CHARGE AGAINST U.S. REPORTER

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26465, 5 July 1951, Page 7

CHARGE AGAINST U.S. REPORTER

Trial Described As

Propaganda (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 9.10 p.m.> WASHINGTON. July 3. The State Department to-day described as a "propaganda operation” the Czechoslovakian trial of the Associated Press correspondent at Prague, William Oatis, on a charge of espionage. Mr Lincoln White, a State Department spokesman, said at a press conference: “I hope and trust that the American people will understand the absolute worthlessness of any alleged confession or revelation beaten out of, or otherwise obtained from, anyone who is held incommunicado for 30 days or more. “With specific reference to ” the Oatis case it should be obvious to any thinking person that the whole case is the same sordid thing we have seen before.

“It is a propaganda operation, the whole purpose of which is to smear the United States in general and the American press in particular. "Therefore, any statement obtained from a defendant in what the Com-

munists choose to call a court of justice has no bearing on truth, justice, or fact.” Mr White said that Hungary’s spy charges against the United States representatives in Budapest were just as preposterous as those made elsewhere by Iron Curtain Governments. “As in the Oatis case in Czechoslovakia they show a cringing fear of permitting their own people to have any objective knowledge of what goes on in the world.’’ . The State Department announced to-day that Hungary, on the basis of spy allegations, asked the United States to withdraw three members of the Budapest Legation and to close the United States Information Library in Budapest. , . « . Reuter’s correspondent at Budapest says that the Information Service was closed to-day.