PRESS FINANCIAL TIMES GANG the Bath Clearaph

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THE last chapter in the war for the Falklands drew to a close none too soon for the battle-scarred media.

Gung-ho militarism is a phenomenally difficult weapon to sustain at long distance for long periods. Keeping up the war effort in Fleet Street has not been easy under appalling conditions.

For the last few weeks this has been under a virtual blackout of military disinformation, even to its most loyal and trusted servants.

Moreover, the media has been forced to open a second war front in Spain under far less predictable conditions than those in the South Atlantic. There the British forces may find that wrapping themselves in the Union Jack may not be enough.

Some idea of the difficulties in the Falklands for the press can be gained from the 50p phone call disaster.

The papers attacked with a barrage about the British Brigadier who made an advance through a phone call. Armed only with a 50p piece he approached one of the island's telephone boxes and phoned a farmer in the area that the British were trying to capture.

"Any Argies around?" he asked. "Not at the moment" came the laconic reply. "Right then, we're on our way" , replied our hero, dashing his men onto a helicopter.

But the self-confident press assault turned out to have been made without enough coveI. It was revealed that there are no SUp pieces on the island. The Falkland Islanders are so British they have stuck with the ten bob note.

This might have been laughed off but the next revelation was a bombshell. There are no phone boxes either. Finally it was revealed that all calls on the island have to be put through the telephone exchange in Port Stanley, then under Argentine control.

These damaging revelations could have left our reporters exposed to enemy snipers, for ever carping about such outdated virtues as truth, honesty and objectivity.

The Ministry of Defence came under attack no doubt, as it has done from our press consistently, throughout the campaign, for revealing not too little, but too much information!

But defence secretary John Nott swept aside all criticism of our lads in the press corps. Praising their reports, he said "They have been vivid and have given the country a great deal of information that has been of value to us."

There is no nonsense about objectivity or truth here. Steady, sustained assaults on enemy positions. That was what won us the war. It does not matter what the "information" is so long as it is of value to our side.

But now our lads in Spain are free to open their assault untroubled by attacks from their flanks. General Kevin Keegan who has picked up a groin injury practicing bowing to her majesty - and the rest of his team have bequeathed profits from their World Cup song "This time we'll get it right' to the South Atlantic Fund.

Rebound

The decision not to show the opening Argentine match live on television - surely the only football game anywhere in the world over the next three weeks not to be shown in its entirety rebounded badly when the Argentines lost.

The sale of World Cup bulldog tee-shirts has already proved a disaster . One firm which won the contract to make them has laid off all its extra staff, complaining that the bulldog emblem looks so much like the National Front image that no-one was buying it.

By Patrick

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Socialist Organiser, Thursday 17 June 1982 Page 11 UNDER REVREW ApOlF with a difference.

State education fails to capture the enthusiasm of youth GORKY Park, now our in paperback, is a cop novel with a difference. Its action is set in Moscow and the Soviet Union. The cop is Arkady Renku, chief investigator for the People's Militia.

The case opens with the discovery of three bodies - two men and a woman shot dead and left in the snow of Gorky Park with ce no vei MARTIN CRUZ SMITH GORKY Reviewed by Terry Smith defiance interests of the of the working Russian masses.

It gives a hint as to the huge geographical and ethnic diversity embraced in the generat abstract category 'Soviet Union' which stretches from the metropolitan sophistication of Moscow to the vast barren fastness, geolog-