Don't Laugh, Clown!

Into the tanbark of the Moscow Circus rolled a huge papier-mache head with bulbous nose, watery blue eyes and a patch of wispy hair made of brambles. This, explained Russia's famed Magician Kio, was the head of the U.S. To show his audience what went on inside the head, Kio unscrewed the top. In jumped a masked gunman in evening clothes (U.S. literature), a Western badman (Hollywood), two fat chorus girls (the U.S. theater) and three dwarfs (the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, a slanderer of the U.S.S.R.).

When all the characters were safely in side, Kio carefully screwed down the top. From the band came a short burst of jazz music and Kio opened up the head again. The gunmen, chorus girls and dwarfs were gone; all that was left was a scrap of paper: the Atlantic pact.

The Voice of the Dogs. With this bit of satire, the Moscow Circus last week redeemed itself from grievous sins. Six weeks ago the unsmiling men who watch over the Russians' leisure hours had complained that the circus dodged ideology and served up too much fun. Most harshly criticized were the clowns. Their antics, said the weekly Soviet Art sternly, lacked "ideology, optimism and Soviet purpose."

Konstantin Berman, one of Moscow's favorite clowns, did his best to remedy the lack. He strutted into the ring dressed in mauve zoot-suit jacket and pinstripe trousers. "I will now demonstrate the Marshall Plan," said Berman, holding up a boomerang. The boomerang, he explained, was the dollar. When he threw it in the air, the missile split and two dollar-boomerangs returned to his hands. The crowd roared out its applause.

It roared again when Berman lugged a big unwieldy radio set into the ring. When he turned it on, the audience heard some barking dogs. "That," said Berman, "is the 'Voice of America.' Now for the BBC." This time the radio emitted the sound of grunting pigs. Then Berman reached into the set and pulled out a squealing young pig. "Churchill's heir," he cried.

The Silken Curtain. Over the "Voice," he said, he had heard that a fascist war criminal was being jailed by the U.S. "I am the kind of man," explained Berman, "who believes everything that comes from abroad." The suave Kio stood ready to show how unwise that was. Several workmen rolled a big cage into the ring. Inside was Adolf Hitler. Mumbling his magic formula, Kio lowered what he explained was "not an iron, but a silken curtain." When the curtain rose once more, the workers had been moved inside the cage, and outside, mocking them, stood Hitler. On hand to congratulate the Fuehrer on his escape were a U.S. capitalist and Winston Churchill, complete with cheroot and navy cap.

But Kio had not forgotten that he was also expected to express "optimism." The curtain was once more lowered and raised. This time Churchill, Hitler and the U.S. capitalist were inside the cage, and the workers wheeled it out. "That," intoned Kio grimly, "is the way it will be when the people's patience bursts--and forever, too."

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