Russian P.R.O.

Slim, scar-faced Constantine Zinchenko was up against his toughest job. He was one man, and the press at Paris was 1,650 strong. Some reporters found it hard to believe that Russia cared one whit about world opinion; Zinchenko was proof that, for reasons of her own, she did. As his Government's No. 1 press-relations man, he had been sent from Moscow on a major mission: to see that newsmen of 30 nations got a sound briefing on the Soviet line at the peace conference.

In Luxembourg Palace, Zinchenko sat through the long debates beside Molotov and Vishinsky. Whenever he left the Palace, his black portfolio tucked under the arm of his London-made suit, reporters beset him with questions. All evening long, his telephone rang in his small, untidy office at the embassy in the Rue de Crenelle.

The newsmen worked late, too; their calls pursued him to his suite at the Plaza Athenee Hotel. They knew they could not quote him, and that most of their questions would be parried. But he surprised many of them by fending them affably, in fair French or good English. About himself he was properly mysterious: the wise Russian bureaucrat shuns personal publicity in the foreign press.

No Favorites. On days when he did not have to eat with Molotov, he often went out to lunch with correspondents (no other Soviet official could be lured into lunching away from the embassy or the official Hotel Bristol). The newsmen he saw most frequently were those who sought him out. Two of these were the U.P.'s plump Edward Beattie Jr. and the New York Herald Tribune's diplomatic correspondent, Walter Kerr.

As head of the press section of the Foreign Ministry, able, thirtyish Constantine Zinchenko is the man who accredits or bars foreign correspondents who seek entry to Moscow, though the MGB (formerly NKVD) are finally responsible for keeping the foreign press colony so small. From their first day in Moscow, when they formally present their credentials to him, correspondents must deal with Zinchenko if they want interviews, transportation, stoves for their rooms, extra food, or transfer from one Metropole Hotel room to another.

Man with a Future. A graduate of the Komsomol (Young Communist League) and of the diplomatic school, the Soviet P.R.O. has been around more than most Russian civil servants, but never to the U.S. During the Battle of Britain he was third secretary (later first counselor) in the embassy at London. Two and a half years ago he was recalled to Moscow, promoted to his present job, which included censorship until the post office took it over six months ago. It is a post for men with a future. Apollon Alexandrovich Petrov, one of his predecessors, is now Ambassador to China. Another, the late Constantine Oumansky, became Ambassador to the U.S. and Mexico.

Around his home office, Zinchenko alternates between his London wardrobe and the grey, postmanlike uniform of the Foreign Ministry. He and his pretty wife have attended small parties at A.P. Correspondent Eddy Gilmore's house. There, and at embassy affairs, guests know him as a good conversationalist, a chain smoker, a man who carries his vodka well. But he may drink with a reporter one day, baffle him by ignoring him when in official company the next. Last year he escorted Mrs. Winston Churchill on her Russian tour, impressed her as a nice young man.

To correspondents, he never makes a promise, but always says "I'll see what I can do." They tell a story, possibly apocryphal, to show that Zinchenko has a sense of humor. An American newsman in Moscow was giving him a sales talk on freedom: "Why, back home," he said, "I can march into the White House at any time, shout 'Down with Truman!' and then march out. Nothing would happen to me." Grinned Zinchenko: "I can do that, too. I can march into the Kremlin at any time, shout 'Down with Truman!' and nothing will happen to me, either."

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