The daily monitor leader. [volume] (Mount Clemens, Mich.) 1942-19??, 1945-05-15
. BEHIND THE SCENES
IN WASHINGTON .

news people, an equal number
of lobbyists and the idle curious
drift in, making the whole af-
fair a fantastic mob scene from
some bad dream.
At Foreign Secretary v. M.
Molotov's first interview in San.
Francisco, one of the few he has
ever given, q smart aleck Broad
way columnist bObbed up to ask
the distinguished leader of the
Soviet Russ ian delegation
whether he pronounced it "vod-
ka" or vodka"
Now this would undoubtedly
rate as a cute trick in night
club in New York or Hollywood.
But at United Nations Confer
ence the gag fell flat as one of
the corniest cracks ever uttered.
Obviously annoyed, Molotov
broke off the interview with a
number of other more important
questions still unasked.
This kind of monkey business
gives the American press an aw-
full black eye, but some of the
hacks in this business never
seem to learn.
With the press corps accredit-
ed to the conference now num-
boring 1875, while the delegates
and advisers number only 1920,
there is now one and forty-two
one-hundreths of newshound
present for every official. This
makes the publicity delegation
itself something worth covering.
A CANADIAN ASKS
A SILLY ONE
Fortunately, not all the silly
questions come from this cOun-
try. 1t was a Canadian, an ex-
member of Parliament named
G.. j. Carrick, of Ottawa, who
threw the monkey wrench at the
British Deputy Prime Minister,
Clement Attlee, at Attlee's press
conference earlier in the week.
Noting a line in q biographical
sketch put out by the British
Ministry of Information, saying
that Attlee had been influenced
by the views of civil life flour
iCled together, found to be
wholly untenable. ] found
that all great nations learned
their truth of thought in war"
And so on. Imagine this at
conference to end wars!
SEATING OF THE
GENTLEMEN OF THE PRESS
Never was there such a press
gallery as this. Gallery is right!
First, second and third gallery.
Only few Of the photographers
are allowed on the delegates
floor. Wire services, spot radio
men and newsreels are in the
boxes. Special correspondents
are in the tier above them. and
up under the roof is an assort-
ment of legitimate but disgrunt-
led foreign correspondents,
string correspondents from ev-
cry shopping news throwaway
on the west coast, contributors
to unheard-of labor weeklies in
the east, literally inclined ladies
with social backgrounds who
wheedled some publisher to send
them out here, and-no kidding
even a girl reporter from the
magazine of the Junior League.
Well, it all adds to the merri-
ment and they're all welcome in
this free country with a free
press.
A bird isn't supposed to foul
his own nest, and casting asper.
sions on some Of the colleagues
isn't a nice thing to do. But the
u. S. press is on exhibition at
this conference and a lot of the
shoWoffs in the business aren't
doing it any good. The wild pre-
dictions about what's going to
happen and the utterly irrespon-
sible exporting by amateurs and
coocoos pouring millions of
words out on this conference,
seemingly with intent to put it
in the worst possible light in or
der to make it fail, certainly
don't reflect any credit on the
once-pro,ld fourth estate.