Manning the Barricades in Paris

Fuzzy picture of Chet Huntley in Paris. "This is Chet Huntley in Paris," says the picture, relayed to New York via communications satellite at a cost of $122.50 per minute. Switch channels. Fuzzy picture of Walter Cronkite, also in Paris, also costing $122.50 per minute. Neither had anything of substance to report about the Viet Nam peace talks that had brought them to Paris. Television never looks so hollow as when it focuses on an event that takes place behind closed doors or in men's minds. But there they were, along with more than 1,300 accredited newsmen from 39 countries. And there they had to be; the world has waited and hoped so long for the talks that nothing less than full attention would do.

Walter Lippmann came out of semi-retirement to be there. Most major U.S. newspapers were represented. Even Women's Wear Daily was on the scene, pursuing North Vietnamese female delegates for fashion comments. Surveying the crush of eager reporters, U.S. Ambassador Averell Harriman had only one comment: "Never have so many come so far for so little."

Telephoto Blonde. On days when the two sides actually met, hundreds of reporters and photographers crowded into a barricaded section of sidewalk outside the Hotel Majestic to record delegates' waves as they entered and their growls as they left. (Typical Harriman report: "We met for 3 1/2 hours and had extensive discussions.") To stave off boredom, photographers took to training their telephoto lenses on balconies of apartments near the Majestic, zeroing in mostly on the performance of a petite blonde with an extensive wardrobe of underwear on the fifth floor of No. 20 Avenue Kleber.

Reporters faithfully attended the official briefings that both sides held after every meeting at the Majestic. William J. Jorden, the U.S. spokesman, used a low-keyed hands-in-pockets approach, correcting himself meticulously whenever he slipped. Witness his remark that U.S. negotiators had objected to bombing "statistics being thrown about --we don't say that--being used" by the North Vietnamese. His opposite number, Nguyen Thanh Le, displayed fragments of antipersonnel bombs and napalm canisters and endlessly recited the North Vietnamese demands. As the recitation came full circle for the second or third time, reporters began drifting off to the snack bar.

Most productive stake-out of all has proved to be the bar and grill of the Hotel Crillon, next door to the American embassy. Harriman dines there regularly, and most members of the U.S. delegation can be found at the bar sooner or later. One reason stories are scarce, and off-the-record chats with the diplomats are hard to come by is the problem of electronic surveillance. At the Majestic, quipped one U.S. diplomat, "there must be so many bugs they ride side-saddle." The Crillon is considered no more secure. "The only thing we talk about in the Crillon is what to eat for dinner," said one official, and at Crillon prices ($1.40 for a glass of orange juice), those conversations tend to be curt.

No Chinese. Obviously, unless the news picks up, most of the visitors will soon depart--as have Huntley and Cronkite--to return when and if developments warrant. But already the Paris talks have broken all records for press coverage of peace negotiations. Fewer than 100 correspondents, for example, were in Reims to witness the surrender of Nazi Germany in World War II, and only 120 went to Kaesong for the opening of the Korean truce negotiations in 1951. The only major news organization not represented at the Paris talks, in fact, was Peking's New China

News Agency, which sent its Paris correspondent on "home leave" just before the negotiations began. That in itself could be interpreted as encouraging news.

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