Former Chief of Intelligence For
MacArthur Accuses Six Newsmen
Of Prejudiced, Biased Reporting
NEW YORK, (£>) — General;
MacArthur's former chief of in
telligence has accused six news
paper men of “inaccurate, biased
and prejudiced” reporting of the
Korean war, and charged their
writings gave aid and comfort to
the communists.
The officer is retired Major
General Charles A. Willoughby.
In an article in the December
issue of Cosmopolitan magazine,
which carried a foreward of en
dorsement by General MacAr
thur, Willoughby named the six
individual newspapermen and
also criticized three news-maga
zines. He said they “appeared to
go out of their way to create de
featist thought patterns, and to
belittle the country’s armed
forces.”
“I am convinced the nuance of
defeat created an atmosphere of
tension, uneasiness and distrust
between Tokyo and Washington.
This is believed to have been the
major cause of the MacArthur
Truman split.”
Sharp denials immediately
came from the newspapermen
whom Willoughby identified by
name. They are:
Joseph Alsop, syndicate col- ,
umnist; Hanson Baldwin, mili
tary correspondent of the New
^ York Times: Homer Bigert, war
correspondent of the New York
Herald-Tribune; Hal Boyle, war
correspondent and columnist of
the Associated Press; Drew Pear
son, syndicate columnist; and
Christopher Hand, former mem
ber of the Herald-Tribune's Ko
rea staff, now resigned.
“During the most difficult days
in Korea,” Willoughby wrote,
“These men were often inaccur
ate, biased, prejudiced and petu
lant; they confused an unhappy
public. The corrosive effect of
their irresponsible reporting was
equal to that of calculated de
featism, even if such was not
intended. Their reporting fur- j
nished aid and comfort to the
enemy.”
In their replies, the correspond
ents denied having criticized the
army, as such, or the individual
soldiers. They said they had crit
icized MacArthur, lor his over- ;
all decisions, and Willoughby for
his intelligence reports, on which
MacArthur apparently based his
strategy in Korea.
Baldwin said: “As an intelli
gency officer, Gen. Willoughby
was widely and justly criticized
by Pentagon officials as well as
in the papers. His present article
is as misleading and inaccurate
as were some of his intelligence
reports.
Bigart, cabling from Paris, said
his criticisms had been directed
against MacArthur and Willough
by. He said:
“General MacArthur and his
tight little circle of advisers have
never been able to stomach crit
icism, whether from a war cor
respondent or the President of
the United States . . .”
Boyle said: “The general’s job
was to obtain information about
the Chinese and to evaluate it. I
thought then and I still think, that
our intelligence was tragically
bad. Gen. Willoughby, naturally,
feels otherwise. In this case, the
events give the answer — the
troops ran into a complete sur
prise, and were decisively beaten
back. Generalities about ‘bias and
prejudice’ cannot outweigh the
hard facts of defeat and the cold
statitstics of losses. It was not
’bias and prejudice’ that rolled
the army back across thousands
of square miles of lost ground.”
Rudolf Slansky,
Czech Hatchet Man,
Gets The Axe
LONDON, (/P)—Moscow-trained
Rudolf Slansky, one-time hatchet
man of Czechoslovakia commun
ism, has been fired as vice pre
mier and arrested for “activities
against the state,” the Prague
radio announced.
Slansky was removed from his
job as secretary-general of the
Czechoslovak communist party
last September in a move tied by
western observers to Moscow or
ders to the Czech communists to
tighten their ranks against in
roads of “Titoism.”
An underground source report
ed from Czechoslovakia last
month that the Slansky ouster
came because the Oatis case back
fired. The Czech communists im
prisoned and convicted Associated
Press correspondent William N.
Oatis as a “spy, sentencing him
to 10 years. The trial was de
nounced throughout the non-com
munist world.
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Senator Kefauver To
Reply lYTArthur Criticism
Of Truman Administration
SEATTLE, {JP) — Democrats
have selected Senator Estes Ke
fauver as the speaker to reply to
» ,
criticism Gen. MacArthur aimed
at the Truman administration in
a recent Seattle speech.
Harry Henson, Washington
State Democratic chairman, an
nounced Monday the Tennessee
Democrat was chosen to make a
“suitable reply” to MacArthur.
However, Henson said the
speech will not be held at the
University of Washington, site of
MacArthur’s controversial ad
dress, but at the Jefferson-Jack
son Day dinner in the Olympic
Hotel Dec. 4.
Democrats were invited to use
the campus for a rebuttal after
some groups charged that MacAr
thur’s speech was political, in vio
lation of a ban against political
talks on the campus.
Mammoth Garage To Be
Built At Elmendorf AFB
ANCHORAGE, (JP) — A garage
the size of two football fields is
planned for Elmendorf Air Force
base.
The Alaska Corps of Engineers
Office announced today the is
suance of tbids for the “automo
tive maintenance facility.” It will
be of reinforced concrete and
steel blocks, 200 by 460 feet. It
will be heated by floor panels
I and a supplementary steam
i system.
( Bids will be opened Jan. 8.
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