Over the Iron Curtain

When the wire services flashed the news of Stalin's illness to the world last week, the stories came from London instead of Moscow. The six Western correspondents in Moscow were roundly scooped by their own home offices because they couldn't get through the censors. But their London bureaus, accustomed to Russian censorship, were ready. They use monitoring services in London which teletype Moscow broadcasts into their bureaus, thus were able to send out the news as soon as it was broadcast. Later the Western correspondents in Moscow got through to Paris and London--by phone. But not until hours later did their cabled stories start to come in. Though the United Press, Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse kept their London and Paris datelines until their own men got through, International News Service, which has no Moscow correspondent, had no such restraint. It slapped a Moscow dateline on its stories anyway.

Black Borders. On the news of Stalin's death, the wire services not only beat their own correspondents again, but they also got the news to their clients two hours before the Russian people heard it. The London bureaus picked up a broadcast by Tass, the official Russian news agency, to provincial papers, telling them how to play the death story when it was announced. Tass ordered front pages bordered in black with a portrait of Stalin in military uniform filling three columns on the right side of the page then listed five stories (official death notice, funeral arrangements, etc.) to be run on the same page. At the time, all telephonic communication between Moscow and the outside world was cut off for "repairs."

When the death was finally broadcast on Radio Moscow, U.P. got a call a few minutes later from its Moscow correspondent, Henry Shapiro. By long distance he asked "Have you heard the news" before he was cut off. Half an hour later he got through once more, and had dictated part of his story before he was cut off again, thus permitting U.P. to put out a Moscow-datelined story hours before the A.P.'s Eddy Gilmore and Tom Whitney got through to London and Paris.

Plain Words. The papers, which had ample warning to prepare layouts and picture spreads, covered their pages with the death story. Mexico City's Ultimas Noticias, which had headlined the story of Stalin's stroke NOT YET, told of his death with the headline FINALLY. The Christian Science Monitor, which rarely permits the word death in the paper, had trouble skirting it to cover the news. First it talked of Stalin's "incapacitation" and "departure from the driver's seat," later headlined his death ERA OF 35 YEARS PASSES WITH STALIN. The New York Times used 54 full columns for the history and background of Stalin's regime. The New York Mirror summed it up in a headline: LENIN MADE STALIN--WAS SORRY.

Many an editorialist was brutally frank, following the lead of Publisher William Randolph Hearst Jr., who wrote in a front-page editorial the day after the news of Stalin's stroke: "Apart from the hypocritical, that is to say, diplomatic words of regret ... it seems to us there never had been a more appropriate time for the expression: 'I hope it's nothing trivial.'" The Arkansas Gazette ran the shortest comment of all--sic SEMPER TYRANNIS--and the New York Daily News said bluntly: "He is now a good Communist."

Bad Job. Only one U.S. magazine was tripped up by the news. The monthly Science Digest (est. circ. 200,000) had an issue coming off the press with a cover portrait of Stalin and an article blurbed "Why Stalin May Live to Be a Hundred." It tried to turn this blooper into an asset by putting a wrapper around every copy saying: "Exclusive: Red Doctors' Fight to Save Stalin."

The New York Times Magazine, which also closed before Stalin died, hit the situation nicely with a picture of Malenkov addressing the Communist Party Congress, called him "Stalin's possible successor." Only Manhattan's Communist Daily Worker did a bad job of covering the news. The Worker, unlike every other paper in the U.S., refused to speculate on who would succeed Stalin, never mentioned Malenkov's name. When Moscow announced his appointment, it came too late for the Worker's weekend edition. Not till this week did the Worker carry a story on Malenkov, three days after everyone else.

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