Evening star., 1946-04-29

iidfC llOG Uee1 dDle 10 CIedGe d.
much distrust of Russian acts and
purposes as Russia herself has
created by the recent rigid censor
ship which she has clamped on in
Iran.
Iron Curtain a Reality.
That amounts to veritable iron
curtain and, of course, no one is
credulous enough to think that the
Iranian government acted in this
except under irresistible Soviet
pressure. 1t is strange, indeed, that
the Russians do not grasp the OBJ
vious fact that suspicion feeds on
secrecy. They must recognize that
the inevitable reaction of the ordi-
nary man and woman outside Rus
sia to Iranian censorship is that
things inside must be pretty awful
when the Soviet government goes
to such extremes to cover up. 1t is
practically impossible to make any
other deduction.
we do not think the Russians are
wilkins because of their censorship
habits. And We are reluctant to
attribute to them any sinister or
wicked purpose. But we simply
cannot understand this secrecy
business. If it isn't sinister, then
it seems to us completely stupid.
Our view is that publicity is
stunned only by those who are
afraid of the truth, that unless you
have something to hide there is
no excuse for censorship except
during war.
The British, of course, feel the
same way about it. Any number
of Russian reporters are free to
come to this country or go to Eng
land; free to roam all over the
place: free to send back to Russia
anything they want to say about us
in any way they like.
But no British or American re-
porter can do that kind of thing in
any part of the world where the
Russian influence is dominant. On
the contrary, in Moscow, as in Iran
every foreign correspondent is re-
stricted in many ways and all the
time He not only cannot send
freely and fully the facts he gets
but he has great difficulty in getting
the facts to send. Protests over
the years against this have been
made, but in vain. In this business
Of complete newspaper independ-
ence the Russians understand our
attitude as little as We understand
theirs. 80 'f'"'
Testimony of those who know the
Russians best and are most friendly
to them is that they are capable
of comprehending everything about
the American system and the
American people except our insist
ence upon the freedom of the
press"
Doesn't Make Sense.
That just makes no sense to them
They regard it as a national obses-
sion. They think it silly but do not
believe we are sincere They con-
tend that our press is not really
free and that the whole freedom of
the press argument is pretense.
American officials of the highest
level assert their belief in the sim
cerity of this Russian conviction
and agree as to the hopelessness of
arguing about it. However, it does
seem that eventually the fact that
they are absolutely alone in their
advocacy of censorship and in their
belief that free press is nonsense
would sink into the Russian con-
SciOuSnesS.
In a recent talk to the American
Society of Newspaper Editors in
Washington on this subject, Mr.
Trygve Lie, the Norwegian secre-
tary general of the United Nations
said: UNLESS there is a constantly
increasing and free communication
between all peoples We (the United
Nations) will be strangled at the
outset of our effort"
And Mr.. Byron Price, head of our
War Censorship Board, told the
same gathering that american