H-Bomb Misfire

As the press got its first look at the movie film of the first hydrogen bomb blast at Eniwetok in 1952 (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), it also got a blunt warning. The 175 Washington newsmen who gathered in the Department of the Interior's auditorium were told that the H-bomb pictures and descriptions of them were not to be released until April 7--a full week away--so that magazines and newsreel producers would get an even break with the daily press, radio and TV. But within 24 hours after the briefing, H-bomb pictures and descriptive stories were spread over papers across the U.S., and were on every radio and TV network. It was, said the New York World-Telegram and Sun, "the most mishandled thing Washington has seen since the disaster at Pearl Harbor was kept 'secret' long after everyone --including the enemy--knew our fleet had been wiped out."

The mishandling began at the start. Though the film, shot 17 months ago, had long since been cleared for security, foreign newsmen were banned from the briefing. When protests poured in, particularly from British and Canadian correspondents, the decision was reversed. (Russia's Tass did not even bother to send a man to the briefing, and" no other Iron Curtain newsmen were spotted.)

Monstrous Fireball. As the press showing and briefing ended, it was clear that no one expected the week-long "embargo" to hold. Wire servicemen, moviemen and network reporters rushed the film back to their offices as if their deadlines were minutes away instead of a week. They started still pictures and stories moving over the wires and shipped the movies out by the first available planes. At the New York Times, Washington Bureau Chief James Reston advised his home office to be ready for the story to break at any moment.

As it turned out, the Times itself was the first paper to break the release. After putting their first edition to press, alert Times staffers spotted Drew Pearson's column in the early edition of the New York Daily Mirror. It was all about the H-bomb film, including a description of the "monstrous fireball . . . three miles in diameter." Since it seemed to the Times that Drew Pearson had broken the release date, Reston advised his office to run the story on the H-bomb film in later editions, but without the pictures.-- Then Reston called the Washington bureaus of the New York Herald Tribune and Associated Press to tell them of his decision.

Sleepless Night. For White House Press Secretary James C. Hagerty and Public Affairs Director John DeChant of the Federal Civil Defense Administration, it was a sleepless night. At about 2 a.m., the wire services called to say they were going to release their stories, since Drew Pearson and the Times had already done so. At 4:30, CBS was on the phone asking: What about the pictures? At 6:45, Hagerty and DeChant finally decided there was no use holding out, removed the embargo entirely. CBS, which had planned to break the release, any way, was on the air with the film at 7. NBC was not ready. Hagerty fumed--along with almost everyone else--at Drew Pearson's apparent breach of faith.

But when editors started calling Pearson to find out why he had broken the release date, no one was more surprised than Pearson himself. He had not even been to the briefing, or known about the one-week embargo. Actually, Pearson had got hold of the film script long before, had broadcast an H-bomb description three months ago with almost as many details as last week's column. No one had said anything about it. Last week's col umn, said Pearson, was written only be cause "I didn't have anything better to write about," and was sent out two days before the briefing. It was set in type in many papers before the hydrogen film Was shown to other newsmen. Snapped Pear son : "Just because I pulled an April Fool scoop on them is no reason for their accusations." Actually, Pearson's column caused no excitement in newspaper offices when it came in. Almost all of his syndicate customers ran it in its usual position far back in the paper.

Good Motives. At week's end, Jim Hagerty made a backhanded apology to newsmen for "the disadvantages that were placed upon the news-gathering agencies that were observing the [H-bomb] release date. I and other members of the Gov ernment will try to work out, with your help, a system where the chances of this happening again will be eliminated."

One way to eliminate it was suggested by the Washington Star: "When news, in text or pictures, is available for release by the Government it should be released. Artificial restrictions on use of the news, even though imposed with the best of motives, simply do not work. The news always leaks out."

* Manhattan's Spanish-language daily La Prensa broke the release date of an H-bomb picture by mistake. A staffer misread the date, got his paper a clear beat.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.