Pressagents1 War

From Normandy last week came a story that set the U.S. press afuming. Three reporters (Baltimore Sun's Lee McCardell, New York Post's Stanley Frank, Des Moines Register and Tribune's Gordon Gammack) and an artist, Parade's John Groth, attached to the Ninth Air Force had been ordered out of France. Their explanation: they had displeased the Ninth's public-relations chief, Colonel Robert Parham, a prewar United Press bureau manager, by reporting other news of the war, failing to devote themselves to producing publicity for the Ninth Air Force.

Questioned in Washington, Secretary of War Stimson declared: "I have had no more information . . . than was published from SHAEF.* That announcement stated that the moves were ordered as a consequence of the rotation policy now in effect, a policy which is caused by the great number of correspondents who must be taken care of in the theater."

In France other American correspondents who are attached to the Ninth Air Force backed up their ousted colleagues. Cabled the New York Herald Tribune's Jack Tait: "Correspondents have been told that they must confine the bulk of their activities to coverage of Ninth Air Force news [or] seek reassignment elsewhere. ... It seemed inconceivable that one group engaged in this war would consider publicity for itself more precious than giving the U.S. the story of this war."

Reported the New York Times's Frederick Graham: "Public-relations officers of the Ninth have been using almost as much pressure as Hollywood pressagents, stressing over & over that 'we brought you over here, we provide you with jeeps and feed you, and we expect you to write about the Ninth Air Force.' "

In London a SHAEF spokesman barked: "If public-relations personnel are guilty of ballyhooing and trying to dictate to correspondents, there will be some changes."

*Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces.

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