Iron Curtain in the Pentagon

As a topflight U.S. military analyst, the New York Times's Hanson W. Baldwin usually gets a cordial welcome at the Pentagon. But last week he got a rude surprise. When he tried to make appointments for talks with General Matthew Ridgway, Admiral Robert B. Carney, Lieut. General James Gavin and other high brass, he was turned down cold. Other Pentagon newsmen had similar experiences. An Army, Navy, Air Force Journal staffer asked for obituary material on a Marine brigadier general, did not get it until the handout was marked "reviewed and cleared" by a Navy captain.

The blackout at the Pentagon resulted from a new order put out by Defense Secretary Charles Erwin Wilson requiring all news or handouts on defense subjects to be submitted to his office for clearance three days before being released. Furthermore, Wilson ordered the military men in charge of public information for the different services to be topped by $14,800-a-year civilian superiors (not yet selected) and a general 30% to 50% cut in armedforces publicity staffs. Except for the details in his orders, Wilson was not acting on his own; he was ordered by President Eisenhower to plug the leaks in the Pentagon's information dike.

Too Many Voices. The President felt that 1) secret defense information was getting out, and 2) too many voices were speaking for the services. For example, last month Assistant Secretary of the Air Force Trevor Gardner gave a speech making extravagant assertions about Air Force guided missiles. Recently, Rear Admiral Daniel V. Gallery wrote an article for the Saturday Evening Post suggesting that prisoners avoid brainwashing by freely confessing to anything the Reds want (TIME, Jan. 31).

Last week, again in Satevepost, Skipper Eugene P. Wilkinson of the atomic submarine Nautilus had an article about the sub's first tests containing material that had not been printed before. But what finally brought on the Pentagon's new "gag rule" was Admiral Carney's "background remarks" to a group of Washington correspondents in which he discussed Chinese Communist intentions toward Matsu and Quemoy (TIME, April 11).

Field Day for Gossip. Last week reporters and newspapers all over the U.S. were protesting against the Pentagon's new information policy. Asked about the blackout, Presidential Press Secretary James C. Hagerty told newsmen: "The President has never believed in censorship of legitimate news . . . However, he has also always believed that there is no reason to make available to the enemy technical military secrets." Few newsmen quarreled with that view, but even fewer thought Wilson's directive was a means of accomplishing Ike's order. Wrote Atlanta Constitution Editor Ralph McGill: "What [Secretary Wilson] has done is to make a perpetual field day for the gossip peddlers--and the dealers in 'confidential' information out of Washington. All he has to do to have good public relations is to have honest public relations."

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