Through the Iron Curtain

Most news from behind the Iron Curtain comes from heavily censored dispatches of Western newsmen or the state controlled Communist press and radio. This week a new monthly magazine appeared to give U.S. editors a steady new source of news about the satellite countries. The magazine's name: News from Behind the Iron Curtain. Published by the National Committee for a Free Europe, the magazine is compiled with the help of refugees who have escaped from behind the curtain. Among them are three former members of Parliaments: Hungary's Dr. Paul Fabry, Yugoslavia's Dr. Miha Krek and Rumania's Charles Davila. Originallyorganized to help supply information for the National Committee's Radio Free Europe, the staffers work in a cluttered, clattering office on the third floor of a Manhattan building, where they translate and analyze news in papers from their homelands, aided by the interpretation of refugees. Specialists on Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Rumania, etc. put together the bits as they would a jigsaw puzzle, in hopes of presenting a mosaic of fact.

Iron Curtain, whose first issue was distributed to 3,800 newsmen, professors, Government officials, etc., attempts to report on shifts in Communist politics, economics and cultural affairs. Among its effective items are the cynical stories and wisecracks being whispered behind the Iron Curtain. In one story, Czech Communist Leader Antonin Zapotocky looks at his portrait on the wall and says: "You're very well off up here, aren't you?" "Yes," answers the picture, "but I don't believe it can last too much longer . . . They will take me down and hang you."

Another story centers around Prague's new slogan, "We Live More Joyfully." A reporter interviews a worker on whether the slogan is true. Of course, replies the worker: "My wife and I work in a factory. I get up at 5 o'clock . . . rush to the dairy ... am third in line ... get some milk and the last two rolls. We are joyful that we have a breakfast. We leave for work before 6 o'clock, and there are still some seats on the streetcar. We are joyful that we can sit down ... When we come home, my wife gets the last four sausages . . . we are joyful because we have a supper. We go to bed; the bell rings, and when I open the door, there are the police! They ask, 'Mr. Novak?' I answer, 'No, sir, he lives across the street,' and again we are most joyful that we are not arrested."

Iron Curtain carries no ads, is distributed free to editors, educators and others engaged in gathering and spreading information. Though the Committee expects to keep circulation around 5,000, il hopes that reprints of its stories will give them a much wider circulation.

Last week the committee announced that President C. D. Jackson, after twelve months of transforming the committee's anti-Communist fight from blueprint into action, resigned to return to his job as publisher of FORTUNE from which he was on leave. His successor: Harold ("Min") Miller, 49, World War II's youngest rear admiral and onetime Navy press chief. Annapolisman Miller, who retired from the Navy in 1946 and became head of public relations for T.W.A., has been information director of the American Petroleum Institute for the past 3 1/2 years. He will be on leave from A.P.I, to take the committee presidency.

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