Apology for a Fantasy

"We do not take action," said State Department Spokesman Mike McDermott huffily, "on fantasies or inanities."

The department was looking down its nose at nosy newsmen who had uncovered a secret State Department ban on any travel abroad by Professor Owen Lattimore. State insisted there was solid evidence (though it could not be specific) that the Johns Hopkins pundit, who has been under McCarthyist and McCarran committee fire for alleged pro-Communist activities, was planning a visit to the Iron Curtain domain. Retorted Lattimore, once a darling of State's Far Eastern experts: "Midsummer madness!"

Last week it became plain that Lattimore had a right to be outraged. The State Department had indeed maligned the professor on the basis of a fantasy.

The story that emerged had for its villain (or its goat) one Harry Jarvinen, 32, a naturalized citizen of the U.S. and a travel agency executive in Seattle. A Finnish army veteran, Jarvinen came to New York in 1941, enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1943, later worked in the immigration service and as a seaman before going into the travel agency line. For the past six years, he has been an unpaid, occasional tipster of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Late last May, Jarvinen and one of his CIA friends were having some drinks together. The travel agent said something which caused the CIA man to send a report to Washington. The report was read there as information that Lattimore had in fact bought tickets in Seattle for a flight to Paris and thence to a point behind the Iron Curtain. CIA, without responsibility for internal U.S. security, passed the report on to the FBI and the State Department. State, a bit sensitive on the subject of Lattimore, asked Treasury to send a confidential watch-and-stop order against Lattimore to its customs agents.

Meanwhile, the Jarvinen tip was being checked. But by the time the FBI last week advised that it was a pure fabrication, State's precautionary action had made headlines. Lattimore was being pilloried for something he had not done.

In Seattle, a federal grand jury quickly indicted Jarvinen for giving false information to the Government. Maximum penalty: $10,000 fine and five years in prison.

In Washington, the State Department in a thorough flap recalled its travel ban and apologized publicly to Lattimore: "Sincere regret over the embarrassment caused..." Said the professor: "This incident...discloses how close we are to...Government-by-informer...The State Department must be taught that a citizen...may not be restrained or deprived of his liberty on the basis of a false and irresponsible statement or the scandalously irresponsible report of a so-called intelligence agency..."

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