The Press: More Chances?

“Something must be done at once . . .” cried New Hampshire’s irascible Republican Senator Styles Bridges last week. “This landing . . . was announced by a radio correspondent. The troops were given no chance to get into position. The Kremlin was given every opportunity to bring additional forces . . . into the line to oppose the 2nd Division.”

The target of Bridges’ wrath was CBS Newscaster Bill Costello, who last week broadcast the news that the 2nd Infantry Division was landing at Pusan while soldiers were still hitting the beach. But if any help had been given the enemy, the fault was not Costello’s alone. He had picked up his information from a United Press dispatch, was ahead of the newspapers only because his morning broadcast beat early afternoon editions.

Cause to Sweat. The prime blame for the leak should have been put on Howard Handleman, International News Service bureau chief in Tokyo, who wrote the first dispatch announcing that fresh U.S. troops had arrived in Korea to the tune of two brass bands. Handleman’s report violated a correspondents’ agreement to wait for an official release from General Headquarters, ignored a GHQ ruling against revealing the arrival of new units until they were in action. After he filed, U.P. put out the story also. Said Handleman in self-justification : “I stand on what I file. If they had two bands down at the dock to meet them, I don’t see where there’s any further question of security involved.”

Army Public Information officers, hot under the collar at Handleman’s story, were given fresh cause to sweat only a day later. Spurred on by INS reports that some of the ist Marine Division had reached Korea, the Associated Press announced the arrival of the division nearly 24 hours before it actually happened. Army men were worried, too, by front-line stories detailing U.S. losses and plans—a practice for which the U.P.’s Robert Miller had been reprimanded early in July.

Time for Action. For all these violations of security, the Army could blame itself as well as correspondents. Early in the war, Correspondent Handleman and U.P.’s Tokyo bureau chief, Earnest Hoberecht, had asked the Army for some kind of military censorship. This and other such suggestions had been turned down by General MacArthur in favor of “voluntary censorship” (TIME, July 24). This ruling failed to recognize that newspapermen might honestly misjudge the importance of a particular piece of information. Nor did it allow for the fact that in the fiercely competitive business of news gathering there are bound to be men whose self-restraint will give way before their desire for a scoop.

Some correspondents agreed with Senator Bridges that “something must be done at once . . .” Said one Tokyo newsman: “It’s time we faced up to the fact that a premature report of a troop landing means lives. I don’t think we should take any more chances.” Unless the Army is willing to institute censorship, or at least enforce an ironclad rule against reports of troop movements still in progress, it is virtually certain that more chances will be taken.