The Brass Moves In

Should the G.I. press be free or slave? In the precise military mind of Lieut. General John C. H. ("Courthouse") Lee, there was no question about it. Last week, at a press conference in Rome, the starched boss of the Mediterranean theater, famed as a stickler for propriety and protocol, sounded off. He had ordered all letters to the once-popular "Mail Call" column of Stars and Stripes "screened" by the brass before publication.

Explained Courthouse Lee: "This is not a free newspaper. . . . I can break up Stars and Stripes. I can order all these men somewhere else. . . . But I don't intend to." A reporter suggested that the paper's chief value had been its staffers' freedom to write like newsmen, unshackled by the Article of War (No. 63) that forbids disrespect to superiors. Lee set him straight: "Any man in my command, sir, who wears the uniform is first of all a soldier." He thought the matter would settle itself, anyway, since the Army presently would be "a career Army rather than [a] democratic Army."

When the General's views got around, a hell-to-breakfast howl went up. Stars and Stripes alumni recalled a year-old legend: General Lee, like the late General Patton, had tried and failed to get Cartoonist Bill Mauldin's Willie & Joe (who grew up in Stars and Stripes) suppressed--or shaved. One old grad, Colonel Egbert White, fired a hot protest to Chief of Staff Eisenhower, called Lee's order " a drastic departure from the policies you established and supported." (In Paris, an officer once ordered Stars and Stripes to do something for the boys: print as a slug line between every story "HAVE YOU KILLED YOUR GERMAN TODAY?" He Was talked out of it.)

At week's end the outcry led Brigadier General Charles Dasher, Rome area commander, to hold up the letter-censoring order, for the time being.

But the military mind was closing in on the G.I. journals. Fortnight ago the Berlin edition suffered a body blow. The brass ruled that any letter to its "B-Bag" section, the doughfoots' one safety valve, must bear the letter writer's name, rank and serial number (not for publication, but in case the letters called for action). Under a rule like that, nobody was likely to pop off.

Was freedom of the press a luxury or a necessity in service publications? In the traditional Army view, they were official publications and could not be free. But there was no doubt how their staffs felt, or their readers: in that case, they would rather have no paper at all.

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