PAN-AMERICAN CONFERENCE

Press, Issue 22599, 3 January 1939, Page 11

PAN-AMERICAN CONFERENCE

"“Amazing Regime Of

Intimidation”

ALLEGATIONS BY U.S. CORRESPONDENTS (TOTTED PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT.) (Received January 2, 11 p.m.) NEW YORK, January 1. In a cable message from Chile, special correspondents of the “New York Times,” who covered the PanAmerican Conference, declare; “The conference worked under an amazing, dictatorial regime of censorship, Intimidation and spying.

“The Peruvian Government not only tried to control the newspaper correspondents but it censored and spied on the delegates,” they assert. “Secret service agents were found one night searching the American delegates’ offices while the delegates were attending a banquet in their honour.

“Peruvian pressure reached its climax, when there was falsely issued to the newspapers an ‘official statement’ that the delegates had unanimously agreed to sign Argentina’s modified solidarity agreement. The delegates refused to be stampeded and the statement was contradicted.”

The correspondents describe the censorship, spying, and pressure to which they themselves were subjected. “At Lima on the opening day it was like a scene from a Nazi rally,” their message stated. “Thousands of swastika flags were flown and there were more Italian and Japanese flags than flags of the American republics. “Throughout the conference the Government-controlled press gave prominence to attacks from the to-, talitarian states.”

It has also been revealed that the pro-Fascist Peruvian Government, violating diplomatic immunity, had all delegates’ mail opened, delaying the delivery up to six hours. The chauffeurs allocated to the delegates were in secret service pay. Moreover, detectives kept constant watch on the delegates’ movements. Agents provocateur were used to intimidate newspapermen, at least one of whom was threatened with deportation because he exposed Italian and German attempts to sabotage the conference.