been doing and so willing to become comply yant, as they were got out of the habit of doing it for themselves. the book, the manuscript that julia has brought forward, her father's book, is of -- there's quite a large number of books written by war correspondence during that war and some of them but this book deserves to be up reasons for that. one is it's actually a very good -- a very good expression of what it's like to have been a war correspondent. he was everywhere, as you pointed out, in the beginning. he was a hell of a good reporter and was given a lot of responsibility and was in considerable danger for a erd poo of time. he had seen a lot of the war and was able to write about it with great humanity. so he did an excellent job.

the second part is, as you might guess, being sacked by the ap, he writes consistently throughout the book about the problems that he had had. and you can imagine him sitting there in paris. here is the story that war is over and he wants to tell the story and they won't even let them tell that story. and he is so damn mad and fed up that he decides he's going to write the story. he's done the write thing. withholding the story are incorrect and you can see that this is not just an act that one day he was upset. you see this as years of his being frustrated. this volcanic response. not that it wasn't well thought out but that there's a lot behind it. last night when he did this

eve we did this event in new york, he had gotten in trouble in cairo for resisting the sensors and caused -- and had gotten the story smuggled out or taken out. so from the very beginning of history of resisting. paris before the army did. he had ended up with a and gotten ahead of the military and the military was angry that he had gotten there first. so i think what leebling was expressing and what kennedy was expressing was months of frustration. >> and if i could ask either of you to talk about some of the early coverage that made his career, and then if it's not too much to ask on the other side, what happened in the post ap

career. >> well, even today there are few people in the diplomatic corps or anywhere else -- he covered the middle east, the balkins, he was based in cairo. he had war experience. he got there in 1929 and stayed there until his pockets got empty, went back in the '30s, covered the spanish war and right on through. there were few people who had experienced this much, knew as much, and could report as well. he was the guy and he was on the front line time and time again. i want to point out that his successor, the man who took his place, was a guy named wes gallagher, who was also a predecessor of mine and wes' son brian is with us tonight.

and wes became general manager of the associated press. so it's clear that wes was on a track, an incredible track, and he was responsible for some of the most difficult logistics of war coverage. in the aftermath, our understanding is that cooper helped ed find a job with a publisher who supported ed and ed lived a more quiet life in california and julia has told us that he did a lot of teaching and did a lot of mentoring but clearly he loved europe, he loved a big story and it was a huge adjustment from what he had done to go to a small paper. this is a guy that south out europe, stayed there for ten years. it was a long way from there to santa barbara. >> i was wondering if when both

of you were doing research if there was anything thaw discovered in addition to ed kennedy and the associated press about the military or political figures that you thought were new or new insights into the political leaders or military leaders at the time. >> i didn't. the chief information guy, there were a lot of time who didn't think he was a great guy who were journalists. so i don't think -- i think more get out of this book is -- what you get is a really sense of what you like to do about this job. what you really get is a sense there every day and to work your way

through the war up north along the coast and eventually up to paris. i say one thing just about this, though. i think there's a lot of work to be done on world war ii and world war ii coverage. don't think we still have a good way of describing how difficult it was and how bad it was. the military had two tactics that they used to try to control reporters. this may be harassing to people but one was getting them to go and sit with a bunch of people in trenches to write stories about the kids in the trenches. it was a good way to build

things like that. the second thing that would happen is giving them opportunities to write first interesting that in most stories, at least in the you weren't supposed to write first person. but because the reporters had to up in an airplane and a reporter one time got shrapnel in his rear end and he said, now i've got a story that will be in the front page and he wounded. one reporter did a story that everybody should read but it's he was in the hospital, it was truly great reporting. but it was very hard to do your job in the war and the military

from writing very big stories and the reporters on the other patriots, it wasn't a famous story when patton slapped the young soldier in the sick bay. in fact, that wasn't reported by a reporter in the feel. it was reported here in washington by a columnist who disliked roosevelt and saw it as roosevelt. so the ap, like everybody else, had problems with this and respect for kennedy but he wrote had to write if but i think there's a lot of work to be done to really chronicle the limited information that we got and be able to show that in quantitative ways. >> tom, i was wondering if you could talk a little bit about what it was like to be the war correspondent, whether it's in the trenches with the troops, whatever you were trying to do,

and how life is different now for better or for worse for ap's war correspondents. >> well, it's very difficult now, as you know. times have changed in the sense that the journalist is more the target. and security is a very, very grave concern. and so i think we've seen an evolution over the last couple of decades to where the journalist is clearly after country after country and after place after place being targeted to be taken out. we've had many incidents -- we had somebody who suffered a fractured skull last week covering demonstration, a cameraman. and a plate inserted in his head. so the frontlines are still the front lines and i think they are still as dicey as they ever have

been and of course now the battle lines are very different. it's less state to state conflict and more guerrilla warfare acts. we have moved to a very dangerous phase. >> and i wanted to say, if any one of the audience has questions, i want to open it up so you can ask both of these distinguished gentlemen any question that you would like. anyone? go ahead. >> hi, gentlemen. would the ap itself have been subject to review from the military if they had stood up for mr. kennedy, if they had instead said, as an institution, do you feel that they were concerned about their own reputation as an institution or was it strictly just a sense that there's a journalist code about all being on the same

page? >> well n. this case they were certainly subject to punishment and the credentials for all ap for a brief period of time for the european theater which would have been very disastrous. so that threat was real and it got -- it seemed to me in this stream of what became the anti-kennedy story, that became the vote by which management could drive towards the ownership side of the kennedy position and say, we have to side with management by jumped out in front of attacking kennedy in the name of making sure we have access to that. but the credentials were restored very quickly for ap. they were not restored for ed kennedy. and ed kennedy also faced possibly faced court-martial the correspondents were given military rank and they were subjected to the military code. so that was another big concern

in this case. >> okay. anyone else here? yes? >> kennedy notified the london desk and the existence of the embargo, that has been one of the kricriticisms all of these years and in a piece of "the huffington post," a stars and stripes correspondent had been there prior to kennedy and the 16 others and there are some responses to this book and your public apology in that piece that ran yesterday and there are some valid points in there. one of which kennedy sufficiently advised his superiors of this embargo. >> so that's an interesting problem. today when you have a story like

this, you can probably talk to your editor because of sat line phones. you about a story that i'd like to break the embargo on because it's not practical. the sensor wouldn't let you send it. paris wasn't a good line. it's not like you could call new york and talk it over with them. now, the argument has been made, actually, that this is breaking the embargo. here's the story. that's not a very -- that doesn't tell you very much about why you broke the embargo and didn't have very much time to dictate the story because of the quality of the line. so you could -- i guess he could have put something on the top of the story but you have to understand that the communication those days didn't allow the back and forth with the home office like you would

have today. >> let me make a couple of points. first of all, whatever the terms were of the pledge, 18 hours passed. general eisenhower could not even follow the commander in chief's orders in this case. general eisenhower felt out the need to get out the word that the killings should stop. there was no question about the truth of the story, the authenticity of it, the fact that it was an unconditional surrender. the rules of the game changed but once the story was broken or the embargo was broken and there was repeated broadcasts under many german communications methods, that enabled kennedy to decide that it was time to go

forward. kennedy could not call new york without going through the sensor. but i think you have to take a step back and look at this culturally. he's done what he has done throughout the war. he operated by himself, got the stories out time and time again. all true. and they moved him. also, the people on the desk had expected the story. they knew a rumor had come out. there was great anticipation. the delay and the fact that the allied command couldn't even hold the orders of churchill and truman i think puts this in a

different perspective. what we're talking about is a story that is true and by getting the word out, they were telling people to stop the killing. so the stakes were rather profound. >> did ap take any action against anybody else involved in this, in london or in new york? >> no. however, i can tell you from the stories inside ap that some people became very paralyzed by it and were upset by it and reacted differently throughout their careers. >> this is london calling. >> i'm afraid it's my desk but that's the end of that. >> there have been stories from people who were assigned great reports have come in, especially in the past week, that so-and-so

would not move certain stories of a certain magnitude, that they had to be passed to somebody else to edit and move and somebody was hired in a bureau job and i won't mention the bureau and just recounted this incident to the journalists who started on his first day on the job in the ap. so there were stories passed on through decades and that happens in all journalist institutions and in all professions. a lot of the medical profession is an oral culture and we do, too. the roles are established in the hallways and you learn the ropes and these stories were passed on and what happened. and that's why there's been a great outpouring. i've heard from dozens of people since this story first hit the wires. >> why did the russians want to delay the announcement for a day?

>> because they wanted to get equal credit for winning the war. >> they wanted to announce it simultaneously. by the french and british and americans. they wanted to have time to be part of the announcement and they were not there in the room when this happened. >> there was a russian general there. so that's why i don't understand, because the surrender -- >> right. actually, i didn't remember that. but in any event, they weren't ready to make their announcement yet and so they wanted a announcement and they agreed there would be a political agreement that they would be allowed to do that. >> yes? >> i discussed that issue with ed kennedy when i was a young man and he was about the most profound individual i knew. he felt aside from feeling very

bitter, he felt it was entirely a political agreement to allow the soviet union to occupy berlin and that was what was supposed to happen during that delay period. >> the delay was only a day. >> well, everything was moving very fast and you probably recall that patton was on the other side of the elbow, just dying to get going, as he was likely to be. >> yes? >> i'm curious about the german radio broadcast. i'd love to know more about that, especially the public nature of it. you know, whether it was public and whether it was heard by a

large number of people. and the reason i'm asking, it seems to me the embargo here was really broken by a party that was never party to the embargo by the group and certainly by i'm curious to know, was that you've handed out seems like that's what was one of the motivations of kennedy to feel that he could in fact -- >> right. but i would just say one thing.

embargo because it was >> welwell, then they were the first to break the embargo. and, again, that would be -- >> the argument that was made yesterday by john dartin, which is an interesting argument, is that kennedy should have gotten all of the reporters together to say, this has been broken and we should report it all at the same time and we'll go and tell the censors -- that's one argument. i don't mean to laugh it off. but there's another way to look at it, which is that you're with the ap and you're supposed to report news and you got it first and so you report it. >> let me give some perspective on a related argument. wes has the by-line, you can

look that up, the original report came from the ap reporting german radio that the invasion had begun before the allies authorized the release of the d-day invasion story. this happens all the time. and knowing something like that, as ed kennedy did to the cultural aspect that he did what he knew the wire service always does and you know it's true, you go. you get the news out of town. they are good rorners, too, with all due respect to ed, why haven't they said, we need to get this news out as well? >> he kept doing additional reporting and that's really one of the reasons to love him even more. he was somebody who didn't stop.

he kept on reporting. >> meaning he found out about the broadcast and wasn't sitting in his hotel room saying that he can report it? >> right. anyone else? yes. >> there were three broadcasts that kennedy and others heard and kennedy heard that in the ap office, he was listening to the bbc and these were english translations of the german broadcast that he heard. each broadcast had slightly different content. it was, i believe, the 2:40 p.m. broadcast that put him over and

probably decided him to move at that point. the first one came at 2:01. but it was a good 40 minutes listening to those english translations before you made a call. and that phone that he picked up was paris military and shafe had not fought about closing off that but kennedy and others had not out of the ordinary to pick up that line if you had to call in. >> may i ask, how long was it before others matched the story and did the other people, once ap had the story, then break the embargo or did the military then lift the embargo and let others report the story? >> they did not lift the embargo and others did not report. >> so it was the next day? >> it was exclusive for a day. >> most of the reporters spent

their time writing a petition. and the biggest party actually occur canned occurred on the 7 not the 8th as has generally been believed. >> there was reference made within the journalism community and i'm curious if you can talk about, i guess, the politics, if you will, of those like the new york times and others who may have put some pressure on the ap. what can you share about that? what do you know? how did that come down? >> well, without rare exception, everyone was very, very angry at ap for what happened but the debate was quickly influenced by

the beard president that went public and attacked kennedy. so he charted the course. there were a few people that sided with him and one of whom who ultimately gave him a job. but the reality was that this process was aided and abetted by what i believe was a knee jerk reaction and clearly an unfair decision that was counter to any journalism principles. the fact that he was also fired was beyond outrageous since everybody had anticipated it, the word was coming out. it had been leaked. you never, never fire somebody for a truthful story either i mean, i've never seen that happen. so there were a lot of things here that are upsetting but the tide was cast and it was pretty

ugly. >> anybody that spoke to that and urged action by ap from >> yes. yes. i mean, it's not a big secret. the times wrote a letter. what is more interesting is kent cooper, who was then the general manager, which would be john's job today, which was president ceo, was to look at it objectively but it was had already made the statement and then you find him writing letters that really frankly indicated that he was already selling the guy out and made statements in the introduction, where he was making points that, things kennedy did when he was in the military, i hope you won't -- i hope you will be objective. and so that -- they clearly --

they clearly got caught in really a bad management spiral. and tom knows this better than i do, but in the end, cooper never really said, you're fired. ed kennedy never really was told, you are absolutely fired. and so they hope you would go away, which is not a good approach. >> which kind of happened for 67 years. >> yes? >> was there also pressure from the white house and the government for the ap to fire him? >> no, none that we saw. and actually in the after action report that the army did, the army showed that -- it went inside and ultimately granted him -- re-established his accreditation to cover them at any time in any theater. >> and it was acknowledged that in fact the broadcast of

flemsberg had been authorized by the u.s. military, that he was right. >> any final words or thoughts? this is a book, if you don't have t. i would recommend having it. a very interesting subject. an interesting discussion here. thank you all. [ applause ] >> thank you again. >> georgetown history professor michael