The first to get excited was a Hearst newsman covering the White House. He misinterpreted a routine press release. (All the release actually said was that the President had asked Cabinet members and U.S. diplomats abroad to stay at their posts, keep away from the United Nations Conference in San Francisco.) Hearst's Chicago Herald-American promptly headlined: "F.D.R.—STAND BY FOR VICTORY." A Hollywood radio announcer, spicing it up a little more, breathlessly told a Blue Network hookup: "Electrifying news. . . . Official Washington thinks it will [come] momentarily."
This first phony peace rumor hardly had a chance to be denied last...
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