the Trib splashed across Page One. The Chicago Daily New's Keyes Beech sent back a good dramatic account ("I have a feeling that I have just witnessed the beginning of World. War III . . ."). So did the Chicago Tribune's Walter Simmons, who was in Seoul when the fighting started and was billed inaccurately by the Trib as "the only correspondent at the front."

Newsmen were also among the first U.S. casualties. Burton Crane of the New York Times and Frank Gibney of TIME* were riding in a jeep when a bridge they were about to cross was blown up. They were cut about the face and head.

The same day, General MacArthur flew to Korea (see WAR IN ASIA), taking along four correspondents--the Associated Press's Russell Brines, the United Press's Earnest Hoberecht, International News Service's Howard Handleman, and Australian Newsman Roy MacArtney. In the Bataan, when it flew back to Tokyo with MacArthur, was LIFE'S Photographer David Duncan, who took with him the first complete picture coverage of the war. (His photographs appear in this week's LIFE and TIME.)

Second Thoughts. As U.S. newspapers and magazines rushed reinforcements to Korea, the Department of Defense explained that it could give only tentative accreditation; the final O.K. rested with MacArthur. At week's end, news dispatches, all of which had to go out by a single Army telephone from South Korea to Tokyo, were being "surveyed" (i.e., censored) for security.

To keep the Washington press corps abreast of events, top Army, Navy and Air Force officers began daily briefing sessions in the Pentagon. It was also a way of telling the Russians what was what. When Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson and Washington newsmen were discussing the U.S. decision to draw a defense line in front of Formosa, Japan and the Philippines, Johnson looked around and asked: "Is the Tass man here?" Mikhail ("Mike") Fedorov of Russia's Tass news agency quickly turned and walked away, shaking his lowered head in evident embarrassment. "He heard what you said," a newsman told the Secretary. Replied Johnson: "That's all right. I wanted him to hear that we had drawn the line. That's what we want them to know."

* For Gibney's report, see WAR IN ASIA.

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