Telling it to the Marines

Nearly a hundred marines, most of them wearing Pacific campaign ribbons, milled about Hearst's San Francisco Examiner office. Some clutched clippings of an Examiner editorial.

Said the editorial: "American forces are paying heavily for [Iwo Jima]—perhaps too heavily. . . . The same thing . . . happened at Tarawa and Saipan. . . . The American forces are in danger of being worn out before they ever reach [Japan], Plainly, what we need is ... General MacArthur. ... He outwits and outmaneuvers the Japanese. HE SAVES THE LIVES or HIS OWN MEN. . . ." That was not the way to talk to marines, and they had come to tell somebody so.

Someone shouted "Let's go!" The marines shoved through a revolving door, tramped up a flight of winding stairs, terrified a bobby-soxed copy girl and brushed aside two proffered sacrifices—a reporter and an assistant editor, both of whom quickly identified themselves as "not the man you want to see." The marines finally reached the office of cigar-chewing Managing Editor William C. Wren. They told him in purple, ear-banging marine lingo what they thought of the editorial. Said the marines politely: apologize for the slur, or give us space to reply.

While his alarmed subordinates put in a riot call, Editor Wren tried delaying tactics: "Look, I only take orders from my commanding officer, just like you." He had not written the editorial, he said; it came canned from Hearst GHQ. Then call Hearst, demanded the marines, and "we'd like to hear the call." Wren tried, but got only as far as the No. 1 secretary at San Simeon ("Mr. Hearst is too busy to be disturbed"). In the midst of these negotiations, Navy shore patrol men and a police riot squad clumped up the stairs, then went away again, assured that the marines had the situation well in hand.

Next day Hearst agreed to publish the marines' reply, fully expecting to be keelhauled for promoting interservice jealousies. Instead the marines concentrated their potshotting not on Hearst but on General MacArthur. The marines' argument (which had to be laundered before it could be printed): MacArthur generally lands on big islands, where there is space to maneuver, while marines get the small, heavily fortified islands to conquer.

If the marines had lost sight of the target in the fog of battle, the San Francisco Chronicle had not. It roundly thumped Hearst for running down the marines in order to build up General MacArthur—who needed no build-up at anyone's expense. Observed the Chronicle: "Sinister fantasy ... to hint that the marines die fast and move slowly . . . because marine and naval leadership ... is incompetent."