NO DOUBT it was embarrassing for Dr. Barnet Stross when
at his 'roses for Lidice' press conference his Communist guests were stumped by some awkward questions put to them by a former Czech who is now a British subject working in London as a journalist. Refugees from political oppression always tend to be something of an embarrassment in the country which gives them shelter. The more stridently they whistle to keep their spirits up, so to speak, the more likely is the chance of embarrassment. In the case of the Lidice press conference, it was not the journalist's fault that Dr. Stross's Communist guests were so extremely vulnerable to embarrassing questions. I,: they were so sensitive, why go to the trouble of holding a press conference? These questions are prompted by a porten- tous paragraph in Mr. Tom Driberg's column in Reynolds' News. Mr. Driberg thinks that some of the exiles to whom England gives shelter against oppression and torture are be- coming 'a bit uppish and tiresome.' He concludes that 'we should end the disturbances by deporting those who cause them.'
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