Correspondents at Bay

The newsmen covering the Korean war landed noisily on the front pages themselves last week, found it an uncomfortable feeling to be principals in the news, as well as its reporters. But their strange role brought a quick reward: General Ridgway skillfully used the issue they had raised to the full advantage of the western world (see WAR IN ASIA).

The trouble in the press corps began when correspondents, covering the U.N. negotiators' take-off for the preliminary Kaesong meeting, were barred from the helicopter area by a barbed-wire fence and armed guards. There was no press camp, no food, and information was scarce.

At the briefing session that night, an officer on Ridgway's information staff conceded that "conditions are not satisfactory to the press corps . . . But the press was not [at Kaesong] because my orders were that they shouldn't be." The admission threw the press into an angry uproar. New York Times Correspondent George Barrett bellowed: "Who is responsible for this foul-up?" Then as Chief U.N. Representative Colonel Andrew J. Kinney confirmed that the Communist press was represented at Kaesong, the session broke into a tumult of charge and countercharge. Why couldn't U.N. reporters go? When Kinney admitted that .Kaesong was really a Communist-held city, an Army censor broke in to warn correspondents not to use the information. Snapped Chicago Daily Newsman Fred Sparks: "I regard this information as so important that I will not abide by your censorship." The censor's ruling was reversed.

Into the free-for-all jumped Ridgway's new top information officer, Brigadier General Frank A. Allen. Though a good combat officer, Allen's record as a P.R.O. does not inspire confidence in war correspondents. As press chief for General Eisenhower during World War II, he was blamed for holding up news of the German offensive at the Battle of the Bulge. He also held up the news of the German surrender and war's end until the A.P.'s Ed Kennedy defied the ban and broke the story. Now, Allen assured the newsmen that the U.N. delegation would insist on press representation at Kaesong. Said he: "We hope for equal coverage with Tass men." Reporters in the room groaned.

Double Cross? Next day, General Ridgway himself jeeped over to try to talk to the newsmen. He explained that they could not go to Kaesong until the talks were really "on track." Meanwhile, the matter of press coverage had "high priority." But at the next briefing session, things were worse than ever. Army and Navy officers did such a bad job describing what had happened that it was plain neither had been at the second truce meeting. A few reporters, who had been drinking too much for their own good, hooted derisively. U.P. Correspondent Earnest Hoberecht angrily cried: "General Ridgway assured us that the briefing officers would attend the conferences. I say we've been double-crossed."

The correspondents argued that much more than mere journalistic vanity was at stake. The Reds were winning an important propaganda victory. The U.N. negotiators were coming back from the truce meetings so tired that they were not giving their information officers full, detailed stories of what had occurred. Instead of telling the free world what was happening, U.N. correspondents in Korea were being told by their Tokyo offices what was going on; Tokyo was getting it from Communist broadcasts. When one correspondent told that to General Allen, he replied: "But the Communist press isn't free. All it puts out are lies."

Finally the Army agreed to take five photographers to Kaesong, but ordered them to rip off their press shoulder patches so that they could pass as "photographers accredited to the U.S. Army." While a technically accurate description, correspondents thought this a clumsy subterfuge. At last General Allen made the announcement that 20 newsmen would be taken to the next meeting at Kaesong.

Payoff. When the Reds refused to let them in, thus breaking off the peace talks, many a newsman had second thoughts. Some of those who had complained loudest at being excluded from Kaesong wanted no part of the responsibility for halting negotiations. They were ready to drop all attempts to go to Kaesong even though General Ridgway stood firm, even broadened his demands on the Reds. But at week's end, when the Reds gave in to General Ridgway, it was plain that the correspondents' stubborn stand had led to an important victory for U.N.

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