The good news: The Chinese have just agreed to release the 24 airmen from our downed reconnaissance aircraft. They're going to divide them into two groups - group A consists of the enlisted men and group B consists of the officers.
The bad news: They're only releasing them in groups of three. One from column A and two from column B...
This does not satisfy the State Department. Their response was: "Two hours later and you want another prisoner!" in spite of the fact that when they asked the Chinese when the first hostages would be released they said, "Ten minute!" and promised to use no MSG.
The accident occured because the Chinese navigatior shouted "Low plane! Low plane!" and the pilot ignored him because he'd already had lunch.