The One in White

Bunky Millerman caught me from behind on the third day of Woody Wilson's little escapade in Vera Cruz. Bunky and his cameras and I had gone down south of the border a couple of weeks earlier for the Tribune . I'd been promised an interview with the tin-pot General Huerta, who was running the country.

He had his hands full with Zapata and Villa and Carranza, and by the time I got there El Presidente was no longer in a mood to see the American press. I was ready to beat it back north, but then the muse of reporters shucked off her diaphanous gown for me and made the local commandant in Tampico, on the Gulf coast, go a little mad. He grabbed a squad of our Navy bluejackets, ashore for gasoline and showers, and marched them through the street as Mexican prisoners. That first madness passed quickly, and ...