The Press: The Too-Fast Referee

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Soon after U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. had completed his reply to Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko in the United Nations debate over the U-2 affair last week (see FOREIGN NEWS), NBC's red-haired Commentator Merrill Mueller, 44, was on television with a summary of the speeches. Said Mueller:

"Through the propaganda of both sides —and it is just that—several points of warning are carefully stressed by the Russians and ignored by the United States.

"American Ambassador Lodge—in two weak statements defending free speech and free observation flights anywhere—tried to steer the Council toward the aggressive threats and actions of Russia. He did not make telling points. In sum, Soviet Russia appears to have found some legality, not only to embarrass the United States, but to stress to the United Nations that if international law is to be rewrit ten here, the U.N.. too, could fade out ingloriously."

Mueller's views produced a rash of 90 phone calls from viewers protesting his highly colored view of the U.S.'s stand and Lodge's speech. NBC promptly pulled Mueller off the U.N. assignment and sent him back to his regular beat as radio newscaster. The network denied having yielded to pressure: the decision to move Mueller, said William R. McAndrew, vice president in charge of news, had been made "hours before he got on the air." Assessing the whole flap. New York Times TV Critic Jack Gould made a key point: "After seeing Mr. Gromyko assail the U.S. and Mr. Lodge rise to its defense, some viewers probably were not prepared for a referee to step in and declare a winner. At the very least, it is foolhardy for a network to attempt a summation of an international controversy in 60 seconds."