Many a foreign news dispatch to the U. S. is about one-tenth fact and nine-tenths rumor and conjecture. Working in a murky subterranean world of censorship, rumor-mongering and diplomatic duplicity, an honest reporter must search every shovelful of rumor for the nugget of fact, assay each fact for the elusive motive that gives it value. On the basis of a single such fact, not necessarily important in itself, an impressive and vaguely portentous flow of dispatches can be written from the capitals of Europe, recounting rumored reactions and reactions to reactions.
Most fearsome of all rumors is the rumor of war. Living...
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