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This being a presidential year and all, hardly anyone expected Henry Cabot Lodge, U.S. Ambassador to South Viet Nam, to stay in Saigon indefinitely. But no one had any idea precisely when he would come home. No one, that is, except Max Frankel, the New York Times's diplomatic reporter in Washington. Ambassador Lodge, reported Frankel last week, "has asked to be relieved of his post within 30 days. Mr. Lodge told President Johnson that the resignation was prompted by reasons of health, which he did not specify."

Even as Frankel's story appeared, people began assailing its verisimilitude. White House Press Secretary George E. Reedy swore that the President "has received no such communication." In Saigon, Ambassador Lodge swam ten laps at the Cercle Sportif pool before facing inquisitive newsmen. "I'm supposed to be sick, am I?" he grinned and, with that, disavowed the story of his resignation. "There's no truth in it at all."

As it turned out, Frankel himself had not really considered his own story hot news. He wrote it several days before its appearance, slugged it "hold for Monday release," and then went picnicking all day Sunday with friends.

Where did that leave things? "It's conceivable that the information that came to me was wrong," Frankel said. "But, as so often happens, the publication of a story of this sort could alter the facts."

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