Death of a Correspondent

United Press's Webb Miller knew well that world newsbeats seldom happen by accident. Big scoops more often depend on knowledge of lines of communication, as necessary to a newsman as to a brigadier general. Because Webb Miller knew his communications, he ranked as a general in the corps of war correspondents.

A fitting end to Miller's career was United Press's scoop on Germany's invasion of the Low Countries last week.

Though Webb Miller did not live to see the story, he, as U. P.'s general European manager, was partly responsible for developing the channels which made it possible for U. P.'s account of the bursting Blitzkrieg to reach the U. S. nearly three hours ahead of other reports.*A timid cub of 19 when he went to Chicago in 1912 from Dowagiac, Mich., Webster Miller got a job on the American's police beat. He cut his first name for euphony, soon hid his timidity. When in 1916 Pershing went into Mexico after Villa, Webb Miller went along. United Press hired him, sent him to Columbus, N. Mex., Mexico City, then to Washington. One July day in Washington (1917) he got a telephone call: "Catch the 4 o'clock train to New York. You'll get here at 9 and will sail at midnight [for London]." He covered the Irish Rebellion, flew over the German lines immediately after the Armistice, in his book I Found No Peace first presented diminutive Roy Howard's written story of how Howard was misled into breaking the false news of the Armistice four days before it occurred in 1918.

After U. S. troops had returned from World War I, Webb Miller stayed behind as chief of U. P.'s Paris bureau. At the Cannes Conference in 1922 he met a stubby reporter for Milan's Popolo d'Italia.

Ten years later II Duce was to put an arm around Miller's shoulder, tell him "Maybe I shall be a reporter again, too." Webb Miller made a warm friend of Spain's Primo de Rivera during the Riff campaign, later wangled direct news items from him, toll prepaid. Astride a sandbagged parapet, he flashed the first news of Italy's advance on Ethiopia, got the word to Rome ahead of the official Italian story.

He saw the Alcazar fall in the Spanish Civil War. He wrote how the Finnish cold froze cigaret butts between puffs.

His cigaret case bore the autographs of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Mussolini, Hitler, Lloyd George, etc. Gandhi signed it when he promised to carry no more cigarets therein.

One day last week in London Webb Miller lunched with Fellow Veteran Raymond Daniell of the New York Times, covered Parliament's acrid session on Chamberlain's failure in Norway, told his office he was leaving for his country home at Cobham. In an inky blackout, Miller's train gathered speed out of Clapham Junction station. He opened the door of his railway compartment--or somehow it came open--and Webb Miller pitched out to his death on the railway tracks.

D. N. B., the Nazi news bureau, tried to improve on his death. It asserted that he was murdered by Britain's secret service because he was increasingly critical "described Chamberlain as ... 'tired' . . . 'uneasy' . . . 'unconvincing.' "

*Two days earlier, Associated Press made a scoop of a different sort. While Berlin vehemently denied it, A. P. announced from "an authoritative source in New York" that two German columns were advancing toward The Netherlands.

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