AP apologizes to fired World War II reporter

NEW YORK -- In World War II's final moments in Europe, Associated Press correspondent Edward Kennedy gave his news agency perhaps the biggest scoop in its history. He reported -- a full day ahead of the competition -- that the Germans had surrendered unconditionally at a former schoolhouse in Reims, France.

For this, he was publicly rebuked by the AP, and then quietly fired.

The problem: Kennedy had defied military censors to get the story out. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Harry Truman had agreed to suppress news of the capitulation for a day, in order to allow Stalin to stage a second surrender ceremony in Berlin. Kennedy was also accused of breaking a pledge that he and 16 other journalists had made to keep the surrender a secret for a time, as a condition of being allowed to witness it firsthand.

Sixty-seven years later, the AP's top executive is apologizing for the way the company treated Kennedy.

"It was a terrible day for the AP. It was handled in the worst possible way," said president and CEO Tom Curley.

Kennedy, he said, "did everything just right."

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