Where the News Ends

...Rut gradually I got into the objective frame of mind suitable to a scientific experiment...

...He failed to point out that Hitler offered "protection" of the same kind to Denmark and Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands, nor did he mention the Lithuanian response to this "protection," the staging of a mass uprising as soon as the Soviet Union was attacked in 1941...

...He was far above the superficialities of the daily press...

...The Curse* Una was transformed Trom what ft temmlly was, a temporary demarcation lias, which left ape* Poland's claims to territory eest af the line, toto a solemn permanent fragment as to Poland's psaS pent frontier...

...H k built up aome of the most eloquent flights of his talk on the' statement that higher education in the Soviet was free to everyone...

...Evidently the fellow-traveler's alleged profound Russian atudiea had never led him to note and regard a homely Russian proverb: "Lie, but know the limit...

...TrlK Soviet Union was a country that had "never broken its word, never broken a treaty...

...Thia is the redeeming item in the fellow-traveler'a baggage Most Midwesterners, like most Americans in other parts of the country, could not be sure of si, A grade in sn examination on the history, geography and international relation of Eastern Europe...

...A more skillful propagsndist could have exploited this ignorance...

...It is my serious belief that the fellow, traveler, if pressed on tha subject of tha Soviet attach on Finlsnd in ItSv, would have said, without nackiag a smile, that the Finns attacked the Soviet Union snd that, anyway, the overwhelming majority of them were for the puppet Kuasinen ^government " ?» ? • SoVIET annexations, euphemistically described as "territorial readjustments along the western frontier," were characterised as not in conflict with the Atlantic Charter, "because the Atlantic Charter is not retroactive...

...I was checking the batrgage of a fellow-traveler...

...Evidently the speaker was not familiar with the clearly "retroactive" wording of clause 2 of the Charter: "They wish to see sovereignty rights and self-government restored to those who kave been forcibly deprived of them...

...3> False analogies...

...An old friend of mine once coined a happy phrase: the coeksureness that is so obviously baaed on ths most dismal ignorance The would-be pundit kept tripping over himself on factual mistakes that would have made the traditional wooden Indian in front of a cigarstore laugh...

...Of course, he stated, with the air of a man making a great conceasion, there were jails for people convicted legally of penal offenses...

...He repeated the phrases of Vice-President Wallace about "economic democracy" and "ethic democracy" without trying to enlighten hia audience aa to how the former was compatible with the ruthless regimentation of the workers snd the absence of free trsde unions, snd how much help "ethnic democracy" wss to the vest numbers of Koreans from the Far East, German colonists from the Volga, Uzbeks from Turkestan, Finns from the neighborhood of Leningrad, Ukrainians and other "ethnic" groups who were arbitrarily shifted from one part of the country to another...

...2) Dense ignorance...

...rare equipment for discussing the subject...

...When the aavant's attention was called to this factual error, he tried to squirm out with the poor excuse that is worse than none: "Of course, 1 didn't intend to discuss the changes which the war brought into the Soviet educational set up," he ssid, quits oblivious of the fact that- the introduction of the pay system took place when the Soviet Union was not at war...

...Soviet concentretion camps did not exist in the fellow-traveler'a Shangri-la picture of that country...

...The fellow-traveler, of whom I had never heard before this chance encounter, In-1 no opportunity to impress on the audience his alleged profound study of Russia, his aelf-imagined...

...5) Stupidity...

...But this psrticular fellow-traveler overshot the mark ao widely, painted such an impossible picture of virtue and perfection in the Soviet Union that he fully convinced only the few members of the audience who shared his convictions in advance...

...He had never aeen or heard anything about them during hia extensive travels and researches in thst country...

...We mustn't judge the Soviet Union on a basis of superficial political forms," he told his hearera with a patronising academic air...

...The historical records show that the Soviet (Jovernment, on its own initiative, concluded pacta of non-aggression and neutrality with Poland, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, also that every one of those pacta was broken in I W.'tW and 1940...

...But night became day and aggression became non-aggression under the fictional fancy of the apeaker...

...Who dared say that there would be any difficulties iA the way of American-Soviet/col-laboration...

...The Soviet Union sent large military forces into the Baltic Republics to "protect them" and in accordance with existing treaties...

...he viewed the Soviet phenomenon, as he admitted himself, with the depth and detachment of a philosopher...

...At times it was difficult to maintain one's composure...

...Then he fairly tied himself up in knota trying to explain how these "superficial political forma," i.e., the one-party dictatorship, came into being...

...4) Unlimited mendacity...

...The check-up worked out at five times, listed as follows: 11) Ludicrous pomposity...

...Rut where thia particular line of argument backfired badly was in failing to explain why the dictatorship remained, and even became intensified when the Soviet Union, according to the learned fellow-traveler, was enjoying amazing prosperity...

...Aa if King George VI and the Archbishop of Canterbury weie aa formidable obstacles to international cooperation as the head of a Narkomvnudel and secret agents of the type described so minutely by Krivitsky and Valtiii...

...The Soviet Government in the beginning confronted tremendous problems, he argued, and he gave a dolorous, but in this case not inaccurate picture of the frightful misery of the Russian people during the years of revolution and civil war, without, of course, suggesting that the Communist Party bore a considerable share of responsibility for this misery...

...Here was a group of Americans, above the average in interest in world affairs, but not quslified by personal observation to distinguish truth from Action sbout such a remote part of the world as Eastern Europe, being plied with misrepresentations, false analogies, half truths and downright lies on a stole which 1 have never seen equilled since the days when 1 could observe Voks, In tourist and other Soviet propaganda agencies in Moscow get hold of a credulous foreign visitor...

...Why, we got on quite well with/Great Britain, a country with two formidable institutions for which there was no parallel in this countiy, an hereditary monarchy and an Established Church...

...Despite his loudly expressed contempt for the press, he would have done himself a aervice if he had read the newspapers on the day when the introduction of a system of fees for all universities snd technicsl schools wss snnounced in the Soviet press and rsbled to newspapers in this country...