Tongue-Tied

Almost two years after the event, Americans learned of the "March of Death" (see p. 12). The public, often accused of complacency, of indifference to the war, once again had been let in late. At the moment the details came out, the Office of War Information, supposedly dedicated to making the news flow, was off in another violent intramural squabble.

OWI was not to blame for the tardy news release. When it first heard last November of the Japanese atrocities to U.S. prisoners, it tried to break the story, and failed, as usual. The fact that it was late to learn and slow to free the news underlined its basic defect. Last week the $36.5 million current investment in the war of words was tongue-tied while its two top men squabbled.

Tail-wagging. The debate appeared to be over whether the tail should be allowed to wag the dog. Tweedy, twangy Elmer Davis once headed a twin-sized domestic & foreign organization. Now the Overseas Branch, headed by Robert Emmet Sherwood, 47, the lank three-time Pulitzer Playwright, has about 97% of all OWI employes. The overseas budget is $34 million; the domestic is $2 1/2 million. As a friend and speech-doctor to Franklin Roosevelt, Sherwood has easy entry to the White House. Davis, presumably the nation's No. 1 news dispenser, is not even close. All the U.S. remembers that the President did not take Elmer Davis to Cairo and Teheran. In fact, Davis wasn't even invited to Quebec.

The clash between Davis and Sherwood started in Manhattan, spread to London, and focused in Washington. The men who actually guide OWI Overseas--newsman Joseph Barnes, economist James Warburg, editorial chief Edd Johnson--operate OWI's vertiginous New York office. Their job: to tell the truth, but not the whole truth about the U.S. to its friends and enemies, and to neutrals abroad. (News of U.S. strikes, for example, is not sent.) Critics have accused the Manhattan psychological warriors of being leftish, of being faction-ridden.

But this was not what angered Davis at Sherwood's Manhattan trio. He accused them of running their own show instead of carrying out the weekly Washington "directives" on how to slant news for overseas. Eight weeks ago, the London office's three best men quit over the same issue. Davis ordered Sherwood to fire Barnes, Warburg and Johnson. Sherwood refused. Forthwith Davis put the whole problem in Franklin Roosevelt's lap.

Lapful. It was thus up to the President to: 1) spank one and pat the other; 2) take the job away from both; or 3) set up a wholly new agency on top of OWI, with a new name on top, and nobody fired. This alternative seemed most likely.

The whole problem of honestly and swiftly giving the U.S. all possible, accurate and detailed war information was still unsolved.

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