Chief CBS Washington Correspondent ERIC SEVAREID: TV and newsreel film of [Ike's] weekly news conference will give the people a more intimate understanding of what goes on, but not by any means a complete understanding. For the White House news secretary continues to sit as editor of what may be seen and heard later. He edits the sound tape and he edits the film. The news secretary works for the President, not for the information media, and it would be too much to expect for him to release those segments of presidential speech in which the Chief Executive does not perform at his best.

It may be argued by some that under this system, free journalists are lending themselves to the uses of calculated official propaganda, but that would be stretching journalistic Calvinism a bit too far. For the journalists, of all media, will watch what portions of film are released, and they will feel perfectly free to make news of the fact that other portions are held back when that seems a newsworthy point to make. On the whole, the experiment went well; there seems no real reason it cannot continue to. go well, and be of benefit, on balance, to both the President and the American people.

The Fair Dealing NEW YORK POST: THE new TV-radio production known as "White House Press Conference" is apparently here to stay. In most places the opening was favorably reviewed. What is most notable in all the comment is the absence of protest over the censorship imposed by the White House on the TV-radio networks--a censorship which the networks have supinely accepted. This isn't a "live" TV-radio show. It is a carefully-edited "documentary"; the editing is done by White House Press Secretary Hagerty. The censorship has nothing to do with national security. It is governed by consideration of Republican security. Thus after Wednesday's conference, Hagerty deleted 11 of the 27 questions-and-answers before letting the show go on the road. For example, when asked about his delay in reappointment of Ewen Clague as Commissioner of Labor Statistics, [the President] confessed he had never heard of the fellow. His responses to questions about the Ladejinsky muddle and ex-Senator Cain's criticism of the security program were among other deleted matters. Thus, what TV and radio were permitted to transmit was a deftly-selected fragment of the press conference rather than the real thing. There is much merit in letting the country view and hear such White House sessions. This could be a device through which a lot of ordinary people might gain deeper intimacy with the business of government. But under the censorship rules the show is a GOP propaganda project rather than a recording of history.

NEW YORK TIMES PUNDIT ARTHUR KROCK :

THE strategists of the Democratic Party are fully aware of the political potential for the Republicans in bringing the President's news conferences directly to the eyes and ears of a national audience. But they are appraising this new situation with philosophic calm. They recognize that the development is a legitimate extension of the publication of news conference transcripts, which has been the practice for a long time. And they also accept the fact that the value of these meetings for party propaganda, by any method of public communication, is a legitimate advantage of White House incumbency. But the Democrats, particularly those of the National Committee, are equally aware of the hazards of the new medium to the President and to his party. Eisenhower's predecessors on occasion have failed to avoid the pitfalls of the news conference, and sometimes they have made an unfavorable appearance before the court of public opinion.

INCOME TAX FORM THE WORST EVER

THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL : THIS should be a great year for the tax consultants. It could be a great year for psychiatrists, too. The taxpayer who gets to work on that new "simplified" tax form No. 1040 is going to need one or the other--and probably both. Last year, Congress rewrote the tax laws, in part to "simplify" them. The internal revenue bureau proudly said that it was going to make things much easier for the taxpayer to make his report by issuing new and "simplified" forms. The final product? Form 1040! Save us from simplicity! Form 1040 not only contains the normal gobbledygook of tax forms, it has added some more, among which that of schedule J, "Exclusion and credit for dividends received from qualifying domestic (U.S.) corporations,"is a beaut. This isn't a tax form. It's a maze that keeps you jumping from page to page, column to column (even double columns), line to line and back again. The government ought to pay prizes for solving it. This year the Ides of March becomes the Ides of April; the tax laws allow 30 more days for filing your tax. It isn't enough. If you have to use form 1040, the deadline ought to be at least the Ides of July. It is the worst income tax form ever put out by any administration!

ANSWER TO BRAINWASHING: COMPLETE "CONFESSIONS"

REAR ADMIRAL D. V. GALLERY, wartime skipper of the carrier Guadalcanal and chief of Naval Reserve Air Training in Glenview, III., writing in the SATURDAY EVENING POST:

THE treatment of American prisoners by the Reds in the Korean war poses [for] the free nations an evil problem: "What can we do about the Communists' hellish brainwashing technique for torturing 'confessions' out of prisoners of war?" I have no sympathy whatever for a prisoner who squealed on his buddies or who sold them out for his own benefit. We should throw the book at him and disgrace him. I have much sympathy for those who, under torture, gave the Reds "military information" of the kind we broadcast to the four winds in our magazines and newspapers. I understand and feel sorry for those who signed germ-warfare confessions or broadcast phony peace appeals. But the ones for whom I am really sorry are the boys who clammed up and took it, refusing to sign anything.

These lads accomplished nothing by their heroism. It certainly didn't bring the United States military victory. It didn't stop the Reds from winning a smashing propaganda victory in the Orient. As an American I am very proud of these men. But as an American I'm ashamed of the position we put them in. This must never happen again. Our military regulations say that a prisoner may state his "name, rank and serial number," but beyond that he must clam up. This harsh rule is uncivilized, un-American and stupid.

There is a simple way out of this grim mess, if we have enough vision and imagination to use it. Suppose the President of the United States were to issue an Executive Order to the armed forces right now, telling our men that, if captured by the Reds, they may sign any document the Communists want them to, or appear on radio or TV programs and deliver any script the Reds hand them. Tell them they can confess that the United States poisoned Lenin and Stalin; they can call the President a capitalist, warmongering dog of Wall Street; they can broadcast peace appeals, agree to settle behind the Iron Curtain when the war is over, and sign long-term leases on houses in Moscow. Give the Reds anything they want for propaganda purposes and defy them to use it! This order would be transmitted to the United Nations with a blistering statement explaining why we had to do it, and serving notice that hereafter statements of our prisoners, made to the enemy, would be a bunch of fairy stories. Worldwide publication of such an Executive Order would make the Reds look ridiculous on this side of the Iron Curtain when and if they attempted to use brainwash "confessions" in the future.

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