State Department Expresses ‘regret’ over JTA Exclusion Incident

The State Department officially agreed today that Milton Friedman, Washington correspondent of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, should have been admitted to a background briefing in the Department on January 28, and attributed his exclusion to an official “misunderstanding.”

Assistant Secretary of State Robert Manning, replying to the protest made on behalf of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency by Philip Slomovitz, its vice-president, conceded that the matter “should have been handled more wisely. ” Once Mr. Friedman had made Known his desire to attend the briefing, Mr. Manning said, “he should have been invited. I regret that he was not.”

Mr. Manning said in his reply that he had looked into the incident at the request of Secretary of State Dean Rusk and stated, “I can assure you that no affront to Mr. Friedman or to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency was intended. Nevertheless, a misunderstanding occurred, and I welcome this opportunity to explain the circumstances that apparently occasioned it.”

In his reply, the State Department official described the background briefings held by the Department from time to time, and pointed out that invitations to these briefings “are likely to range from the all-inclusive downward to a handful of correspondents who have a special interest in a subject or who have been seeking individual interviews. Attendance st backgrounders is often limited, since it would be impractical in most cases to invite the 211 correspondents accredited to the Department.”

FRIEDMAN ‘SHOULD HAVE BEEN INVITED TO BRIEFING,’ LETTER DECLARES

“The background briefing in the present case, ” Mr. Manning said, “concerned the resignation of Dr. Joseph E. Johnson as Special Representative of the Palestine Conciliation Commission. It was set up by the Deputy Public Affairs Adviser of the Bureau of Near Eastern and Asian Affairs with the concurrence of the Bureau of Public Affairs, and was given by Mr. Robert C. Strong, Director of the Office of Near Eastern Affairs. A small number of reporters were invited, representing major American newspapers and wire services, namely: New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Washington Post, Washington Star, Time Magazine, Associated Press and United Press International.

“The principle followed in compiling this list was to invite correspondents who cover the Department regularly and who had been asking questions virtually every day about the Johnson matter. When Mr. Friedman subsequently inquired about the briefing, he was told that it was limited to those who had been invited. This should have been handled more wisely; once he had made known his interest in the subject, he should have been invited to attend the briefing. I regret that he was not.”

The Assistant Secretary of State denied that dissatisfaction in the Department with Mr. Friedman’s reporting had any connection with his exclusion from the briefing. He said that “in talking with Mr. Friedman, Mr. Strong explained that he had not determined who was to be invited to the briefing. Mr, Strong then mentioned an article written by Mr. Friedman a short time ago, Mr. Strong questioned the accuracy of the report on which the article was based, and offered the services of his office for the purpose of checking such reports in the future. There was no connection between this part of the discussion and the fact that Mr. Friedman was not invited to the background briefing. You may be sure that the Bureau of Public Affairs, the Office of Near Eastern Affairs and Mr. Strong would be most happy to see Mr. Friedman or any other representative of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency at any time.”

In its formal protest to the Secretary of State over the incident, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency expressed concern that “such acts of discrimination not be repeated and that representatives of this Agency should not be barred from access to news being made available to other information media. ” The JTA protest pointed out that such actions “served to deprive large segments of the American Jewish community of information made public by the Department in which they were especially concerned and in which it was in the best interests of American policy that they be fully informed.”