The Press: Typewriter Curtain

Like public officials everywhere, New York’s new Governor W. Averell Harriman likes to hold informal, off-the-record meetings with reporters. But unlike most state governors, Harriman had a special press problem: Albany Correspondent Michael Singer of Manhattan’s Communist Daily Worker. Last week Harriman’s press secretary, Charles Van Devander, barred Singer and all other Worker reporters from Harriman’s off-the-record conferences (but not from regular press conferences).*

Cause of the ban: Harriman’s reluctance “to talk as freely with other Albany correspondents in the presence of a representative of the Daily Worker.”

* In Washington Tass correspondents are not invited to Cabinet officers’ background sessions, but do attend full-dress press conferences, including those held by President Eisenhower.