Freedom? No, Thanks

When Harold Stassen popped the censorship question to Joseph Stalin (see INTERNATIONAL), he was just trying to be helpful. But last week it appeared that Stassen had unintentionally struck a blow at freedom, not for it. As they passed out of the Russian orbit, U.S. and British newsmen returning from the Moscow Conference began cabling "now it can be told" dispatches. One thing several wanted to tell about was what happened after the Stalin-Stassen chat.

Until then, the censorship holiday on conference news had gone fairly smoothly. But when the censors read about the interview in cables (it was not reported in the Soviet press), they began bearing down. Many dispatches were delayed; some were rejected outright. "The one fact they [the censors] saw in stories of the Stassen interview," cabled Carlyle Holt of the Boston Globe, "was that Stalin approved censorship."

Apparently, said one correspondent, the Russians' first experience with large-scale, uncensored coverage of Russia by the Allied press "affected the Government hierarchy just about as pleasurably as a swift kick in the groin. "And though the people who irritated them most have departed, I'm sure they still hurt all over, and this soreness isn't helped any by the generally fruitless atmosphere in which the conference closed. As a result, the correspondents who stayed behind in Moscow probably face an indeterminate period of aggravated suspicion, noncooperation and stupidly rigorous censorship --a tougher censorship than before."

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