Parting the Bamboo Curtain

Not for 15 years has a bona fide American reporter from a major U.S. news organization been allowed to visit Communist China. But last week, in the wake of the American table tennis team's unexpected visit to the land of Chairman Mao, the Bamboo Curtain for correspondents finally parted a little, and the rush was on.

When the invitation was first issued, few U.S. newsmen bothered to try for visas to accompany the table tennis team, and with good reason. For years, veteran China watchers had become used to requesting visas via periodic cables to Peking and never receiving so much as an answer from the Foreign Ministry. Most had dropped the practice in recent years, assuming it a futile exercise. One of the few to renew their visa requests was NBC's John Rich, who left Shanghai just ahead of Mao's forces in 1949, and has been China watching from Tokyo since 1962. Rich sent off what he called his "umpteenth cable," routinely requesting permission to enter China. Associated Press Tokyo Bureau Chief Henry Hartzenbusch did the same on behalf of John Roderick, who interviewed Mao when he was a guerrilla fighter in Northern China during the 1940s, and has been the A.P.'s chief China watcher in Tokyo since 1959. To their astonishment, the Foreign Ministry replied promptly for the first time ever: Come ahead.

Approval of visas for Rich, 53, and Roderick, 56, set off a stampede. The Red-run China Travel Service, which issues visas in Hong Kong when Peking approves, was suddenly swamped. From Tokyo, United Press International's Al Kaff desperately tried to telephone Peking for a visa to match A.P.'s coup. To his surprise, he got through to the Foreign Ministry, only to be told politely that no more approvals were being issued for the moment. U.P.I, had to settle for stringer copy and telephoned reports from the U.S. table tennis players.

Opening the Door. In addition to Rich and Roderick, NBC's Tokyo Operations Manager lack Reynolds was also admitted, along with a two-man Japanese camera-sound crew. From Hong Kong, LIFE'S British-born John Saar and German-born Freelance Photographer Frank Fischbeck were given visas, as was Tillman Durdin, 64, of the New York Times, another old China hand who covered the Sino-Japanese War from Shanghai in the late 1930s and was the Times's Nanking bureau chief in 1948. Rich, Roderick and Durdin all applied for permission to open permanent bureaus in Peking.

It is not likely that China will go that far yet. But Premier Chou Enlai, who Roderick says remembered him after a lapse of 23 years, had a jovial chat with the journalists. "Mr. Roderick," he said with a smile, "you have opened the door." He promised that more U.S. journalists would be admitted later "in batches." Almost immediately, usually stone-faced officials at Hong Kong's China Travel Service smilingly expressed the hope that other applications to Peking would be successful.

Inviting Veterans. Just how much the journalists would see of China was open to question, but anything, for a start, was better than nothing. Rich and his crew shot more than 10,000 ft. of color film during the visit and sent 30-odd voicecasts back to the U.S. via telephone relay. There was no evidence of censorship of dispatches from Peking, and China waived its rule requiring that all film be developed and inspected before shipment out of the country. But there was no indication that the journalists had much freedom to roam either. All film and copy were carefully noncontroversial.

Late last week the visit of the table tennis team ended, and the visas of some correspondents expired with it. But Rich and Roderick got three-day extensions, and Durdin's visa will last a full month. Observers were encouraged that China had opened its borders to veterans who had known the country before Mao, and might be less easily snowed by tour guides than younger men.

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