Dear Time-Reader

For Robert Low, TIME Inc.'s Eastern European Correspondent, the last three and a half years of reporting the news from both sides of the Balkans' gradually lowering Iron Curtain has been an excursion in incongruity. The Curtain is securely fastened now--except for Communist and fellow-traveling foreign journalists and Low has returned to the U.S. for a breather.

Low's first-rate reporting job during his tour of duty is perhaps best exemplified by the now historic documents on the Tito-Stalin conflict, which ended in Moscow's excommunication of Marshal Tito. Low managed to get them in advance of general publication and, as printed in TIME'S August 23, 1948 issue, they were the first complete summary of this revealing correspondence. Other Low stories that you may recall include his account of the Communist guerrilla raid on the Greek town of Naousa (TIME, Jan. 31), and Patriot George Magalios and the American aid program for Greece (Jan. 3).

Two anecdotes, among many, serve to illustrate what Correspondent Low has been up against intrying to get the news of Russia's satellite Balkan countries. During arecent meeting with a Western-educated top official of one of the satellites, they talked in normal conversational idiom until Low asked a leading political question. The official said: "I'll answer you, but from now on, you understand, I must use my own vocabulary." Then he began: "As for the imperialist-fascist Western powers attempting to spread their poison within these freedom-loving democracies . . ." Says Low: "At that juncture you either abandon your line of questioning or go away, because you know the standard cliches as well as any Communist."

On the other hand, neither ideology nor double-talk was involved in Low's last successful attempt to get a reentry visa for Communist-controlled Rumania. Rumanian Premier Petru Groza would not see him and so, knowing that Groza fancied himself a tennis player second to no one, Low let it be known that back in the States he himself had been quite a tennist. Around midnight three nights later his telephone rang: the Premier would like to play; his car would be around at 6 o'clock in the morning.

For the next three weeks Low was up at daybreak, banging away at the Premier -- always with the same result. Groza, a wilful old man who had to win, brought his own umpire, a burly sergeant of the security police with an outsize Luger on his hip. If Low aced the Premier, he was "Not ready. Serve again." If Groza's return hit three feet outside the baseline, the sergeant would give Low a stern look, toggle his holster and grunt: "Goot!" And no matter where Low's ball hit, if the Premier couldn't get it, it was always "oot!" "Naturally," says Low, "I didn't beat the Premier. No one does. But I got the re-entry visa, without which I couldn't do my job."

Elsewhere, throughout Eastern Europe, the people Low met were usually helpful and friendly --if they were sure the police weren't looking --and Low is convinced that American prestige is still high there. It was much the same in the purple mountains of Northern Iran on the Soviet frontier, where Low spent some time last summer with a Kurdish chieftain of the Shikakki tribe, listening to a portable radio churning Russian-sponsored incitements to revolt while the chief conveyed his high regard for Americans and obviously meant it.

Now that the Balkan satellites are closed to him, Low confesses to a certain loneliness: "You miss those little men from the security police who tail you, the knowledge that your telephone is tapped, and the interesting things the Communist newspapers write about you" (one described Low as "the Ronald Colman-type champion of American imperialism"). As a final bit of intelligence extracted from his last trip behind the Curtain, Low reports that the hottest black market item now is playing cards. None have been manufactured there since before the war, and there are no Communist allocations for reviving the industry. Low's deck of cards was virtually snatched from him by a waiter in a Budapest cafe, and the current demand for them throughout the Balkans is apparently unlimited.

Cordially yours,

James A. Linen

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