A Small Mistake

In reporting a court-martial conviction last year, the Army's Stars & Stripes in Germany made what seemed a small mistake: it got the accused's middle initial wrong. The accused was Lieut. Colonel Richard F. Whitcomb, convicted of looting a requisitioned house in Germany (his conviction was later reversed). But in getting the story over the phone, Stars & Stripes put down Whitcomb's initial as "S." From that point on, the mistake grew to impressive proportions.

The Associated Press put the story on the wire with the additional information (obtained from the Army) that Whitcomb's home town was Worcester, Mass., near Boston. Boston papers dug into their morgues to see what they had on Richard S. Whitcomb. They had plenty. He had been general sales manager of the 'telephone company in Boston, candidate for the Republican nomination for governor in 1938, and a colonel in World War II. There was one discrepancy: his home town was Longmeadow, a suburb of Springfield, and not Worcester.

After slapdash checking, Boston papers (Post, Herald, Traveler, Globe, Advertiser) and the Springfield Republican and News ran the story. Some used pictures of Richard S. Whitcomb of Longmeadow.

Then Richard S. Whitcomb set them straight. He had never been in Germany, never been court-martialed. In fact, at the time of Richard F. Whitcomb's conviction, he was president of a Boston drug company and his name was listed in the Boston phone book. The papers quickly printed retractions, but Whitcomb filed separate libel suits for $250,000 each against the Boston papers, the U.P. and the Springfield Republican and News.

Last week a jury awarded Whitcomb (now a brigadier general on active duty) a total of $65,000 against the Boston papers (Suits against the Springfield Republican and News, and the U.P.--which said Whitcomb was from Longmeadow--are yet to be heard.) The A.P., which had relayed the wrong name to the U.S. m the first place, was lucky. It had not picked up the beefed-up Boston stories, hence stayed out of trouble.

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