Jackson advocate., 1962-04-14
RoWan's
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lowed an aside, it is obvious
that the Negro vote in the
northern cities is always a
critical one.
Mr.. Rowan joined the ad-
ministratiop in February, 1861.
BY then he had written four
bookS-two on the Negro. situ-
alton, one on Asia and Ameri-
can foreign policy. and an
autobiography Of Jackie Rob-
inSoH, former baseball player
and now an executive.
To suddenly find himself
giving speeches and dealing
with the press from the gov
ernment side is always an ex-
perience for a newspaper re-
porter. In an interview Mr..
Rowan lists three discoveries:
. Plunging into the federal
jungle he was impressed, he
says, with how hard people
work, the often high level of
ability in the State Depart
ment, and how often people
have made personal sacrifices
TO stay in government service.
. To sit down behind State
Department desk was also to
see that these problems are
more complex than when was
writing about them"
(Although, certainly, re-
porters assigned to the State
Department these days can get
some feel for the complexities
of foreign policy formation.
Time and time again, spokes-
men from Secretary of State
Dean Rusk down indicate that
they are faced with alterna-
tives which are equally
troublesome.)
. He had to join the State
Department to really travel at
an almost hectic pace. Before
joining up he had written
series on India (1955), a series
and book on Southeast Asia
and the Bandunp conference
(l956), and a series on Ca
nadian-American relations
(1960). But since February,
1861, here is the itinerary:
I Around the world with
Vice-President Lyndon B.
Johnson;
7 With Ambassador Chester
H. Bowles to Africa, Europe,
the Near East, Yugoslavia, and
Southeast Asia;
4 To Europe alone;
T To Latin America with MIR.
Bowles;
T Most recently, with Secre-
tary of Defense Robert S. Nc
Namara to Honolulu.
On most of these trips he
handled the press, not only
those who travelled with the
officials, but the resident re-
porters. At Honolulu he was
particularly interested in the
State Department press tech
nique in Wet Nam as guerrilla
training built up.
And dealing with the press
daily as he does, Mr.. Rowan
has some strong opinions about
United States press coverage of
world news.
He says, Our press coverage
today leaves much to be de-
sired. 1t has taken this tour
of duty in the State Depart
ment to make me understand
how crisis conscious our press
is today. When the crisis is
full-blown in Wet Nam we
figure we can ignore the Congo
for a while.
And all these crisis spots
together produce a situation
where the press can 60 for
months without worrying about
Canada, Or Mexico, or Brazil
until trouble. Reporting to-
day is so sparse in many vital
ly important countries that the
American public knows next
to nothing about the political
leadership"
Race as problem and as a
critical element in United
States foreign policy is the
other area where he is most
articulate. He brings to the
question, of course, his own
feeling as an American Negro.
He cites this passage from
his book "The Pitiful and the
Proud" in which he wrote that
the sad and obvious truth is
that ! found democracy on the
defensive whenever con-
fronted with the two most ex-
plosive ingredients in the
Asian revolution - anti-co.
lonialisn1 and anti-racism."