Washington Witch Hunt

Why was Princess Anne's mood in the U.S. as blue as her royal blood? London's Sunday Mirror last week blamed "the witches of Washington." Wrote Mirrorwoman Paula James: "Everywhere that Anne went, the witches went too--pushing and shoving the Princess and asking questions." In remarkably similar language, another London Sunday paper hissed that Washington's "ladies of the broomstick" harassed Anne. And who are the witches? The unsigned piece in The People meowed: "The group of ill-mannered ragbags who call themselves social columnists."

Washington's female press corps reacted by baring its own claws. The real reason for Anne's sulk, said Lynn Lang-way of the Chicago Daily News, was that "she just found out who won the Revolution and she's a sore loser." Other reporters complained that when they tried to get close enough to the Princess to hear her quotes, they were elbowed out by Miss James. One remembered the way she dealt with a U.S. photographer who got in her way: the Briton called him an "American pig."

The flying feline fur blurred a few facts. Far from being harassed by hordes of U.S. newswomen, the Princess was regularly accompanied by a pool of only six reporters, two of them British. True, the U.S. pool members included U.P.I.'s Helen Thomas and A.P.'s Frances Lewine, among the fiercest rivals in the entire Washington press corps. But both, by their normal standards, were considerably subdued in the royal presence. Miss Thomas asked Anne only one question: how she liked the view at the Washington Monument. When the Princess frostily replied, "I do not give interviews," Miss Thomas uncharacteristically gave up.

As for pushing and shoving, Miss James should have seen the two wire-service combatants when they accompanied President Nixon on a yacht ride in California last summer. Finding only one ship-to-shore phone available, they almost came to blows as they wrestled to make the first call. That sight might have made even Princess Anne smile.

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