"Grotesque Performance"

Before a Paris meeting of the U.N.'s Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee, U.S. Delegate Channing Tobias rose one day last week to denounce Czechoslovakia's "grotesque performance" in imprisoning A.P. Correspondent William Oatis (TIME, May 7 et seq.). Since Oatis was merely performing the routine duties of a reporter, Tobias said, the U.S. will never "cease to protest the use of William Oatis as a pawn in the suppression of freedom." Added Belgian Delegate Fernand Dehousse: The Communist's definition of a good reporter is one who "must believe the word of the Czech government... or else be considered a spy."

In reply, Soviet Delegate Alexei P. Pavlov snapped a grim warning to all Western newsmen. Oatis' post, said he, "was only an alibi for his true activities." Warned Pavlov: "If you start sending spies, you must remember that [they] will get what they deserve, and many of them will envy those whose fate is only a prison sentence . . . The Soviet Union and the People's Democracies are not one of your colonies, and if you stretch your paws there, we shall hack them off."

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