"We do not take action," said State Department Spokesman Mike McDermott huffily, "on fantasies or inanities."
The department was looking down its nose at nosy newsmen who had uncovered a secret State Department ban on any travel abroad by Professor Owen Lattimore. State insisted there was solid evidence (though it could not be specific) that the Johns Hopkins pundit, who has been under McCarthyist and McCarran committee fire for alleged pro-Communist activities, was planning a visit to the Iron Curtain domain. Retorted Lattimore, once a darling of State's Far Eastern experts: "Midsummer...