In
May of 1945, Germany surrendered to the Allies and ended the war in
Europe. Big news, huh? It was news that the U.S. military wanted to
censor, because they wanted to control the timing. It sounds ridiculous
now, but Allied Supreme Headquarters got news outlets to agree to sit on
the story. Then Edward Kennedy, Paris bureau chief for the Associated
Press, leaked the story anyway.
Kennedy was one of 17
reporters handpicked by the U.S. Army to attend the German signing of
its surrender in Reims, a city known for champagne about 90 miles
northeast of Paris. Along with Kennedy representing the AP, other
reporters were from the United Press, International News Service,
Reuters, Exchange Telegraph, French and Russian news agencies, American,
British, Canadian, and Australian radio networks, and two Army
newspapers. On Sunday, May 6, 1945, these "lucky 17" were taken to a
small airfield outside of Paris. It wasn't until they were in the air
that Frank Allen, the spokesman for the Supreme Command, told reporters
they were flying to Reims to cover "the impending surrender of the
Germans." But reporters' access would be contingent on their promise to
cooperate with American censors, he said.
Journalists later
referred to this as the "pledge of the plane," a moment that would be
the center of the controversy to come. Kennedy says it amounted to "a
rambling talk by the general."
The Allied Supreme
Command embargoed the news of the surrender for 36 hours, but Germany
made the announcement, which was picked up and echoed by the British,
and Kennedy could wait no longer. He sent the story through London,
where is was already known, and on to the U.S. where the
New York Times
had it the next morning. The military suspended the AP’s press
credentials for the war, and other news reporters were furious for being
scooped. Kennedy was fired for his actions, but fought back and
unearthed the whole story.
Read what happened, and why the news of surrender was embargoed, at The Atlantic.
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