New Voice at VOA

"He is a man whose voice and whose face and whose mind is known to this country and to most of the entire world," said President Johnson as he announced the appointment of a new director of the Voice of America last week. And indeed, NBC-TV's John Chancellor at 38 is the best-known person ever to be put in the post--as well as the first working newsman.

"I was happy as a flea working at the White House for NBC," says Chancellor a bit ruefully. But Johnson, who had enjoyed many chats with Chancellor down at the ranch in Texas, changed his mind for him. "I found out what the Johnson treatment is," says Chancellor, giving his version of the arm-twisting technique: "He strips away your arguments--money, career--until he makes you see the job on his terms. So there is no ethical alternative."

The new job will be something of a change of pace for Chancellor, who has always preferred active reporting to desk work. He quit the University of Illinois in his junior year to go to work for the Chicago Sun-Times, later covered robberies, fires, riots for NBC news in Chicago. On one occasion, he reported a cops-and-robbers gunfight while sprawled on his stomach with bullets whizzing over his head. His coverage of the 1956 presidential campaign impressed Adlai Stevenson enough to offer him a job on a projected White House staff. While reporting the last Republican convention, Chancellor suffered the indignity of being carted out of the hall by the cops. He did not lose his aplomb. "I'm being taken down off the arena now by the police," he calmly reported over TV as he was being ousted, "and I'll check in later. This is

John Chancellor, somewhere in custody." He will need that aplomb in his new job. VOA is under attack, on the one hand, for broadcasting too much material critical of the U.S.; on the other, for trying to sell America too hard. When Chancellor's predecessor, Henry Loomis, quit last March, he criticized the Administration for making the Voice too propagandistic. Chancellor says that he intends to maintain VGA's objectivity, reporting the bad as well as the good side of the news about the U.S. Johnson says he wants the same thing, though it can be argued that the Voice of America should not go out of its way to reflect the criticism of U.S. policies so regularly published in many newspapers and magazines. "Our main weapon is our freedom to make our own mistakes and solve our own problems out in the open," says Chancellor. "We can't be Buddha-like."

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