Prosecution at Prague
The trial of the American journalist Mr. William Oatis at Prague on a charge of espionage, culminating in a sentence of ten years' imprisonment, follows the same lines, and provokes the same perplexities, as all similar trials in totalitarian countries. The charges were manifestly hollow. ,The enquiries and investigation Mr. Oatis is accused of undertaking are exactly those which any competent journalist would naturally undertake, not, of course, for his Government but for the newspaper or agency he represented. That Mr. Oatis is, in fact, a competent Journalist is evidenced by the fact that he was in charge of the Associated Press in Prague. That is evidence equally that he is an intelligent man. Yet there is no gleam of intelligence in Mr. Oatis's statements in court as reported. They were the familiar automatic declarations—confession, self-reproach, contrition— that have, figured at every trial of this kind in Russia, Hungary, Roumania or any other Communist country. It is doubtful whether even solitary confinement since April is enough to explain this in Mr. Oatis's case. The possibility that Russian psychologiSts have devised some sinister method of controlling accused persons' minds and thoughts can by no' means be excluded. It is now manifestly impossible for any Western Journalist (unless a Communist) to exercise his profession in any totalitarian country. So the Iron Curtain gets thicker.
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