740.0011 Moscow/84: Telegram
The American Delegation to the Acting Secretary of State
[Received 6:20 p.m.]
Delam No. 35. From McDermott. American and British correspondents in Moscow are very patient and cooperative despite decision to withhold news until end of conference. At appropriate time they expect to have first page stories and want to be first to break news of results in the U.S. and Great Britain. They have had difficulties in the past because Berlin picked up their news radiograms in transmission and immediately broadcast distortions of the news. Correspondents and delegations believe that following plan will give them the desired break and circumvent Berlin. Delegations will wire State Department and Foreign Office texts of statements, declarations, et cetera, as far in advance as possible. Later Department will be informed which texts will be made public. Texts will be available to correspondents in Moscow but they will not transmit them depending on their colleagues in Washington and London to get them from State Department and Foreign Office. Correspondents here will confine themselves to interpretations, general roundups, overall coverage, atmosphere of conference, et cetera. Transmission time may take as [Page 655] long as 7 hours. Meantime Berlin will take transmissions. It is suggested that Department discuss this problem with Elmer Davis,15 Byron Price,16 press associations and broadcasting companies and request that anything from Berlin or Moscow radios received in advance of correspondents’ stories be voluntarily withheld from publication or rebroadcast pending arrival of Moscow stories. Every American correspondent will ask his editor to notify the Department immediately his story reaches the newspaper. Department is requested not to make texts available until three such notifications shall have been received and then to release pertinent texts immediately. We are confident everybody will be glad to cooperate. Please report reaction. Please keep Elmer Davis confidentially informed regarding publicity plans.
To assure security of British and American delegations it is most important that nobody say anything about closing date of conference until I wire Department. I shall also at same time wire Embassy, Moscow, after which press stories will be released by Soviet censorship.
Please request Byron Price to contact Army, Navy, British and Brazilian censorships to make doubly sure nothing is printed or transmitted regarding movements of American delegation. [McDermott.]