BRITISH EDITOR IN MOSCOW RESIGNS POST

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 April 1949, Page 3

BRITISH EDITOR IN MOSCOW RESIGNS POST

MOSCOW, April 24. Pravda has published a letter over the signature of Archibald R. Johnstone, editor of the British Ally, the British Foreign Office newspaper in Moscow, saying: “I have decided to break completely with the present British Government and to remain in the Soviet Union and devote - my energies to the cause of peace. I am no longer able to remain an instrument in the hands, of Bevin, Attlee, Morrison, and other Labour Party leaders who are helping American and English monopolists for whom war pays huge dividends.” Mi’ Johnstone added‘that he had resigned his post at the British Embassy and had renounced British nationality. The news of Mr Johnstone’s action was a complete surprise to the British Embassy, and Sir Maurice Peterson, the British Ambassador in Moscow, learnt of Mr Johnstone’s resignation through the letter in Pravda. Mr Johnstone was last at work in the office of the British Ally on Thursday. The only letter he left was the one published in, Pravda. In his letter Mr Johnstone said: “It became completely apparent to me that the British Embassy in Moscow has no interest in improving relations betweep England and the Soviet Union and that in fact they are doing everything to spoil them.” Mr Johnstone also complained that he had been forced to publish a series of anti-Soviet speeches by Mr Attlee,. Mr Bevin, and Mr Morrison. He said that the North Atlantic Treaty had given him the final impetus to make his decision. The Moscow radio devoted nearly half an hour to reading the full text of the letter. In a message to the British Foreign Office, Sir’Maurice Peterson said that Mr Johnstone had been known to have Left-Wing tendencies and to have many friends among Spanish Repubilican exiles now in Moscow. -