14 SEPTEMBER 1951, Page 4

One word in President Truman's chilly observations to the new

Czechoslovak Ambassador to the United States, when the latter was presenting his credentials, has attracted less attention than might be expected. Relations between the two countries, the President remarked, had deteriorated steadily ever since Jan Masaryk was " murdered." That is categorical enough, but how the Foreign Minister met his death has, so far as I know, never been decisively established. There were indications which pointed both ways. It would be interesting, and might be im- portant, to know whether he had reason to be convinced, or was simply assuming, that President Masaryk's son and President Benes' closest friend met his death at hands other than his own.