The Press: Diplomatic Lesson

Handsome Ed Stettinius, who likes to please everybody and is hurt when he doesn't, bristled his way through a San Francisco press conference. Then he motioned to the Washington Post's pince-nezed publisher, Eugene Meyer, 69, to follow him outside.

Big Ed was spluttering mad. The Post's editorial that morning, wired to him, was an attack on "the bush-league diplomats of the State Department headed by Secretary Stettinius ..." for their insistence on Argentina's admittance to the San Francisco conference.

In the hall, Stettinius turned angrily on Publisher Meyer. "You and your god damned sheet . . . are trying to destroy me," a New York Daily News reporter heard him say.

Eugene Meyer, who became a publisher at 57, is used to irate readers after twelve years of owning the plain-speaking Post. His defensive equipment includes a bland, impressive air, two years of boxing lessons from Heavyweight Champion James J. Corbett, and a one-round 1942 decision over Jesse Jones, who also once objected to a Post editorial. From this armory of possible defenses, Publisher Meyer chose the mildest. Said he: "Mr. Secretary, I will be glad to discuss this with you after you have calmed down a little." Having given the Secretary of State a lesson in diplomacy, he walked away.