ROOSEVELT’S REFLY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 308, 31 December 1942, Page 3

ROOSEVELT’S REFLY

CRITICISM OF HIS POLICY IRON CROSS FOR JOURNALIST Sydney, Dec. 23. President Roosevelt astonished a press conference by presenting by proxy an Iron Cross obtained from a source unspecified to John O’Donnell, Washington correspondent ol the New York Daily News, who has been critical of the President and Administration policies. This is reported by a Washington correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald. The" item prompting the presentation was: "There have been times when this column has pondered over the lack of news from energetic colleagues recently turned war correspondents and assigned to the big show from front seats in Australia.. "Well, the mystery is solved, take it from Jack Turcott, of the Daily News, and George Durno, ex-White House correspondent. The boys have turned to flutes and piccolos to keep their fingers nimble for the time when the censhorship lets them beat the keys of their portable typewriters to turn out the tell-tale story.” O'Donnell said: "I am at a complete loss to understand the President's action. Paragraphs I reprinted from letters from my colleagues were obviously facetious and fantastically exaggerated pictures of army life overseas humorously presented by newspapermen for the entertainment of a colleague who, in turn, thought that they would entertain others. “I regret that they have been misinterpreted and misunderstood, and I am amazed and bewildered by the length to which such misunderstanding has goneT