WRITING about the new doubts concerning the traditional American work ethic, Donald Morrison found last week, can be hard work. "For one thing," he says, "the elements in this essay are so compelling and interwoven that you can summarize them no more easily than a Nabokov novel. And journalists are so accustomed to burning the midnight bulb that you have to remind yourself repeatedly that things can be different in other lines of work."
Saigon Bureau Chief Stanley Cloud can serve as Exhibit A of the work ethic in journalism. "In Viet Nam," he says, "correspondents routinely labor twelve hours a day. When you are not covering the story, you are writing about it; when you are not writing about it, you are talking about it." Late last week the Saigon bureau learned the outlines of the secret peace plan reliably reported to have been developed in Paris. Cloud's report became the principal part of our cover story on the negotiations. Timothy James, a veteran of many late-breaking stories on the war, worked through Saturday writing the article. Reporter-Researcher Robert Goldstein assisted, running down contradictions in information and checking the finished story. It was Goldstein's second cover assignment in two weeks. "I look at it this way," he says. "Theaters and restaurants are terribly crowded on Saturday night."
One does not have to be in our Saigon bureau or Nation section to keep busy. Hardly was martial law declared in South Korea last week when Tokyo Bureau Chief Herman Nickel was on his way. After getting a scarce seat on the night's last plane, he arrived in Seoul to find a midnight curfew, hotel rooms booked solid, and Korean officials reluctant to talk. Nickel persisted, and he produced this week's story in World.
Paris Correspondent Paul Ress fought more basic elements to reach the Valley of Marvels in the Maritime Alps for a report to the Science section. The site of a rich collection of Bronze Age art, the valley is blocked by snow ten months of the year. Ress traveled there in a Jeep over a goat path, across creaky wooden bridges—in the midst of a rainstorm. If anything could dry up one's ardor for work, it might be covering a drought in India. New Delhi Correspondent William Stewart journeyed 1,000 miles to remote Andhra Pradesh, spent a day in near-100° heat talking to farmers, and most of the night writing. For his troubles, he contracted dysentery —then learned that publication of the story had been postponed.
In Brussels, Correspondent Roger Beardwood paused near the end of a twelve-hour day to cogitate about newsmen's work addiction. "What else is there in life," he concluded, "except increasing your knowledge, burnishing your prose style and sitting at the telex? Beaches are boring, and skiing is a very expensive way of descending rapidly what you have ascended slowly."