White-Topped & Even-Tempered

While eight saboteurs stood trial before seven generals (see p. 15), Elmer Holmes Davis, head of the Office of War Information, went on trial before a jury of his peers. The jury consisted of some 200 of the top newsmen in Washington who attended Davis' first press conference. Their verdict: that he was on the side of the angels, but that his wings were not yet strong enough.

White-topped Elmer Davis, the newsman with the reassuringly deadpan, mid-western voice, had held his job a month, but so little had been heard from him that correspondents had begun to cry, "Where's Elmer?" Last week they knew where he was: on the spot--put there prematurely by the issue of Army censorship over the Nazi saboteurs' trial.

More than that, newsmen learned that Elmer Davis, who had survived three years of Oxford without losing a trace of his Hoosier accent, had been perceptibly affected by a month in Washington. As he put it, his outlook on Army and Navy news had changed since crossing "to the other side of the fence."

In short, even-tempered Elmer Davis had decided that he had a new boss: he was no longer working directly for the U.S. people but for the U.S. Government. He was not going to exert the authority which he had (under the Executive Order which created his job) to make the Army & Navy loosen up on information. He did not choose to fight for it. But he had made the services admit his right to consult with them about news releases. And already he had showed that he could get something from them that way. The question was: Could he get enough to satisfy the nation?

Standing on his own two feet Davis also told the newsmen for 50 minutes, in terms as simple as his news broadcasts used to be, what he had done to bring some order into the nation's madhouse of official war information.

> Each Government agency will continue to issue its own nonwar news releases as heretofore, but if one wishes to issue a release that bears on the war effort, it will be cleared through OWL

> The War and Navy Departments will still have the final say on what news will be given the public about armed services, lest it give aid to the enemy.

> OWI will clear and coordinate all Government projects relating significantly to the war for radio broadcasts, motion pictures, posters, advertising, etc.

> OWI will take charge of official news disseminated overseas, except in Central & South America (Nelson Rockefeller's bailiwick).

To carry out OWI's job of clearing and coordinating official war information, Director Davis set up a working organization, with the help of a crack Washington administrator, Milton Stover Eisenhower (brother of the U.S. Army Commander in the European theater of war).

They laid out three overall divisions. Gardner Cowles Jr., absent-eyed but able publisher of the Des Moines Register and Tribune and Look, president of Iowa Broadcasting Co., a new face on the official Washington scene, was brought in to head the OWI branch on domestic news. Sad-faced, elongated Playwright Robert Sherwood takes over the dissemination of over seas news. Archibald MacLeish, whose OFF had been swallowed up in the reorganization, becomes head of the "Policy Development Branch." His job: relationships between OWI, the policy-forming officials of Federal agencies, and between OWI and representatives of the United Nations.

These announcements, coming from Elmer Davis, sounded sensible enough, but the set-up still seemed mighty complicated. Newsmen, knowing that Elmer could not resist giving a plain answer, put him a few plain questions, and the whole thing began to come a little clearer:

> OWI would originate few press releases, would mostly pass on those issued by other agencies.

> OWI will not try to do any censorship--that is the job of Censor Byron Price.

> Of the saboteur trial: "There is much secret evidence here, as you know." Then, finally and frankly: "I think the public has a right to know what goes on in our trials so far as it does not involve security."

> In case Army or Navy refuse information, the press can appeal to him informally and maybe he will put up an argument with the services. Knowing Elmer, newsmen thought he would.

> Did he think that the Navy had been telling the public enough truth about ship sinkings? "In the few days that I have seen closely what has been told I think so. I have not found an inclination in the services to hold back information simply because it was bad."

> Would he try to get Army & Navy to clarify their communiques so that the public would not be left in the dark about such questions as whether it was the Army or Navy that had won the Battle of Midway? "This office can offer its services as mediator."

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