only to find they were far apart on numbers, and then on the issue of giving prisoners freedom to choose whether they wanted to be repatriated. Eighteen months passed before the two sides finally agreed on a POW-release and repatriation plan.
Bob Eunson, AP's Tokyo bureau chief, disturbed by stories of Communist atrocities and mistreatment of prisoners, including the killing of 5,750 U.N. POWs, told Australian newspaperman Wilfred Burchett, writing from Pyongyang for Paris Soir, that he would give Burchett a camera and film to take to Pappy Noel in a Communist prison camp. "Let him take pictures of the prisoners," Bill Shinn quoted Bob as urging. "We'll publish them in the hometown papers and people will start screaming to get them home again." Burchett came back on December 24 with negatives purporting to show Major General William F. Dean, the highest-ranking U.N. prisoner of war, in good health, shadow boxing, doing exercises, and strolling in a forest. When Dean came back to the U.N. side in Operation Big Switch in September 1953, he branded the pictures a lie, saying he had been held in a cave for the past year, not permitted to stand except when he went to the toilet.
When the negotiations were finally concluded on July 27, 1953, the rolls of the FCCJ listed 457 newspapermen and women who covered the Korean conflict, of whom six won Pulitzer Prizes.
Like people in any line of work, news writers respond, each in his or her own way, to the events they cover. Some see the dangers, thrills, and adventures of war; others are stricken by its tragedies. One correspondent who epitomized the latter category was John Randolph of the AP, Tokyo bureau chief, Press Club president in 1961-62, and a Club director for seven years. John served in the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II.
Randolph was a stern critic of the writings of his fellow correspondents as well as his own. In an article contributed to the No. 1 Shimbun, he said that though many wrote books, "not one of us has yet been able to capture the entire course and full, tragic nobility of the Korean War in the kind of words that rise above good journalism with all its virtues and strike deep, generation after generation, into the hearts of men. There was some inhibiting miasma in the Korean War that stifled great creative writing as much as it stifled great creative policy. Even today, some of the best works on the Korean War have been done by people who were not there at the time."
John uses words such as "sad," "treacherous," "unspeakably shabby," "murderous," and "unpitying" to describe this conflict. "Why," John asked, "when so many sensitive and able writers were present before such a wealth of material, did not the Korean War produce truly great masterpieces?" He commented sadly, "Children still play soldiers, but they do not play soldiers of the Korean War."
This was the John Randolph who, with Bernard Ullman of Agence France Presse, was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in action in evacuating wounded soldiers during the Battle of the Imjin in April 1951.
Then there was Rafael (Ray) Steinberg, who came to Asia in March 1951 to cover the fighting for INS and later for Time. In an article which he wrote for Time in July 1953, one of two by Ray later nominated for the Overseas Press Club award, he asked "What makes a hero?"
It takes the newly arrived GI a while to discover what makes a man risk death, Ray said, but eventually he understands "why a medic threw himself between a patient and a grenade," and the private who climbed out of his foxhole to throw back "Chinese hand grenades before they exploded, until he misjudged one." Ray said, "Those were the cool heroes, sacrificing themselves, not to 'halt aggression' or 'fight Communism' but out of elemental loyalty to the outfit and to the other men around them."
Another kind of a hero, he said, "was forged by the heat and pressure of battle." But there also were the men who "went to pieces in the strain of battle, or groveled at the earth in panic."
Rud Poats remarked, "The great sustainers of high morale, and the chief subjects of conversation and hope, were 'R&R,' leave in Japan and the 'Big R,' or rotation home. R&R had various official translations. But it was usually more aptly described by another name for the five-day plunge into the pleasures of Japanese civilization as 'S&S' or Sex and Saké. About every six months, an American could count on a five-day fling in Japan, where he either explored the fleshpots or struggled with his conscience and polished up lies to match the R&R reports of his less inhibited fellows."
War is never pretty. But the correspondents reported it as they saw it, each in his own way. And their experience and knowledge rubbed off on the younger reporters and photographers who followed them to Tokyo, where they sat and drank with them, soaking it all up.
This was the war the correspondent members lived. And if occasionally some acted a little wild when they gathered with colleagues in the reassuring surroundings of the Club, that was why. They came back to the Press Club with the souvenirs of Korea, ranging from handguns and grenades to Kalashnikovs. And like the cow-pokes in the Wild West movies, sometimes they used them.
The stories about the members get better with each telling, but there is one that has become a Club legend. It's about the correspondent who pulled out a .45 when the Club elevator wouldn't move, and fired a shot at the steel door, making a dent which remained as long as the Press Club stayed there.
Then there was the correspondent who pulled out a grenade, drew out the pin, and still holding it by the handle so it wouldn't explode, held it up high, and asked those in the bar around him, "What kind of a grenade do you think this is?" Before anyone could say a thing, he pulled open a window and tossed the grenade outside. Everyone in the bar, including the prankster, hit the floor. Al Cullison, who is the authority for this story, says the grenade fell on a narrow sidewalk between the Press Club and the Soviet billet next door. There was a mild explosion, and a lot of smoke. The thrower got up off the floor and announced, "It was a concussion grenade." Luckily, no one was walking outside at that hour of the night. But the Club's Russian neighbors were quite upset about it, and lodged a strenuous protest with the Club officials.
Bob Vermillion, the jaunty front man for many of the stories they tell about the Unipressers, jumped with the paratroopers during the Munsan operation, broke a leg, and came back to Tokyo with his leg in a cast. Earnie, Rud, and others in the UP bureau made the proper clucking sounds, and offered to get him a hotel. "No," said Bob, "I'll take care of myself." He disappeared for about a month, phoning in from time to time to reassure Earnie.
When he finally turned up, he had shucked his cast, and everyone remarked on how great he looked. Two days later, a well-dressed Japanese lady showed up with a card introducing her as being from "Miyoshi" and presented a whopping bill that made even Vermillion turn pale. She got paid. But it seems that Bob was entertaining quite a few fellow correspondents at his "hotel" which he thought was a "cheap Japanese ryokan." Bob learned the hard way that even a foreign correspondent has to pay for a good time.
Bob Miller, UPI's bon vivant nonpareil, tells a story about Vermillion that sums it up neatly. It seems Vermillion had had more than a few sips of the cup that cheers in the Press Club bar, and, upon making his exit from the Club, began looking for a cab. The night was dark. Bob spotted a black car parked on the street, with a driver sitting at the wheel. He opened the back door, sat down, and told the driver, "Miyoshi's." A voice from the other end of the back seat asked, "What's Miyoshi's?" Bob was apologetic. "I'm sorry. I