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The tightest clique is in the White House, where Press Chief Joe Short tries to maintain an air of impartiality to all newsmen. Actually, he slaps a lid on formal news announcements until he can reach Merriman Smith of the United Press, Robert Nixon of International News Service and Tony Vaccaro of the Associated Press, or call in substitutes from their bureaus. But even Joe Short can't shut off leaks. Louis Johnson, an expert on leakage, admitted that he had discounted all the reports that he was being fired as Secretary of Defense until he read an exclusive story by the A.P.'s Vaccaro.
In theory, the presidential press conference is open give &. take, but actually it has now become almost as prearranged as a meeting of diplomats. Before each conference, the President is carefully briefed on the questions likely to be asked; sometimes a planted question is given to a friendly reporter, to draw out something the President wants to say. Sometimes correspondents help by telephoning their questions ahead. (Their excuse: this is the only way to get a thought-out answer from slow-thinking Harry Truman, who might otherwise muff a complicated question thrown at him suddenly.) And the President is not above giving reporters a misleading answer to sticky questions if he thinks he can get away with it.
The Formula. Like the White House, the State Department has an official "spokesman," Press Chief Mike McDermott, who has been in the department for 31 years. But soon after Dean Acheson became Secretary, State installed a young man known to the staff as "the high-level leak," to give major correspondents as much "background" information as he thought necessary to put over State's point. When State's troubles multiplied, Acheson and his high command took to talking to reporters and selected pundits in relays, have-now staged nearly 1,000 such off-the-record conferences.
Under this adroit propaganda system (which recently caused the Washington Post to cry that the "real news of what is happening in the Capital ... is more & more limited to mouth-to-mouth circulation"), big policy stories follow a pattern. First there is the informed tip, carried by favored columnists and correspondents, next the background briefing, resulting in a rash of dope stories. Then, if the idea has been well received, comes the fanfare of formal announcement.