Artful Trap

In recent weeks British and U.S. diplomats in Czechoslovakia have had the uncomfortable feeling that they were being followed. Two weeks ago the Foreign Ministry proudly produced results: British Air Attache Group Captain Cedric Masterman and U.S. Air Attache Colonel D.E. Teberg, they said, had been "apprehended" in a "clearly demarcated forbidden military zone."

In separate answering notes, the U.S. and British ambassadors told what really happened. One sunny afternoon Group Captain Masterman and Colonel Teberg, out for a picnic in the countryside, were driving along the main highway north of Prague in Masterman's car. At a crossroads near Milovice they were stopped by a military policeman and directed to turn off down a side road that bordered on an airfield. About 500 yds. down the road, Masterman found his progress blocked by an army truck planted in the middle of the road. He stopped. Before he could turn around, another truck drove up close behind him, making any move impossible. Six soldiers with submachine guns appeared and surrounded the car. With car and officers pinned there, the Czechs briskly towed two twin-engined jets as close to the car as they could, then ran two tanks up close on the other side. Four photographers arrived. The blocking trucks were moved back, the gun-carrying guards retreated out of lens range, and the photographers then took photographs of the car against this "most studiously arranged background."

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