SIR. — The Foreign Office statement on recent incidents involving British "delegates"
to the Youth Festival in East Berlin is unsatisfactory in many respects. In the first place the reference to attempts to dissuade these people from going is unpleasantly reminiscent of the efforts, admittedly more rigorously enforced, employed by the Communist coun- tries to stop their citizens from attending meetings considered
"undesirable" by their, Governments. -
The contention that the delegates were stopped from travelling through Austria because: they had no grey passes is misleading. These inter- zonal passes have been abolished by mutual agreement in the Western zones ; in addition they are required for entry into another zOne, not for leaving a zone or for travelling across it, and the attempt to stop- people travelling to the border of the Russian zone because the Russians have previously insisted on production of these cards before allowing entry was casuistical in the extreme. The question of the non-possession of the cards should not have been raised before the Russian zone border was reached, and then it was up to the Russians To raise it.
It seems beyond all doubt that the American troops involved employed unnecessary crudity and brutality, and indeed also interfered with many other British passengers who were travelling neither to- Berlin nor to the Russian zone of Austria. Does the Foreign Office consider that this was also justified ? In any case, what were American troops doing deep inside the French zone ? The apparent reluctance of the Foreign Office to investigate the case adequately or to make any protest to the American authorities is alarming. Can anyone imagine similar silence and condonation in the event of precisely analogous, actions,by Russian
troops and authorities ?—Yours faithfully, H. R. COLE. 44 Avenue Road, N.W.B.
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