Mother Knows Best

When a Russian censor bottles up some of his copy, the Baltimore Sun's Moscow Correspondent Howard M. Norton often lets off steam in an uncensored letter to his mother, Mrs. Grace Murphey who lives in Miami. A few weeks ago Mrs. Murphey showed the letters to a friend, Miami Herald Reporter Phil Fortman. The Herald promptly announced a series based on them, including such nuggets--censored out of Norton's dispatches--as an account of worshipful Muscovites braving the new line against Stalin to visit his mausoleum.

As a friendly gesture. Reporter Fortman sent the Baltimore Sun carbons of his series in advance, in case it wanted to print what its correspondent had been sending home. Seeing the first batch, the Sun let out a pained squawk that could be heard from Miami to Moscow. The paper not only felt entitled to its correspondent's full services but feared that its investment in setting up Moscow coverage would be jeopardized if the Russians got the notion that Norton was breaking censorship. The Herald had already run the first installment. But after the Sun called the Miami paper, the series vanished, just as completely as if it had been bottled up by the Russian censor himself.

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