THE CABINET: Shaky Castle

Last June most newshawks in Washington were surprised and delighted with the extraordinarily free & frank way in which Acting Secretary of State William Richards Castle kept them posted on the diplomatic negotiations which led up to the acceptance of President Hoover's debt moratorium. Last week the State Department's Correspondents' Association presented him with a silver cigaret box to show their appreciation of his candor. Declared Mr. Castle gratefully:

"I said to the President: 'The negotiations are going to be very difficult and pretty technical. With your permission, I would like to keep the Press very fully informed.' The President said: 'Tell them everything. You have carte blanche to keep them fully informed of everything that's going on.'

"That I tried awfully hard to do and I must say that all that enormously increased my respect for the Press. Many of the things were very technical and I was terribly shaky on them myself. I tried to express what I thought was true but I must admit I read the press reports the next morning to find out what was true, because you took my rather vague words and interpreted them into what was actually true."