A Letter from Ike

In freeing Associated Press Correspondent William Oatis, the Czech Communists put their best propaganda foot forward. Oatis was released, the Czechs announced, because of a pleading letter from his wife. Last week the White House gave out the true story. Two months ago, President Eisenhower wrote a letter to Czech President Antonin Zapotocky, pointing out that the U.S. would consider easing up the economic squeeze on Czechoslovakia only if Oatis was freed from his ten-year sentence on an espionage charge. Wrote Ike: "If your government will release Mr. Oatis . . . the United States Government . . . is prepared to negotiate . . . the issues arising from the arrest of Mr. Oatis and now outstanding between us."

Zapotocky's answer to Ike's letter was handed to U.S. Ambassador George Wadsworth in Prague only 16 hours before Oatis' release (TIME, May 25). Wrote Zapotocky: "I have decided on May 15, 1953 to grant pardon to Mr. William Oatis for the uncompleted part of his sentence." Wadsworth promptly cabled the letter to Washington, but the White House did not release it until five days later. Under the niceties of diplomacy, letters between heads of state are not made public until both governments agree. By "the time the White House got Prague's approval, the Czechs had already trumpeted the "humanitarian" explanation that it was Laurabelle Oatis' plea that got her husband out of Pankrac Prison.

In New York City, Oatis carefully spelled out the basis for the espionage charge, and thereby brought into focus the difference between press freedom in democratic and totalitarian countries. In Prague, he said, he had done just what any other correspondent does, i.e., tried to check information with official sources, sometimes at the U.S. embassy. "But at no time," said Oatis, "did I act as an espionage agent of the embassy in the sense that this term is understood in Western countries." The Czechs had imprisoned him, he said, because, "some things that generally are considered in Western countries to be normal newsgathering procedure can be construed there to be espionage. This was the cause of my trouble."

The law that Oatis was convicted of violating could be used to send any newsman to jail at the whim of the Reds. Says the Czech law and penal code: "He who attempts to obtain state secrets with the intention of betraying them to a foreign power [is guilty of espionage] . . . By a state secret is meant a fact [of] political, military or economic interest [which] should remain concealed . . . By economic secret is meant everything . . . important for economic enterprise . . . that should be kept secret." In short, Oatis was guilty of espionage if he tried to check the location or output of a factory with the "intention" of having the A.P. publish that information abroad.

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