Pitchmanship at Geneva

Matched against the 158-man U.S. contingent, the four Russian newsmen seemed lost in the 1,174-man army of correspondents and technicians from 56 nations that swarmed through Geneva last week. But the Russians cared not a bit. Long on record as thinking the Big Four foreign ministers' conference a time-wasting prelude to the summit, the Russian government was out to shape the news, not report it. And Soviet press pitchmanship was an outstanding feature of the first conference week.

Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko set the style, soon became a topic of conversation among newsmen surpassing both the friskings by Swiss police and the frisky Swiss barmaids at press headquarters in Geneva's "Batiment Electoral." Landing in Geneva, Gromyko made a pithy statement specifically prepared to make pithy headlines. After that, in his dealings with the press, Gromyko set out to prove himself an amiable man of peace, erase the image of the sullen spokesman who so often barked nyet at the U.N. Security Council. While the Western foreign ministers tended to duck out of range, Gromyko smilingly posed for photographers, even agreed to chat with the New York Times's James ("Scotty") Reston and A. M. Rosenthal when they showed up unannounced at his villa.

Soviet Earful. Beyond Gromyko's personal performance, the Russians showed they have finally mastered the main news-shaping device of mid-century diplomacy: the formal briefing. With the foreign ministers meeting behind closed doors, many correspondents found the post-session briefings their only source of solid news, other than the handouts of speeches for which they scrambled wildly.

The Soviets always staged a good show. They grabbed off a large, airy upstairs conference room, while Britain and the U.S. were lodged in the basement. They were the only Big Four delegation to brief newsmen in two languages (Russian and English). While Western spokesmen --the U.S.'s earnest Assistant Secretary of State Andrew Berding, Britain's smooth Peter Hope and France's witty Pierre Baraduc--were stuck with reporting the actual facts of the conference, Russia's lively Mikhail A. Kharlamov labored under no such handicap, tirelessly and articulately peddled the Communist line.

Displaying a showman's neat touch, Kharlamov once produced Deputy Foreign Minister Valerian A. Zorin to field questions, later used the old politician's trick of calling a surprise session at noon in order to hit the afternoon papers with a fresh story (the claim that Russia would insist to the end on full participation for Communist Poland and Czechoslovakia). With such attractions, Russian briefings regularly attracted bigger audiences than those of the West.

Six-Sided Story. To the newsman attempting to follow the briefings over the earphone sets provided by the Swiss in the press building, the foreign ministers' conference often seemed bewilderingly contradictory. On a typical night, after the foreign ministers had agreed to seat the East and West German delegations at separate tables (see FOREIGN NEWS), a correspondent switching from briefing to briefing would have heard:

THE U.S.: The East and West Germans had been admitted only as advisers, could speak only if the Big Four agreed.

RUSSIA: The Germans had the right to "participate fully," and there was a "gentleman's agreement" among the Big Four to let the Germans speak up whenever they wished.

BRITAIN : There was no such agreement. If a Big Four minister objected to the Germans speaking, the session would be adjourned and the problem threshed out.

FRANCE: The Germans had been admitted but not as full participants--and letting the East Germans come within shouting range of the place was a basic mistake.

WEST GERMANY: Both German delegations were sitting in a strictly advisory capacity, and Bonn's Foreign Minister von Brentano would not even flatter the East Germans by his presence.

EAST GERMANY: The East German regime had at last been recognized by the imperialist West, with full participating rights in the conference.

Day after day in his briefings, Soviet Press Officer Kharlamov repeated his claim that the East Germans had been made full participants--implying diplomatic recognition by the West. On both sides of the Iron Curtain some news outlets accepted the line. Cried Radio Warsaw: "Victory for the U.S.S.R." Cabled Correspondent Mamoru Kikuchi to the Japan Times: "East Germany has won de facto recognition." Such was the effect of the Communist pitch that at one point U.S. Secretary of State Christian Herter felt obliged to spell out the West's attitude toward the East German regime during a conference session, persuaded Britain and France to do the same.

Yet, to its credit, the biggest part of the world's press was not fooled by the Soviet sleight of hand, played the news from Geneva pretty much down the middle. And the Western foreign ministers were determined to catch up with the Russians in handling the press. By week's end, Britain's Lloyd, France's Couve de Murville, and Herter were becoming increasingly available to newsmen. Said one of the foreign ministers to a group of newsmen: "It is for you we are working here--you and public opinion."

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