Word: beaverbrook
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This week Winston Churchill put a new general in command of Britain's vital and much-criticized battle of production on the home front. From the Ministry of State to the Ministry of Supply he moved dynamic, able, Canadian-born Lord Beaverbrook, who proved himself an able pepper-upper as Minister for Aircraft Production...
...Lord Beaverbrook, in his new job as Minister of State, invited 30 U.S. correspondents to luncheon at Claridge's, told them not to mince words about the M.O.I. He heard plenty: of long-rankling complaints of cables and pictures needlessly held up anywhere from 24 hours to indefinitely; of months of diplomatic finagling necessary to interview key men; of flat refusals to requests to cover R.A.F. bombings, bomb disposal squads and the like...
...Beaverbrook took it all without batting an eye. A week later things began to happen. Ministers, amazingly humanized, became accessible. First Lord Alexander appeared in person at a routine Admiralty press conference. Correspondents got permission to enter erstwhile news no man's lands. M.O.I, released films and still photographs from cold storage...
...only in London did M.O.I. bestir itself. In the U.S. the British information services got a new Director-General. He was Sir Gerald Campbell, unofficious, efficient No. 2 British diplomat in the U.S. Like Beaverbrook, at his first press conference in Manhattan he told newsmen to fire away...
...Since Beaverbrook took a hand in M.O.I, there has been many a rumor that he intends to take over Duff Cooper's job as Minister of Information. London corre spondents think it unlikely that Beaverbrook will do more with M.O.I, than play the super-coordinator. But for the first time in World War II they are hopeful of evening the score in their one-sided contest with M.O.I. censors, red tape and buck-passing civil servants...