OFF THE RECORD

The Best Stories of Foreign Correspondents"" makes up a convivial collection of newsbeats, interviews, incidents, and anecdotes with a jaunty running commentary by the editors. There's the diminishing chance of a ""My Lunch with the Prime Minister"" but Churchill and MacDonald, Madame Chiang Kai-shek and G. B. Shaw are seen at close quarters; there's Paris, the newsman's first love, pre-Hemingway and post-Hitler; there are the big scoops, from the death of Ernie Pyle to the first mission over Tokyo, and the snags of censorship; there's the prestige of personality- from MacArthur to Garbo to Eva Braun. And there are the gentlemen of the press themselves, living off expense accounts and hibernating in bistros; the women correspondents (but not Betty Betz), the photographers, and the public relations officers to make up a transcript of this life which has not lost its legend and in itself makes good copy. Leland Stowe, Bob Considine (who also contributes an introduction), Ed Murrow, Clark Lee are among the veteran names in a volume collected by the Overseas Press Club of America.