Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1949-04-15
BY George Weller
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VIENNA, Austria. April i5.-in
all the Eastern European states
Communist tribunals are grinding
out sentences.
/ Statesmen. journalists. priests.
diplomats. poets. engineers-all
pass through the mills OF Red
justice and into prison or TO the
scaffold.
| Almost the only persons never
tried are the farmers and the in
dustrial workers. They belong to
the chosen classes on whom the
new totalitarianism rests. They
must be lulled. not antagonized.
There are secret trials and pub
lie trials. The public trial is an
exhibition. 1t is arranged. like any
political show. to be seen by the
people of the region to which 1t Is
pertinent. and no others. Secret
trials have a military basis. like
those of two American soldiers In
czechoslovakia and the Polish
trials in the Ukraine.
Two Churches PilIoried.
! In the religious trials two
churches are pilloried: Protestant
and Roman Catholic. Two
churches are spared: Eastern
Orthodox and Jewish.
The Western. democratic mind
is mystified by what goes on at
these trials. The Westerners still
think of trial in the liberal terms
of innocent until proved guilty.
free. hearing. habeas corpus. free
access to evidence. an uncovered
counsel or defense and the jury
system.
| Projecting these conditions over
| into the monolithic world OF the
Cominform and Marshal Tito
where they do not exist-the
| Westerners are unable to compre-
bend the behavior OF the de-
PENDANTS.
Strong men break down and
blubber that they have committed
incredible treasons against the
state. They beg for mercy. They
confess fantastic plots with for
eign diplomats. II frightened,
they besmear themselves with
guilt. II merely resigned. they
stand passive and abashed while
| the president of the court de-
nounces them.
This beaten and rejected de-
pertinent in court Is so universal.
and so preposterous, that 1t raises
gigantic doubts. But the Western
reporters who wish to dispel these
doubts canot even approach the
scenes. With a few exceptions. as
when Bulgaria recently admitted
selected Western reporters to the
trial of Protestant pastors. the
foreign press" - whose photo
graphs always appear in the Com
munist newspapers-are either
Cominform subjects or complacent
fellow-travelers.
uncertainty NOUNS.
Photographs Of the accused like
those showing a frightened. wall
eyed Cardinal Mindszenty in COM
parison with the splendid and dig
nified prelate whom the Com
munists arrested, increase the un-
certainty.
Was Cardinal Mindszenty
drugged with sodium penthiolate?
The Viennese Communist press
Is at pains to prove that no drug
can make a man tell q lie--though
it says nothing about the drugs
that can make him forget the
truth.
But a general hypothesis Of
drugs Is nonsense. most Balkan
observers agree today.
It yields nothing satisfactory Tor
a study of the whole system being
used to eliminate all leadership In
groups that might challenge the
Communist dictatorship.
Dragging certainly exists as a
method, puC IL Is an emergency
rather than q regular tool. because
electrical shock Is more effective.
American Tortured.
In political police headquarters
at No. go Andrassy street. one
Hungarian employe Of the Ameri-
can Legation who has since
escaped was tortured with . spe-
cial electrical head box resembling
a hair waving machine.
This machine produces shock
state during which the victim Is
ignorant of what he does. This
Hungarian was awakened with q
second acutely painful shock and
found himself confronted with IN
emptied coffee cup and signed