O'Donnell's Foul

Many an honest U.S. newspaperman was outraged last week by flashy, pompous New York Daily News Columnist John O'Donnell, whose hatred for Franklin Roosevelt* and all his works sometimes leads him to flout the standards of his own profession. O'Donnell wrote, as a plain statement of fact, that contraceptives and prophylactic equipment were to become Government Issue for the WAACs.

For days Washington and the U.S. Lave hissed with rumors of WAAC immorality and misconduct, which have made many women reluctant to enlist. O'Donnell gave the rumors wings and beak, reporting the rumors and then refuting them in such a way as to leave doubt whether he was taking it back or not.

His last report came, O'Donnell admitted later, from the usual "intelligent and trustworthy official." O'Donnell saw it as "... a victory for the New Deal ladies who [think that] girls who want to go into uniform and fight . . . have the same right here and abroad to indulge their passing fancies." He also quoted "a lady lawmaker": ". . . You men think that there is nothing wrong if a soldier sleeps with a girl so long as he keeps his health. Well, the same argument goes both ways."

Up rose Director Oveta Gulp Hobby: "There is absolutely no foundation of truth in the statement." Tough old War Secretary Henry L. Stimson was moved to issue a formal statement: "... I have made a thorough investigation of all these rumors.* They are completely false. . . . Anything which would interfere with [WAAC] recruiting or destroy the reputation of this corps and, by so doing, interfere with increase in combat strength of our Army, would [aid] the enemy. . . ."

Even this poke-in-the-nose failed to draw a retraction from O'Donnell, whose unsubstantiated blockbuster was a Jcruel blow to the WAACs and the war effort.

The Army wanted more WAACs (500,000 have been requisitioned) to release more men for combat, Congress was considering bills to make them a part of the regular Army, to allow WAVES to serve abroad. The U.S. was discovering, as England cud long ago, that womanpower is essential to the armed forces in total war. O'Donnell's rumormongering was not calculated to speed that discovery.

*On Dec. 18, 1942, the President was so displeased over an article O'Donnell wrote--facetiously sniping at U.S. censorship--that he informally awarded him a German Iron Cross. *Sample rumor: many pregnant WAACs have been shipped home from North Africa. Fact: three of 250 have been sent home, for 1) unsuitable temperament, 2) gall-bladder ailment, 3) legitimate childbirth.

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