The Great American People

Two Russian reporters, sent to cover the San Francisco conference, got sidetracked by the bourgeois distractions. Last week, in cables to their Moscow papers, they reported some of their findings. U.S. newsmen especially amused, astonished and alarmed them.

Wrote Comrade E. Zhukov of Izvestia: "Lovers of statistics declare that the amount of drinks consumed at journalistic cocktail parties are in direct proportion to the astronomical number of words transmitted from San Francisco. . . . Foreign journalists of progressive views--especially if they work for the so-called big press--express more radical views among their colleagues than they do in writing. This is not [their] fault. . . . It is the natural result of a system. . . ."

His feminine colleague, Comrade N. Sergeeva of Pravda, was not so tolerant: "Can anything be concealed from the ubiquitous American press? Is it surprising that with the necessary . . . connections the correspondents of the American newspapers succeed fairly quickly in getting wind of what is being discussed at a closed conference? But to get wind of a subject does not mean truthfully reporting and explaining it. Every day, every hour the press . . . is full of assumptions, conjectures . . . provocation."

Comrade Zhukov was disturbed by the cynicism of American journalists: "I hasten to assure [them]--Americans do not read only flat jokes on the pages of comic supplements. They read articles. Even on Sundays."

To prove it, he made a scientific expedition to Golden Gate Park to study the masses at play. "Flowery amazons, accompanied by fat pseudo-cowboys ride horseback along the beach. . . ." he wrote. "Girls on the beach try to free themselves from the remainder of their clothes. . . . Suddenly [my] attention was attracted by one of my neighbors flinging down the newspaper he had taken from his pocket.

"He exclaimed: 'These cursed newspapermen. They are already chattering about a third world war.' With charming seriousness one of the women asked: 'Tell me, Trieste is not an American city is it?' . . . The answer was given in general correctly.

"In the evening I dropped into the cinema theater. In a dark hall filled with sailors, office workers and the simple man in the street, I saw on the screen the beloved face of Comrade Stalin and my heart beat gladly when handclapping resounded in the hall. I then thought that the average American has all the basis for scorning the dirty reactionary brew of Hearst, McCormick & Co. . . . For this average American is the great American people which . . . wishes to live in peace and friendship with the great people of my country."

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