In Enemy Territory

Ever since the start of the Korean war, Manhattan's Communist Daily Worker has been at a disadvantage. Unlike other Communist papers, such as France's L'Humanite and London's Worker, the Manhattan Worker had no staff correspondent filing regularly from the Reds' Far Eastern camps. Last week the Worker finally caught up; Correspondent Joseph Starobin, a Worker staffer for ten years and a Communist Party member for as long as anyone could recall, became the first U.S. newsman to get behind enemy lines. Joe Starobin, a U.S. citizen who went abroad more than two years ago and recently attended Red China's Peiping peace conference, went from Red China to Communist Viet Minh territory in Indo-China.

Once there, Starobin faithfully followed the party line on Indo-China but he did clear up one point. For more than two years no Westerner has seen Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Communist forces. Wrote Starobin: "The highest points of my voyage . . . were two evenings in the company of 63-year-old Ho Chi Minh." As Starobin described him, Ho Chi Minh is "a rather tall man . . . His back is now slightly hunched, greying hair recedes from a broad forehead, and piercing eyes look out over high cheekbones. He wears the oriental wisp of a beard, and his hearty laughter discloses strong, white teeth. He dresses in the simple jacket and slacks of the peasant." If Communist Correspondent Starobin could be believed, President Ho Chi Minh was at least still alive.

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