Plugged

From New York Times Correspondent Dana Adams Schmidt, in Paris this week, came a report of what covering the news is like behind the Iron Curtain. Schmidt, who slipped out of Prague 13 months ago, after a tip that the Czech police were ready to arrest him on phony charges, wrote: "Even the official sources of information had dried up." To get what news he could, Schmidt had to rely on "visits after dark, meetings on street corners, anonymous telephone calls, letters shoved under doors." Before the Czech Communist coup in February 1948, said he, there were 25 to 30 Western correspondents in Prague. Now after the Oatis trial (see above) and a campaign of terrorizing correspondents, there is not a single one.

In all of Hungary, Rumania, Poland, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia, only three

Western correspondents are left (one in Budapest, two in Warsaw). Wire services and newspapers outside the Iron Curtain must rely on stringers (i.e., part-time correspondents) who are natives of the countries, and who cannot hold a job without a police permit, thus can send only what is officially approved. Concluded Schmidt: "One by one the Communists are plugging the last chinks in the Iron Curtain."

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