Under Fire

by Griffin, W. E. B.

  It has been said that while there just might be honor among thieves, there is absolutely none among journalists, at least insofar as beating a fellow member of the fourth estate out of a story—“getting it first”—is concerned.

  But there is a little “scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” cooperative activity among journalists, and so it came to pass that when one distinguished member of the Tokyo press corps got it reliably that an Air Force C-54 was about to leave for Seoul to evacuate American dependents, he told one of his peers.

  “That makes us even, right?” he asked, so that things were understood between them.

  “Right,” the second journalist said, then retired to the privacy of his room to pick up his typewriter and his camera and a change of linen. While there, he remembered he owed a big one to a third journalist, and went to his room on the third floor of the Press Club Building, made sure he was alone, and then brought him in on the C-54 about to leave Haneda for Seoul.

  It never entered the mind of any of the three journalists to inform Miss Jeanette Priestly, of the Chicago Tribune, of the Seoul-bound C-54. Whatever special courtesies her gender and all-around good looks might otherwise have seen coming her way were more than neutralized by their shared belief that she was one of the more skilled practitioners of their profession, and thus to be treated as they treated any other of their peers. Screw her, in a metaphorical sense, not to be confused with the physical.

  The three—who had left the Press Club at different times, one of them by the kitchen door—were therefore disappointed but not really surprised when they met at Haneda Air Base base operations and found Miss Priestly there.

  They were disappointed because there would now be four dashing and courageous journalists on the first plane to the war in Korea, not just three, and one of the four was of the gentle sex, which unquestionably diluted the Richard Harding Davis aura of their journey.

  Davis was a hero to all three men, who all very privately hoped to emulate him. He had covered every war from the Greco-Turkish through World War I, managing along the way to charge up San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt in the Spanish-American War, and nearly get himself shot by the Germans as a spy in World War I. He then went on to be a highly successful novelist and playwright.

  But there was nothing they could do about the comely Miss Priestly. She was duly accredited to the headquarters of the Supreme Commander, and thus just as entitled as they were to space-available accommodations on USAF transports.

  And there was plenty of space. There was no one on the C-54 when it took off from Haneda but the five members of the crew and the four members of the press corps.

  As they approached Seoul’s Kimpo airfield, the pilot came back into the fuselage to tell them that, since North Korean Yak fighters had strafed the field and were likely to come back, and that since there was a strong possibility that the field had already been captured by the North Koreans, his just-received orders were to make a low pass over the field to see if there were any Americans waiting for them, and if not, to go back to Japan.

  No, he could not land just to let the correspondents off. There were Americans on the field, some of them frantically waving jackets to attract the attention of the C-54.

  It landed, and the correspondents found Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Peter Scott busily burning documents in Base Operations.

  Scott told them things were not as bad as they could be. Seoul had not been abandoned, as reported, and in fact, on direct orders from General Douglas MacArthur, the sixty-odd officers of the Korean Military Advisory Group, and the hundred or so enlisted men attached to KMAG who had evacuated the city, were now in the process of moving back into it.

  The journalists asked Colonel Scott how they could get into Seoul, which was seven miles away. He pointed to the parking lot, which was jammed with Jeeps, trucks, and civilian automobiles, including nine recent-model Buicks.

  “Most of them have keys in their ignitions,” Colonel Scott said.

  The male journalists then chivalrously suggested to Miss Priestly that under the circumstances, it behooved her to return to Tokyo aboard the C-54 with the dependents being evacuated, while they went into Seoul. This was really no place for a woman.

  Miss Priestly replied with a short pungent sentence that certainly was not very ladylike, but made it clear that she considered herself one of the boys, and had no intention of running away from the story.

  The journalists watched the C-54 take off for Tokyo and then climbed into a nearly new Buick and drove into Seoul, where they had little trouble finding the large gray building housing KMAG.

  There, Colonel Sterling Wright—who told them he was acting KMAG commander; Brigadier General William Roberts, the former commanding general, having left for a new assignment in the States and no replacement for him having arrived—repeated what they had heard from Lieutenant Colonel Scott at Kimpo: Things weren’t as black as they had at first appeared.

  For proof of this, he showed them a radio teletype message from the Supreme Commander himself, which said: “Be of good cheer. Momentous events are pending.”

  Colonel Wright regretted that under the circumstances—KMAG had just returned to Seoul; he would make improvements tomorrow—the only accommodations he could offer the distinguished members of the press would be rather spartan. The men would share quarters, as would he, with the senior officers of his staff, and he would turn over his own quarters to the lady.

  Miss Priestly took a shower and went to bed in Colonel Wright’s narrow bed.

  She was awakened in the very early hours of the next morning by an excited lieutenant who reported that the North Koreans had broken through the South Korean defense lines around Seoul, and that they were going to have to run for it.

  Moments later, the North Koreans brought the KMAG compound under mortar fire.

  Miss Priestly dressed quickly and went outside the building, where she found Colonel Wright waiting for her in a Jeep. Her fellow journalists, she was told, had already left.

  Followed by another Jeep, they raced out of the KMAG compound toward the Han River. They had almost reached the river when a brilliant flash of light and a terrifying roar announced that the bridge had been blown.

  Their only escape route to Suwon, thirty miles south of Seoul, where there was an air base, had been cut.

  Colonel Wright drove back to the KMAG compound, where he assembled a sixty-vehicle convoy of stragglers and started out to find another way across the Han to safety. After several hours of frantic search, none was found. But they came across a place where small boats could take them across the river.

  Wright ordered the vehicles destroyed, and the fleeing Americans made it across the river, and started for Suwon on foot.

  About eleven o’clock in the morning, there was a growing roar of aircraft engines. After a few moments, it was possible to identify the aircraft as USAF P-51 fighters. They were obviously strafing Kimpo Airfield, with the obvious conclusion to be drawn that if the P-51s were strafing it, it was now in the hands of the North Koreans.

  After a four-hour walk, a Jeep appeared, and Miss Priestly accepted the offer of a ride in it to Suwon. There she found her fellow journalists, two of them wearing bloody bandages. They had been on the Han River bridge when it had been blown.

  There were a number of American aircraft on the field, one of which was headed for Itazuke Air Force Base in Japan, the closest one to Korea. All four journalists climbed aboard. There was no way that any of them could file their stories of the fall of Seoul from Suwon, and two of them required medical attention.

  All four filed their stories from Itazuke. The two wounded men then went to the hospital, and Miss Priestly and the unwounded other one got on another plane headed back to Suwon.

  The next morning, as Miss Priestly was trying to find a Jeep or something else with wheels to go see the fighting, a glistening C-54 made an approach to Suwon and landed. When she saw that it had “Bataan” lettered on its nose, she
ran to get a closer look.

  Thompson submachine gun-armed military policemen climbed down the stairs, followed by the Supreme Commander himself, and then a dozen general officers, and finally four members of the press corps.

  Jeanette Priestly knew all of them. They regarded themselves—perhaps not without some justification; they were the Tokyo bureau chiefs of the three major American wire services and Time-Life—as the senior members of the Tokyo press corps. They were known by their fellows in the press corps as “The Palace Guard” because they covered the Supreme Commander himself, leaving coverage of whatever else happened in Japan to their underlings.

  They had obviously been invited by MacArthur to accompany him to Korea—“space available” did not apply to the Supreme Commander’s personal aircraft; passage on the Bataan was by invitation only.

  If the members of the Palace Guard were surprised to see Jeanette Priestly in Korea, it did not register on their faces. But the Supreme Commander himself smiled when he saw her, and motioned her over to him.

  There’s a headline if there ever was one, Jeanette thought: MACARTHUR IN KOREA.

  But how do I get the story out?

  “Good morning, Jeanette,” he said, offering her his hand. “I wasn’t aware that you were here.”

  “I came yesterday,” Jeanette said, and blurted, “and was almost caught in Seoul.”

  “Seoul will, I am sure, soon be rid of the invader,” MacArthur said.

  A battered sedan, a Studebaker, not nearly as nice as the Buicks Jeanette had seen deserted at Kimpo, drove up, and Colonel Sidney Huff walked up to them.

  “The car is here, General,” he said.

  “Jeanette, if you would like to wait until I have a chance to assess the situation here,” Douglas MacArthur said, “you may, if you like, ride back to Tokyo with me on the Bataan.”

  “Thank you,” Jeanette said. “That’s very kind of you.”

  I can file from Tokyo just as quick as the Palace Guard can.

  “Not at all,” MacArthur said. “For the time being, at least, this is no place for a lady.”

  Jeanette had another unladylike thought, but managed to smile as dazzlingly as possible at him. And then she smiled dazzlingly at the Palace Guard, who were reacting to her being on the Bataan as if she were a whore in church.

  She waited until MacArthur’s small convoy had driven off, and then sat down on the grass by the side of the runway, took her Royal portable typewriter out, and began to type.

  FOR CHITRIB

  PRESS IMMEDIATE

  NOTE TO EDITOR AP, UP AND INS WILL HAVE PICS

  SLUG MACARTHUR COMES TO KOREA

  By jeanette priestly, tribune war correspondent suwon, south korea june 27— the remains of an air force c54 destroyed by north korean yak fighters were still smoldering when the bataan, the glistening c54 of supreme commander general douglas macarthur, touched down at this battered airfield 30 miles south of the just captured south korean capital of seoul this afternoon. WEARING HIS FAMILIAR BATTERED CAP AND A FUR-COLLARED LEATHER JACKET, HIS CORN-COB PIPE PERCHED JAUNTILY IN HIS MOUTH, GENERAL OF THE ARMY DOUGLAS MACARTHUR CONFIDENTLY PREDICTED TO THIS REPORTER THAT SEOUL WILL SOON BE RID OF THE INVADER.

  She looked up from the portable, saw that the Palace Guard had somehow found a Jeep and were obviously intending to join the MacArthur convoy.

  She slammed the cover shut on the Royal, jumped to her feet, and ran to it. She climbed over the rear seat just as it started to move.

  “Yes, thank you,” Jeanette said, beaming. “I would like to go along.”

  [FIVE]

  WASHINGTON, D.C. 0905 26 JUNE 1950

  The President of the United States came out the front door of Blair House, almost jauntily descended the stairway, and indicated with a nod of his head that he was going to turn right.

  Two of the six Secret Service agents on the detail quickly took up positions so that they could precede him; two waited to bring up the tail; and two positioned themselves so that they would be just a few steps behind him. Across the street, two Chevrolet Suburbans started their engines. One moved ahead of the little parade and the second positioned itself behind the tail.

  The Secret Service agent heading the parade turned and looked questioningly at the President.

  “The Foster Lafayette,” the President said. “Senator Fowler.”

  “Thank you, sir,” the Secret Service agent said.

  Senator Richardson K. Fowler maintained a suite in the Foster Lafayette. Not an ordinary suite, though God knew suites in the Lafayette were large and elegant as they came, but an apartment made up of two suites, and furnished, the President had learned, with museum-quality antiques.

  Fowler was quite wealthy, and unlike some of his peers in the Senate, made no effort at all to conceal it. He considered public service a privilege, and living in Washington, D.C., even as well as he did, as the terrible price he had to pay for that privilege.

  The President walked briskly, three times tipping his white Panama straw hat and smiling and waving to people on both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue who recognized him.

  The Foster Lafayette Hotel was directly across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, the far side—from Blair House—of Lafayette Square. The general manager of the hotel was standing under the marquee beside the doorman, obviously waiting for the President.

  The Secret Service agent in the lead again turned and looked questioningly at the President.

  “I guess when I invited myself to breakfast, Senator Fowler told him,” the President said.

  The President shook hands with both the general manager—and called him by name—and the doorman, entered the hotel, walked across the lobby to a waiting elevator, and followed the lead two Secret Service agents onto it.

  When the elevator reached the top floor, the President saw that a large, very black man wearing a gray cotton jacket and a wide smile was standing by the open door of Senator Fowler’s suite.

  “Good morning, Mr. President,” he said. “Nice to see you again, sir. The senator’s waiting for you.”

  The President offered him his hand.

  “Hello, Franklin,” Truman said. “It’s good to see you, too.”

  He followed the lead two Secret Service agents into Fowler’s apartment.

  Richardson K. Fowler and Fleming Pickering rose to their feet.

  “Good morning, Mr. President,” Fowler said.

  “Good morning,” the President said. “Could these fellows wait in your study?”

  “Of course, Mr. President,” Fowler said.

  “It’s through there,” the President said, pointing. “When I need you, I’ll call.”

  The Secret Service agent was visibly unhappy with his orders to be left alone.

  “It’s all right,” Truman went on. “Senator Fowler thinks I’m a threat to the country, but I don’t think he’s thinking of assassination. Go on.”

  “Yes, Mr. President,” the Secret Service agent said, and trailed by the other, left the room, closing the door after themselves.

  The President turned to Fowler.

  “You can call me ‘Harry,’ Dick. We’ve known each other a long time.”

  “A long enough time to know better, Mr. President. What is it they say, ‘beware of Democrats wearing smiles’?”

  Truman smiled, and offered his hand to Fleming Pickering.

  “Thank you for coming, General,” he said. “And I have to say that for a man who spent the night flying across the country, you don’t look very mussed.”

  “I was very mussed, Mr. President, when we landed at Andrews,” Pickering said.

  Franklin appeared with a silver coffee set and placed it on the sitting room’s coffee table.

  “What did you set up for breakfast, Franklin?” Fowler asked.

  “A little buffet, Senator. I thought you gentlemen would rather be alone.”

  “Why don’t you move the coffee into the dining room? Then I won’t spill it on my new tie.”


  “Yes, sir,” Franklin said, and picked up the tray and carried it into the dining room, with the three men following him.

  He set the tray on a table that would hold sixteen diners, then left the room.

  “Before we go a word further, it is agreed that this is out of school, right?” Truman asked.

  “Agreed, Mr. President,” Fowler said.

  “Yes, sir,” Pickering said.

  The President looked at Pickering as if making up his mind about something.

  “What is it they say in the Navy, General? ‘Let’s clear the decks’?”

  “It’s something like that, Mr. President. But I’m really not a general, Mr. President. That was a long time ago.”

  “Let’s clear that part of the deck first, General,” Truman said. “Yes, you are. You are a brigadier general, USMC, Reserve.”

  Pickering was about to argue when he stopped.

  Goddamn it, maybe I am. Probably, I am. I was never discharged, in ’45. I was released from active duty and ordered to my home of record.

  “And as your commander-in-chief, General, I can order you to keep anything that’s said in this room to yourself.”

  Pickering looked at him but said nothing.

  “Unfortunately, I can’t order you around, Dick,” Truman went on, “as either a senator or a journalist. I can only appeal to your patriotism. We’ve said—and probably believe—some unkind things about each other, but I don’t think you’ve ever questioned my patriotism, and I certainly have never questioned yours.”

  “What is it you want, Mr. President?” Fowler asked, coldly.

  “I don’t want headlines on the front page of every newspaper in the country reading, ’MacArthur Ignored Warning of North Korean Attack,’ ” Truman said.

  “In point of fact, Mr. President,” Pickering said, “I don’t believe General MacArthur was aware of McCoy’s assessment. ”

  “He’s in charge over there, General,” Truman said. “He should have been made aware of this assessment. He’s responsible for the actions—or lack of action—of his subordinates. ”

  Pickering shrugged his agreement.