Newsmen or Spies?

The representatives of Russia's Tass news agency make a great show of acting like reporters. But last week such members of the American Society of Newspaper Editors as Columnist David Lawrence and Scripps-Howard Editor Walker Stone thought it was time for a showdown on the question: Are Tassmen in the U.S. bona fide reporters or simply Russian agents gathering intelligence material for Russia's vast espionage system?

The editors demanded that the Washington correspondents' Standing Committee bar all Tassmen from the Capitol press galleries. In the Senate, Maryland's Herbert O'Conor went much further. He offered a resolution not only to bar Tass from the galleries, but to deport all non-American Tass representatives.

The Standing Committee made a halfhearted answer: it decided to issue no credentials to any new Tassmen in the future. But it shied away from barring Tass representatives already on the job, because it was afraid it might be construed as a limitation of press freedom in the U.S.

Special Passports. No newsman who has watched the workings of Tass's representatives around the globe would have much trouble defining their primary job. Tassmen do not travel as newsmen, but on special passports, enter the U.S. and other countries on special visas given only to foreign government officials. British courts have officially ruled that Tassmen have diplomatic immunity, since Tass is an agency of the Soviet state. Time after time, Tassmen have shown that they are not primarily interested in news, but in filing special intelligence reports or engaging in outright espionage. Examples: P:Under the cover name of "Martin," Tass "Correspondent" Nicolai Zheivinov was a member of Canada's atomic spy ring, uncovered in 1945. He skipped home to Russia to avoid arrest. P:In Tokyo, Tassman Evgeny Egorov has never been known to turn in a story for clearance by U.N. censors; he is presumed to send all of his material either by diplomatic pouch or by radio code from the Russian Embassy. P:In Teheran, Tass's representative has never been seen to visit Radio Pahlevi, from which all other correspondents transmit their copy. He, too, is getting his reports out by diplomatic pouch. P:In many countries, the Russians no longer make any pretense at maintaining Tass as a newsgathering agency. In Montevideo, for example, the Tassman does not even have a phone, gets messages only through the Soviet legation.

Crossword Puzzler. In the U.S., where Tass admits to spending $25,000 a month on its coverage, the main headquarters is in Manhattan's A.P. Building in Rockefeller Center. It is bossed by a poker-faced Russian, Ivan Beglov, 47, who came here a year ago, describes himself as a "historical science specialist." Second in command is affable, Brooklyn-born Harry Freeman, for 20 years a Tass news-deskman and its No. 1 American staffer. Of Tass's 22 U.S. editorial staffers, eight are Russians, one a Briton and one a Canadian. The other twelve are U.S. citizens who have all been vouched for as "reliable" by the National Cadre and Review Commission of the U.S. Communist Party. Privately, Tass's American workers are on close terms with U.S. Communists (e.g., Washington Tasser Euphemia Virden, daughter of a Cleveland capitalist, married the Daily Worker's correspondent, Bob Hall). But publicly, Tassmen take care to avoid contact with U.S. Communists or with Manhattan's Communist Daily Worker. If they write for it, they use assumed names.

A typical Tassman on the U.S. scene is 32-year-old Mikhail Fedorov, aeronautical engineer by education, by calling, chief of Tass's Washington bureau. Washington newsmen quickly awoke to the fact that puppy-friendly Fedorov, obviously no trained reporter, had a strange way of covering stories. During the Gubitchev-Coplon spy trial, he spent most of his time working crossword puzzles and taking no notes. But when the testimony got round to the slips by which the spies betrayed themselves, Fedorov scribbled busily. Newsmen guess he also sends some of his material by diplomatic pouch.

Fedorov, like all Tassmen, can count on traditional U.S. freedoms to give him press privileges rigorously denied to the few Western newsmen still on the job in Russia or its satellites. And he can always count on sincere Americans to defend his right to these privileges. In last week's furore, the good grey New York Times soberly warned against any retaliations against Tass because of Russia's restrictions on Western newsmen and the jailing of A.P. Reporter William Oatis by Czechoslovakia. Said the Times: "Our cause cannot be served by police-state restrictions [on the press]." The Washington Star agreed. Neither the Times nor the Star seemed to get the point at which Columnist Lawrence and Scripps-Howard's Stone were driving. If Tassmen are Russian intelligence agents and not bona fide correspondents, then they are not entitled to the privileges of the working press.

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