• U.S.

The Press: Old Hand at Work

1 minute read
TIME

Before Franklin Roosevelt left for Yalta, the White House correspondents of the three wire associations (A.P., U.P., I.N.S.) were given medical shots for foreign travel. But the President left without them. Later, they received permission to follow him. Before they could get there, the news was out. No one would say last week why the correspondents were left at the post. Best guess: Franklin Roosevelt had been willing to have the newsmen along, had hoped to get an assent from Stalin and Churchill, had failed.

Happily for the press, one capable U.S. newsman was on deck: Presidential Secretary Steve Early, an old A.P. hand. He not only helped get out the Big Three’s communiqué, but was probably responsible for such side stories as the conference at Malta, and the news that Bronx Boss Ed Flynn went along. The New York Daily News’s Columnist John O’Donnell, whose words of praise for anything Rooseveltian are rare as a miser’s largesse, was moved to remark: “The best job of reporting that the competent Early has turned in since . . . he scooped the world on the smash yarn that President Harding was dead.”

More Must-Reads from TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com