Both Sides & the Middle

Zooming about the island in rented red M.G.s and Sprites, correspondents covering the Cyprus fighting see something hidden from most war correspondents: both sides. Even the press corps headquarters--the comfortable Ledra Palace Hotel--is located directly on the often violated Green Line dividing Greek and Turkish factions. Pasting press stickers on their car windshields, the correspondents dash in and out of the fighting zones, crossing no man's land where armed U.N. troops dare not tread. Both Turkish and Greek Cypriots welcome the press because they want to get their views before world opinion. Still, crossing the lines is tricky. "The technique," says one experienced correspondent, "is to wave something white, like a shirt or a sheet, and yell 'press' in the appropriate language. Drive slowly, don't get them startled, honk in the daylight and blink headlights at night." Last week, however, NBC's Al Rosenfeld neglected the technique. Waved past a Greek outpost, he and an assistant headed across no man's land without signaling. Rosenfeld was hit in the face by a Turkish bullet. He piled up his car and had to wait four hours until a U.N. armored car finally rescued him and carried him to a Royal Air Force hospital. There, doctors reported him in critical condition with the bullet still lodged in his skull.

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