Both the Post and the Times asked prospective summer interns a long series of highly political questions having little relation to reportorial skill in interviews this spring "Examples include: What was the last political demonstration you participated in? Would you serve in the Army? How do you plan to get out?

While one of the Post interviewers explained the questions were designed to weed out weak-willed reporters, in at least one case a radical answer led to the Post to turn an applicant down.

Post editors agonized over and finally rejected one student they considered eminently qualified after he answered that he would go to jail rather than serve in the army. Executive Editor Benjamin C. Bradlee reportedly argued that this level of commitment mighthamper his journalistic objectivity. One editor later admitted that the person would have been hired. had he answered differently.

Seeking an intern for the Washington Bureau of the New York Times. Robert Smith, a Times reporter, was discussing the terms of the summer job cordially with one student, until he discovered that the student did not have the political qualifications demanded for the job.

He had deliberately asked to interview a "Nixon-conservative" for the post. "This post is new and this is what Phelps [Robert Phelps-Smith's superior in the Times Washington Bureau] wants." he said.

After asking the student about his experience. Smith asked him where he stood on the political spectrum and what he thought of the Nixon administration. Not much the student replied.

"There must be some mistake." Smith responded.

"What Phelps wants is cross-pollination," Smith said. "After all, we're all a bunch of liberals down here and this is what the administration has been complaining about all along. Phelps created the post and he is entitled to whatever he wants."