Misfire

In her Washington Times-Herald, 29-year-old Editor Ruth Miller has faithfully echoed her Uncle Robert R. McCormick's Chicago Tribune blasts against the "slaughter" in Korea. Last week "Bazy" Miller fired a broadside all her own. Across two columns of Page One, she spread a letter from an anonymous "soldier-husband" to his wife that told a chilling story of the "horror that was the Hungnam evacuation--the American Dunkirk."

"I've been through hell--total bloody hell," said the letter. "Landed at [Pusan] half frozen from two days on open decks --no food but hot water to drink. Eleven hundred men . . . on a Victory ship--300 wounded--19 dead when we arrived . . . I was on the last ten ships to leave Hungnam . . . We left 300 on the beaches--mostly dying--why? . . . We waded in icy sea water to our hips to get into ships --men flopping all around like fish with bleeding holes . . . It's something so disastrous--and now we are in the line again . . ."

A Question of Ethics. When Secretary of Defense George Marshall read the letter, he promptly asked General MacArthur's headquarters to check the letter's "facts." Next day, Tokyo's reply was posted on the Pentagon newsroom's bulletin board:

"Statements in the Times-Herald letter are absolutely false . . . No men were left on the beaches; and none died of battle injuries among the last ten ships between Hungnam and Pusan. No men waded to ships.* Final 150 troops were lifted from beach by LVTs. There was no fighting on beachhead or nearby departing ships on final day. Troops on last ten ships . . . have not been recommitted to front lines . . . Strongly recommend take exception to ethics employed by editor of newspaper in publicizing so distorted, scurrilous and irresponsible a letter without offering the Navy an opportunity to substantiate or deny."

Tokyo had a good point. The Times-Herald had made no attempt to check the statements in the letter, given Bazy Miller by her old friend and fellow isolationist, Nevada's Senator George W. Malone, who had received it in the mail.

Neck-Deep in Snow. To drive home the point, the Navy's information boss, Rear Admiral Robert F. Hickey, went over to the Times-Herald office and handed a copy of Tokyo's repudiation to Executive Editor Frank Waldrop. After reading it, Waldrop replied: "If you had censorship, letters like that wouldn't be sent."

Editor Waldrop didn't have much of a point. In World War II, censors snipped out violations of security. But they sent along letters telling of just such incredible exploits, although they were often aware that they came from rear-echelon soldiers trying to impress the folks back home. The armed forces called such letters "snow jobs," (i.e., piling it on), and most newspapers checked such letters before printing them. In failing to do so, the Times-Herald got trapped in the snow.

* Though some did walk in shoe-top water to board ships.

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