"An Abuse of Power"

As a Belgian official in the Congo, Michel Struelens years ago became friendly with Katanga's Moise Tshombe. In October of 1960, he came to the U.S. as chief of the Katanga Information Service.

A charming chap, he got along nicely with the U.S. State Department, which issued him a temporary visa. Struelens, now 34, set up shop on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, settled down to promote Tshombe's cause indefinitely.

The State Department felt so friendly toward Struelens that in August 1961 it asked him to take a trip to Katanga to explain U.S. views to Tshombe. He did. But a month later, the U.S. backed the move of United Nations forces against Tshombe's Katanga in support of the central Congo government. Around U.N. lounges, at luncheon clubs, in mailings to Congressmen, Struelens protested the U.N. action, spread stories about U.N. atrocities in Katanga. Then, all of a sudden, the State Department canceled Struelens' visa.

Belated Discovery. Officially, the department cited a technicality: it had just discovered that the visa it had issued Struelens did not permit him to serve as a foreign agent in the U.S. Actually, Struelens had registered as such an agent when he first arrived. State hinted at deportation, then said he could stay until August of 1962, when the visa normally would have expired--but it was obvious he would not get a new one.

Struelens applied for permanent resident status as an immigrant. The Justice Department rejected his application in December on the basis of a curt note from Dean Rusk to Attorney General Robert Kennedy: "In my judgment, considerations of the foreign policy of the U.S. indicate that the exercise of discretion in favor of Mr. Struelens in the present case is not warranted." Out of 19,500 such applications last year, Justice turned down only 1,200. At a deportation hearing last week before an Immigration and Naturalization official, the only government evidence was the Rusk letter. By various appeals, Struelens may be able to delay deportation for months.

Too Effective. "Really, they must hate me--just hate me," says Struelens about the State Department. "And why? Is it because I've been too effective as spokesman for Katanga?" Privately, State Department officials leave little doubt that Struelens is right on both counts. "He is the personification of everything that is bad in lobbyists," complains one State official. But the same spokesman adds: "He's a very clever man--I wish he worked for us."

Some, however, think State is going too far. When Struelens' visa was first canceled, the American Civil Liberties Union protested: "The State Department faces the charge of censorship. In our democratic country, which depends so much on an informed public opinion, all channels of communication must be kept open." Connecticut's Democratic Senator Thomas J. Dodd led a congressional investigation of the Struelens case. Last week his committee released a 568-page report which concluded that Struelens' treatment "constituted a glaring abuse of the visa power and a performance un worthy of the government of a great nation dedicated to the principles of free dom and justice."

To the report, New York's Republican Senator Kenneth Keating added a biting statement of his own. He called the State Department action "confused, careless and unfair," and declared: "It is in marked contrast to the willingness of the State Department to allow known terror ists and Communists unhampered entry into the U.S."

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