Journalists face obvious risks covering wars and riots. But those are not the only personally hazardous situations they encounter. Two recent incidents illustrate how vulnerable newsmen abroad can be to the vicissitudes of local politics.

In Recife, Brazil one morning two weeks ago, military police arrested Frederick B. Morris, 40, a stringer (part-time correspondent) for TIME and the Associated Press. Taken to a military prison, he was held incommunicado for three days before being allowed to talk to a U.S. consul and unreel his tale of horror: while shackled to the door of his cell, he was subjected to a 32-hour stretch of unrelenting beatings and shocks administered through electrodes attached to various parts of his body. Reports of torture in Brazil's military jails have circulated for a decade, but Morris is the first American newsman to experience it firsthand. His ordeal seemed related to a TIME story last June on Recife Archbishop Dom Helder Camara, a frequent critic of Brazil's military government. Morris was held on vague --and false--charges of "subversive activities" for the Central Intelligence Agency. Despite a formal, forceful protest from U.S. Ambassador John Crinimins, he was still in prison late last week. Halfway round the world in Saigon, American newsmen found themselves involved in another variety of official violence.

TIME Correspondent Barry Hillenbrand reports that he was snapping pictures of government agents scuffling with Buddhists at a demonstration protesting South Viet Nam's harsh press laws, when suddenly one of the plainclothesmen rushed up and punched him on the back of the head, then followed with "one of those Kung Fu kicks to the stomach" before quickly retreating.

Hillenbrand, who was not badly hurt, was far more fortunate than CBS Newsman Haney Howell who, while covering the same demonstration an hour later, was knocked to the ground and kicked by several policemen; he was hospitalized with painful bruises about his spleen. CBS protested directly to President Thieu, noting that the attack did violence to the already fragile image of democracy hi his country. To Hillenbrand, the ugly episode was a telling sign of political jitters hi Saigon. As always, he says, "when the going gets tough for the government, the secret police begin beating on the journalists."

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