Name Dropping

As I mentioned before, covering dignitaries occupied a good deal of our time. It happened to put me in close proximity with many of the news makers of the day.

Here are the ones I can remember: Syngman Rhee, South Korean president; Gen. Mark Clark, Far East Army commanding officer; Gen. Maxwell Taylor, Eighth Army commanding officer; Gen. William F. Dean, highest ranking officer captured by the North Koreans; Robert Stevens, Secretary of the Army; John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State; Henry Cabot Lodge, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; Major Sammy Lee, Olympic diver; Jim Lucas, internationally known correspondent and columnist; Marguerite Higgins, not only the first woman correspondent in Korea from the United States, but the first one of either sex; and Gen. Van Fleet.

Many of the dignitaries had legitimate reasons for being in Korea. Most of it had to do with the peace talks going on in Pan Mun Jom (Freedom Village). They came to negotiate with the North Koreans but also to talk with former prisoners being repatriated.

Gen. Dean was an interesting story. He had been a prisoner of war for three years and little was known of his physical or mental condition.

Our intrepid commanding officer, Col. George White, the one we seldom saw, issued an edict that the news conference for Gen. Dean would be conducted under the pool system. That meant the correspondents had to choose a representative, one each from newspapers, magazines, and radio, and they would convey the report to the others.

Because Gen. Dean’s condition was not known, we understood Col. White’s reluctance to allow hordes of newsmen and photographers in the room. Although they may have understood, the correspondents did not like the pool system at all.

Guess who got the duty of telling the correspondents this “good news?” I gathered them together at the air strip where the general was due to arrive and told them what the colonel had directed. The names they called the good colonel are not mentionable here.

Undaunted, the correspondents met Gen. Clark’s plane (which arrived from Japan just before Dean came in) and told him of the colonel’s order.

Clark countermanded Col. White’s order, apparently he had more information about Gen. Dean’s condition, and all who wanted in, got in to the briefing room. As it turned out, Gen. Dean, although very thin, sprinted up the stairs two at a time to the second floor where the conference took place. Syngman Rhee himself was on hand to welcome the returning hero.

Dealing with the correspondents on a day-to-day basis was part of our job. They were an independent lot and had the equivalent rank of major when it came to protocol and seniority, so it was difficult to control their activities.

Phone calls in the press billets were understandably limited but the correspondents paid little attention to rules. A notice was posted next to the phone one day stating that Jim Lucas had talked to Tokyo for 30 minutes in violation of the limit. Scrawled next to his name, Jim put his own notation, “Is that a record?”

Another wag came along and wrote, “No, but it’s close. So try again.” So much for any attempt to control the news media.