Palmer Hoyt Goes West

For 200 days Palmer Hoyt tried to run the Domestic Branch of OWI the same way he used to run his newspaper. It had taken him twelve years to grow from copyreader to publisher of the Portland Oregonian; it took him six months to convince Washington once more that the often-lamented shortage of Westerners in the Federal administration is Washington's loss.

When Edwin Palmer ("Ep") Hoyt left OWI last week, he had faithfully kept his three promises of last June: 1) to serve as "a people's advocate" inside the Government; 2) to squeeze real news out of the war agencies instead of participating in the fancy hide-&-seek game of domestic "propaganda"; 3) to go home after six months.

The job Oregonian Hoyt accepted last June was actually a receivership: he took over OWI's Domestic Branch at the very moment Congressional fury had broad-axed the agency, cutting its budget by 75%. Hoyt realized that OWI's strength is derived not from the size of its payroll but from the credit it has with public opinion. Instead of telling the newspapers, he invited them to tell OWI.

Deeply distrustful of propaganda wizardry at home, Hoyt raised hell, sometimes in public, with that school of governmental thought that wants to manipulate the people into "war awareness." His prescription: just give them a play-byplay account of the real war, as swiftly, as honestly, and as completely as legitimate security reasons permit. He succeeded conspicuously in the days of Tarawa. But this was still the exception emphasizing the questionable rule that, for instance, was applied to the Bari disaster: to resent rather than encourage the people's desire to participate in the ups & downs of military operations.

A Beggar's Power. As Palmer Hoyt looked back at six months in Washington, he understood the structural sickness of OWI. Formally, the agency exercises the President's power to direct all other agencies' communications to the people. Actually, and particularly in its dealings with the military, OWI has the authority of a beggar asking alms. The reason: instead of being present at the military chiefs' daily reports to the President, and advising him on the spot what parts of the report should be instantly released, OWI's directors are at the mercy of the War & Navy Departments' "public relations" officers. The news that is kept from the people is as often as not kept from OWI too. What news the agency could squeeze out of the military was predigested by officers who often did not know the score themselves and, more often than not, were rather innocent of experience with the processes of public opinion.

In Hoyt's place came 38-year-old, Natchez-born George W. Healy, on a ten-months leave of absence from his job as managing editor of the New Orleans Times-Picayune. The reserved Mr. Healy had no plans for any change in the Domestic Branch's inherited setup. When he returns next October to Louisiana, his predecessor may be well on his way back to Washington, though in another branch of government. For the State of Oregon will have to pick a new Senator.

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