WHERE THE NEWS ENDS
CHAMBERLIN, WILLIAM HENRY
Where the News Ends By William Henry Chamberlin Pink Snow Over Russia WHEN some "totalitarian liberal" announces with an air of profound and cynical wisdom that the press is just as controlled...
...These islands were in no sense an integral part of Japan...
...During this last year, 575 Russian-born persons left this country...
...Snow's Ivan is supposedly shocked at the poll-tax regulations in some southern states, although 4 can think of Soviet Russians who are intcHirj|nt enough to reflect that it would lake a good deal more than the payment of a poll-lax lo insure the free exercise of the suffrage in the Soviet Union or in any of the countries it controls...
...Rut it is unquestionable that something strange is taking place...
...Snow tries to convince American readers that Germans who are opposed' to Communism should be "discouraged.- no matter how roughly," that Russia, with armed forces exceeding those of the United States and Britain put together, hss reason to feel threatened and "encircled," that it is wanton aggression for an American naval force to visit Athens and Istanbul, hut presumably just goodneighborly fun for the Soviet Union and it* Balkan satellite* to threaten Hte dUmemlwrmewt ef Turkey •nd Greece...
...9 9 9 iJsiNG the same methods of false analogy and distortion of fact, Mr...
...His writings have marked him a* an ardent sympathizer with the Chinese Communists, and he is honest enough to admit that these Chinese Communists are not just misunderstood "agrarian democrats...
...At last something was to be done...
...i found his first article pedantic ami rather dull...
...He, forgets about tbe Se*S troops in Poland when he says that "Red Ainty forces today- are found ntrwhere except in ex sjjfl stales," And be says that the rJeefiM^ Yakr* reorganize fhe Polish Government "constituted , more important compromise for the Russians tqga was recognised here.*.' Actually, everything that W happened in Poland during the two years since Yalta, reaching a climax in the recent fraudulent election, has merely confirmed Communist control of (hat unfortunate country...
...Where the News Ends By William Henry Chamberlin Pink Snow Over Russia WHEN some "totalitarian liberal" announces with an air of profound and cynical wisdom that the press is just as controlled and biased in the United Slates as it is in the Soviet Union, the three articles which Edgar Snow has just published in The Saturday Evenuig Posjj'woiild furnish convincing evidence to the contrary...
...It was back in 1915 that President Truman declared himself in favor of doing something - not much, but something— to relieve the bitter distress which is piling up in Europe...
...And since then nothing has happened...
...For a predominantly middle-class publication, with a mildly right-of-center editorial policy, has turned over its vast publicity medium to an extremely ardent special pleader for the Soviet cause who is also one of its editors...
...A correspondent writes to The New Leader: "A ridiculously insignificant number of Russian-born immigrants have been admitted to this country during recent years...
...In the light of the known facts it might appear almost impossible to try to prove that Britain, shedding as much of its empire as it can ss fast as it can, or the United States, emerging from the war with the prospect of a strategic mandate for less than a thousand square miles of i-oral reefs in the Pacific, are more aggressive than the Soviet Union, with its 25,1)00,000 forcibly acquired new subjects and its 260,000 square miles ot annexed territory...
...While hundreds of thousands wear themselves out in frustration behind the barbed wire of European camps, we are welcoming to this famed refuge of the weary and heavy-laden hardly more than a token number...
...There are crocodile lear lor pom Han...
...It is' obvious that no effort 'has been atads to make good on the President's promise...
...The Atlantic Charter ia not involved in the assignment lo the United Ststes of s mandate over islands where the native population is too primitive to think in terms of modern nationalism...
...Of Mr...
...Powerful voices were rlaised in support of this proposal...
...Snow's credentials as an advocate of the Soviet case there can be no reasonable question...
...It wag a humane and practical idea...
...He suggested that we stretch the strict letter of the rules a bit and open some of the unfilled hack quotas to allow for the admission of limited number of refugees...
...There has been much less excitement about the exclusion of thousands of homeless persons who yearn for admission to the United States...
...Among interested citizens throughout the country there was a sense of relief...
...Rut the Muscovite, living in isolation as lie does, cannot discern why that action violated (lie Atlantic Charter, whereas President Truman's unilateral announcement of America's sole trusteeship rights lo former Japanese islands upholds the same pact...
...supposedly seared by the atomic bomb, but aWie Is no suggestion thai It lies within the^em- r of his mlefs at any moment to banish this fear by accepting the Baruch Plan...
...Here was certainly a clear and flagrant breach of Atlantic Charter principles...
...It was .general I y taken for granted that the President's statement would serve as a directive for his administration...
...An Editorial— Open the Door, America...
...Leading men of both political parties endorsed il...
...The second article, "How It Looks to Ivan Ivanovieh," is much more provocative and combative...
...The Soviet Union, after attacking Finland without provocation, wrested from il the Karelian Isthmus, a territory inhabited by several hundred thousand Finns, who almost unanimously left their homes rather than become Soviet citizens...
...Actual admissions are represented by die following figures: .12 in 1943, 41 in 1944, 18 in 1945, and in 1946—after the President made his famous statement—only 76...
...Snow, one could prove that Norway and Belgium were a fearful threat to Nazi Germany, that Abyssinia was the aggressor against Italy, and that China was a deadly threat to the existence of Japan...
...The, groups or immigrants admitted from the variant countries are still ridiculously small—far below the quota figures...
...Even without new legislation, with the cooperation ol the State Department and the immigration authorities, much could have been done...
...Actually, the entire quota remains unused.'1 To follow this case of the Russian quota a bit further, there are now in this country honest and useful persons who desire citizenship in order last they may rehabilitate themselves and start life anew on a permanent basis...
...an example, take the following passage: "Our press holds that it was wicked for Russia to ictake Karelia after defeating Finland...
...During the war years our immigration quotas have not been filled...
...There is something mysterious about the thinness of the dribble to which recent*immigration has been reduced...
...They are deprived of this privilege because American consuls and the Stats Deparliiutiit persist in asserting that the quota is filled...
...People are going out rather than coming in...
...It largely revolved around tbe all loo obvious point that Soviet and western interpretations of the same words are often profoundly different...
...The Saturday Evening Pott proved its willingneti to let its readers know "the other side" in the American-Soviet debate that overshadows all other postwar political developments...
...There is 1 gremlin in the mechanism somewhere...
...Jn doing sr., it consciously or unconsciously set up a series of shining targets for readers with some knowledge of recent historical fact and some regard for logical coaeislency to shoot at...
...MANY Americans have waxed wrathful al Britain for keeping refugees out of Palestine...
...The last article contains a truly fantastic attempt to palm off as Soviet "concessions" promises which were made only to be broken, as at Yalta, or inherently unsatisfactory arrangements like the creation of a Free State of Trieste, or highly nebulous suggestions like the Soviet acceptance, "in principle," of intersietioruir inspection and control, wlpfle proposjajgl rut the heart out of tbe Harnett Plan by retaiaE the veto power...
...What is happening in our consular offices and ports of enlry is contrary to our declared policy and lo authoratalive expressions of public opinion...
...A thick blanket of pink snow has been thrown over the hard facts of Soviet aggression that fit in with-a, Soviet philosophy of ultimate world domination...
...Japsn attacked the United Slates and in the course of*the war lost to America the Caroline...
...There is no valid parallel between these situations...
...His proposal was so simple and so feasible thai it won instant support on all sides...
...No one who follows the Soviet press and radio can refrain from entering an emphatic dissent...
...William Green, for the AFL, and representative leaders of the CIO, gave it enthusiastic support...
...Marshall and Mariana Islands, which it had held dnder s mandate from the League of Nations...
...According to liw, the Russian quota is 2,712...
...Poland is a continual stumblS block for l|r...
...But Snow seriously aims at this goal, using as his weapons false analogies and misplaced sarcasm...
...There was practically no vocal opposition...
...It has been more than a year since these words were spoken and these idess went abroad...
...The supposition that someone lower down is sabotaging the intent of the administratios is too crude to Ik- entertained...
...On balance, then, we have admitted no one from that country...
...His more recent books show a tendency to take Communist parties and Soviet puppet regimes in Eastern Europe pretty mucji on faith...
...Then there is a completely scrambled and garbled version of recent European history which omits the partition of Poland and presents ihe Soviet Union as the consistent anti-Fascisl crusader...
...By using the reasoning methods -of Mr...
...It begins with the truly hair-raising statement that the facts presented to the Soviet public are usually correct...
Vol. 30 • March 1947 • No. 10
