End of an Era   

The near-death experience for a long-lived D.C. writers' organization

In early October, diehard members of Overseas Writers, a once-thriving group of diplomatic reporters, gathered in Washington, D.C., to lay the organization to rest. After 81 years and hundreds of luncheons with American and foreign diplomats and politicians, the venerable journalists' club had, apparently, run out of steam.

Formed in the wake of the Versailles Peace Conference in 1921, the club once brought together the worlds of Washington journalism and diplomacy. Over the years, privileged members lunched with secretaries of state, countless diplomats and Defense Department brass. Some scoops passed across those lunch tables--including the first description in the 1970s by Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger of the nuclear strategy of Mutual Assured Deterrence--but access was the club's main business, journalists and diplomats connecting with each other for mutual benefit.

At Overseas Club lunches, there would be high-powered schmoozing and an understanding that in this society, trust was currency. The general rule was off-the-record or "deep background," no attribution at all. Members included the likes of Walter Lippmann, Eric Sevareid, James Reston, Edwin Hood; these being names that mattered in Washington, the Overseas Writers name got heft by association. When an Overseas Writer called, officials answered.

In the late 1940s, club members outraged over the murder in Greece of CBS reporter George Polk organized an inquiry into his death. Headed by Lippmann, it cast serious doubt on the Greek government's verdict that a small-time Salonika journalist with communist connections murdered Polk, who had been trying to contact communists. Although the case was never resolved, the inquiry report was published worldwide, its message heard: The cream of American journalists would never rest when one of theirs was murdered or threatened.

But as time passed, Washington changed and so did the way journalists covered it. Even though the elitist club (which required proof for admission that journalists had served overseas) opened its ranks in 1949 to women and foreign journalists, membership dwindled. The drop-off coincided roughly with the rise of CNN, as journalists found they could cover the news by watching television. Access journalism in Washington became less important than meeting deadlines and matching TV scoops. Then there was the steep rise in office rents at the National Press Building and across D.C. Foreign journalists began to work out of their suburban homes--some didn't come downtown at all, even for club meetings.

Meetings lagged from one per month to about half that, with fewer people attending each time. At a recent--and typical--club meeting, 15 American diplomatic reporters, and a German and a Japanese correspondent, gathered in a private room at the Occidental Grill for a luncheon with Robert Oakley, former ambassador to Pakistan and Somalia. Ten years earlier, an Oakley appearance drew more than twice as many. Members sitting at round tables politely indicated they wanted to pose a question, and they were called on in turn in sort of an extended dialogue with Oakley. It was informative but hardly more productive than any Washington news conference.

The club's planned goodbye was at the Cosmos Club, a patrician mansion on Massachusetts Avenue. The eulogy at this final dinner, which I read, ended: "So hail and farewell, Overseas Writers. You served your purpose well, but now it's time to move on--to what, exactly, nobody knows."

But the wake, at least technically, was not to be. Roy Gutman, on leave from Newsweek at the U.S. Institute of Peace and a former president of the club, suggested the organization be reconfigured to suit the times. Others, less optimistic, pointed out the increasing difficulties in getting important speakers for lunches and then trying to dragoon members to come to the $25 affairs and pay dues. Though most people seemed to want the club to survive, no one volunteered for the chores.

The evening's speaker, longtime Foreign Service officer and former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, then spoke up. Pointing to former Washington Post diplomatic reporter Don Oberdorfer, who's now with the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, he said, "Oberdorfer used to drive us nuts. You used to make the State Department pay attention to what you were saying. You guys made a huge difference." Looking around the dining room at the Cosmos Club, Eagleburger added, "There's nothing like what you used to be. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves to think about breaking up."

Like Eagleburger, I regretted the passing of the club. I cherished the intimate Overseas Writers sessions over the last 30 years when I gained matchless insights into the workings of U.S. foreign policy. Such encounters have been replaced by louder, more adversarial events, with both journalists and officials almost relishing the gulf between them. Although both sides may feel more comfortable about the new arms-length relations, I doubt that the public has gained by the change.