Evening star., 1953-09-16

-Skt
! had a slick white stone front
and looked like a hospital.
We entered and, passing uni
formed policemen. government
propaganda posters and huge
photographs of cabinet ministers.
went up one fight of stairs to a
comfortably furnished Office
overlooking the street. There
we sat down and waited.
It was almost dark enough to
turn the lights on in there when
other plainclothesmen began
drifting in. Last of all, with a
quick, staggering stride, came
a lean, spectacled man in a tan
trench coat. He was blond, with
a long, pale face and pale
fanatical blue eyes. pouched like
a lizards.
He frowned at me and, talking
through an interpreter said, I'VE
have met before, on a happier
occasion"
! I remembered him. This man,
who called himself "the Boss"
had talked to me the previous
November at a Prague permit Of
flee about whether I should be
! allowed to stay in Czechoslo-
Vakia.
He had let me stay and work,
even though I had been deprived
of official accreditation as a
foreign correspondent in Czecho-
slovakia and did not get the ac-
creditation back till three
months later.
You promised me then," he
said, that you would not do
unofficial reporting You broke
that promise"
I remembered making no overt
promise to conf1ne my reporting
to official news sources. / told
him so. He cited instances of
unofficial" newsgathering that
he could have got only from my
missing employees.
He said something about "nase
strana," two Czech words knew
to mean "our party" The in
terpreter skipped that, but I got
the next sentence in plain, un-
grammatical English:
If any one opposes US, we
ruin them!"
Witness and Defendant.
your are here" the men went
on, lin two roles: AS a witness
against your employees, and as a
defendant yourself
do you know why your en-
ployes are here? Murder-foul
murder! They protected an en-
emy agent. An accomplice of
that agent took a human life.
He killed one of our men in cold
blood, man with a wife and
children"
I said I had nothing to do
with any murder. I insisted I
had never even met the agent he
spoke of. He replied, I'VE will
prove to you that you did"
The Boss hunched forward.
shot a bony finger at me and
! yelled, SPY"
If I'm a spy" I said, smil-
ing, I'm not a real spy-juSt a
newspaper spy-I didn't spy for
anybody but The Associated
Press"
THE penalty for espionage"
he continued, lis from 10 years
to death. 1t will be better
for you if you talk"
What do you want me to talk
about? l don't have anything to
talk about"
Your colleague. Samuel
Meryn, was sarcastic, too, at
first" the man came back.
Later he changed his mind.
Today he has only kind words
for u.s."
Mr.. Meryn-incidentally no
colleague fmine-had clerked
in the United States Embassy.
He had been arrested in 1949 and
accused of handing out radio
transmitters to a secret anti
state group. He was expelled
from the country with a propa-
ganda blast.
IF l talk" I asked. will
you leet me go the way you did
Meryn?"
A bystander spoke up, evi-
IDENTIFY willing to agree; words
were cheap. But the reptilian
blond stopped him.
Don't promise him anything" "
he said. "Self-criticsm must be
free and natural. There must be
no ulterior motive"
eve Have Other Methods"
More questions and answers
followed.
l asked some questions myself:
Could l see the United States
consul? NO. Would l be al
lowed a good English-speaking
lawyer if I went to trial? (Yes.l
If you do not talk" the Boss
) said, I'VE will have to use other
methods" He walked out.
Two interpreters took over
tiny men, like court dwarfS.
One asked me why 1 had writ
ten a story predicting disagree
! ments over policy at the Com
muniSt- dominated World Stu
dent Congress held in Prague
| the August before. I said because
| I thought it was news.
That was not the reason you
: wrote the story!" he said. You