The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-02-18

a huge rumor factory and a u Roosevelt doesn't like it and his feeling yesterday. But W curtail the rumorS was anotf
 Hardly before the echo of his voice died away in his office, the faint murmur began in the cocktail bars and some fashionable salons:
 T hear that he. ..."
 If Washington was the rumor Capital of the nation before Pearl Harbor, it is the rumor Capital Of the world today. Representatives, official and otherwise, of virtually every nation at war are here. Some are actively engaged in the war ef- fort, others work the fringeS trying o become 50 engaged.
 "Inside information" or a reason able facsimile is on many tongues, B great portion of it hopelesSly dis torted from the actual fact as It passes from person to person and some of it purposely twisted away from the truth.
 It Is loose talk that leads to un- .actual rumors that lead to dis !urbance of unity and the war eff ort which disturbs MT. Roosevelt, :Ie was told yesterday of rumors hat Secretary of Navy Frank Knox lad not told the complete story of oearl Harbor: that damage suffered n the Japanese raid was much worse than Knox said it was.
 .Plain Disgust
 The President expressed plain disgust, saying he was at loss as to the best epithet to apply to these rumors. After an afterthought, he said he thought rot would be proper.
 An awful lot Of rumors of this kind are going around, he said. Warming to his subject, he described the capital as a rumor factory, a prolific source Of lies. Let this sink in about Washington, he said, rec ommending that the neWspapermen give it wide circulation.
 He was told of arguments in Washington against new loans by this country to the Soviet Union. based on the fear that large-scale lerjing might put the Soviet gov err ment in a too-powerful position after the war.
 These arguments. he said, are about on a par with other argu- ments set up by what he called WsshingtonS CliVeden set. The President declined to name the members of this set telling cor respondents they knew the names as well as he did.
 The label of CHVeden set used by tho President was taken from the similar designation applied to a group of appeasement advocates in Great Britain earlier in the war. Cliveden is the name of the estate of Lord and Lady Astor,
 RumOrs at Any Second
 Hardly a day or week passes ill Washington that a rumor of almost breath taking proporticnS does not maze the rounds. When Prime Minister Winston Churchill was viS- iting last month, reports were in sistently recurrent that Premier Josef Stain had joined or was about to join the White House confer ences. Then the story started about the Chinese leader, Gen. Chiang Kai-Shek
 The rumor mill grinds hardest long about dusk every afternoon when the bars are full and the days crop of raw rumor material is re- fined and passed on according to quality. I overheard two army ol- ficers in a bar tEe other night tell ing how their outfits were to be moved within the week to new sta tions.
 They identified the stations and talked Of the number of men to be moved They talked in voices that carried at least table or two away, It is quite possible that chance re- mark like this could be amplitied as it was told and retold until 1t reached version of a Iarge-scalc emergency troop movement to some frontier that doesn't exist,
 Washington reports spend many hours each week running down elusive tips and trying to squelch unfounded. untruthful rumors. Gov ernment officials spend considerable time denying reports" which a few nights before may have consisted Of nothing more than an T heard"