Scoop Artist

Of the two dozen newsmen regularly covering the Congo, none has given his competitors more trouble than affable Wilfred Lazarus, 35, correspondent for the Press Trust of India. In a land where rumors flock like jungle fowl, communications are primitive and authorities both unreliable and distressingly perishable, Willie Lazarus regularly managed to uncover stories so breathtaking as to bring reporters for British and American wire services reproachful "callbacks" from their home offices.

A veteran of 15 years with P.T.I., Lazarus scored his first big Congo scoop when he reported that Congolese troops were threatening to attack the residence of India's Rajeshwar Dayal, who is U.N. Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold's personal representative in the Congo. Spotting the story in the august Times of India--one of 200 Indian dailies that sub scribe to P.T.I.--Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru rose in India's Parliament to protest the hostile attitude of the Congolese government toward his countryman. But other Congo hands could find no evidence for Lazarus' sensational story.

Last week the unabashed Lazarus turned up another bit of sensational news: from U.N. sources, he reported, he had learned that the troops guarding deposed Congolese Premier Patrice Lumumba not only roughed Lumumba up (see FOREIGN NEWS) but had also chewed off one of his fingers. With a nice feeling for local color, Lazarus added that oldtime Congo cannibals frequently began their meal with the victim's fingers, which they regarded as canapes.

In New Delhi, citing Lazarus' finger-chewing story as evidence, Jawaharlal Nehru again lectured his Parliament on the brutality of the regime headed by Congolese Strongman Colonel Joseph Mobutu. Again a check by Willie's competitors demolished his scoop: an inspection by a Belgian doctor found Lumumba under rigorous confinement in a Congolese army camp but with his fingers intact. But at week's end, despite outraged rumblings from the Congolese government, Willie Lazarus was sticking to his story. Said he: "I can't prove it, but I still believe it."

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