Circulation Bait

Manhattan's Daily Worker teamed up with the Chinese Reds to try an old propaganda trick. Under a Peking date line, the Worker last week front-paged a schedule of "news broadcasts by U.S. prisoners of war over Radio Peking," giving the names, ranks and addresses of 18 G.I.s and officers, who are allegedly prisoners of the Chinese Communists and presumably ready to do some talking.

The listing was obviously bait for every U.S. family with a son reported missing in Korea, since it was the only way the names of prisoners come out. The Chinese Reds have refused to turn over names of prisoners to the International Red Cross, as required by the Geneva Convention (which Peking won't ratify).

The Red propaganda was also abetted by the pro-Commie weekly National Guardian. Last week it printed a list of 155 names of supposed U.S. P.W.s, the Guardian's seventh such list to date. Several have included statements allegedly from P.W.s condemning the Korean war. Guardian Editor Cedric Belfrage, a Briton who once denied charges by Elizabeth Bentley that he had spied for Russia, claimed that his source of names was the Red-lining China Monthly Review of Shanghai (formerly the China Weekly Review--TIME, July 17).

The Worker's source was Correspondent Alan Winnington, who covers the Communist forces for the London Daily Worker. When Winnington's British P.W. reports began running in the London Worker months ago, irate M.P.s shouted "Treason!" and demanded that the government take action. Suddenly, the London Worker found itself "too crowded with other news" to run the lists.

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