The Press: Behind the Closed Doors

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In barring reporters from the trial of Minot ("Mickey") Jelke III, on charges of being a pimp, Manhattan Judge Francis Valente apparently expected to keep testimony from the sensational vice case out of the newspapers. The trial had not gone two days before Judge Valente had an ample opportunity to see how wrong he was in practice, if not in law. Elaborately shrouded in secrecy, the trial took on an importance it might never have had in open court. In Louisville, a panel of clergymen on radio debated whether the press should be allowed to cover the trial, decided that it should—that a secret trial was a dangerous precedent. British and French newsmen were stirred to cover the trial along with the reporters of U.S. newspapers and press services, and a handful of nightclub columnists, e.g., Walter Winchell, Dorothy Kilgallen and Earl Wilson, some of whom rarely see the morning light. Even such papers as the Asheville (N.C.) Citizen, which righteously proclaimed on its editorial page that it was proper to "seal off this filthy business from the public view," told its public on Page One the same day: "Call Girl Pat Ward wept at her past today and choked over the names of café society big shots to whom she sold her love."

Washroom Beat. Forbidden the courtroom, more than 60 newsmen stood watch outside, pounced on everyone who came out the door. Even Columnist Winchell was on hand quipping that Judge Valente apparently thought "little girls should be obscene and not heard," and feeling right at home in what he called an atmosphere of "opened transoms and peepholes."

Under the court's rules, lawyers or witnesses could only confirm or deny what newsmen asked them, were forbidden to volunteer information. It turned out to be a broad charter. Before the trial had well begun, it was plain that opposing lawyers notably Pat Ward's elegantly dressed belligerent lawyer J. Roland Sala (see NEWS IN PICTURES), were letting out bits of evidence to help their side, and attempting to try the case in the newspapers. After each court session, Star Witness Pat Ward, 19, who had started the whole case by charging that Jelke was boss of a string of $50-to-$500-a-night call girls, hustled to the washroom. There she held press conferences with newshens, while disgusted reporters stood around outside and city desks assigned more newshens to the "washroom beat." Sniffed the Mirror's Veteran Reporter Jean Adams: "All this shoving and running around in toilets! The dignity and prestige of the Criminal Courts Building is gone."

As the press pieced together the testimony, Pat Ward started out on her call-girl career two years ago after she had an illegitimate baby which she put out for adoption. She met Playboy Jelke at a party 17 months ago and, after their second meeting, began to live with him, continuing to ply her trade and giving him some of the proceeds. Occasionally, she let it be known, Jelke beat her when she objected to some of the "Johns" he had arranged for her to meet. She also said that she was thinking of writing a teen-age column for a newspaper to "advise other teen-agers . . . how to avoid the perils of life."