 |
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
| 97 SOURCES OF INFORMATION ABOUT COMMDNISM pendencies* I heard myself in the 0, V. I, and again from my friend with the United Nations Information Center, that the staff is composed mainly of people of that kind. The perusal of the Foreign Press Digests which I have made for you' during the last three months supports this opinion. As a.matter of fact, the writers who make the various digests are so zealous in their task which seems to be to promote "progressive ideals" that in order to prove the theory of their superiors that the Foreign Language Press here is strongly in favor of progress and even more, they stress the line more than is gaod for the papers themselves. The language they reserve for their digests of the various articles, varies according to the tendency of the periodical reviewed. While leftist papers receive large attention, are extensively quoted and mentioned, con- servative ones, and above all the Catholic periodicals, are treated with a certain contempt and even disgust. They are called "sheets", "clerical" (a term which in Europe means priestridden and corrupt as well as biased), they "splash" their stories"in bold type", their attacks are "fierce" or "violent" and so on. Furthermore, whenever thera is some personality mentioned, the man who makes the survey, adds a comment of his own, seldom complimentary, on the personal record of the person involved or the periodical mentioned. Larger quotations from Catholic papers are rather seldom and occur only when they can serve some other aim, like f, i. in the case of the Slovene Catholic papers here which like AME3IKANSXI SLDVENEC, Catholic Slovene daily of Chicago supports often Tito and pleadj for Cooperation with the Soviets, Otherwise they are seldom mentioned. The latter tendency was specially obvious in two cases: the Bishop's Statement in November 1944 and the Pope's Christmas Message* Overseas News Agency is very careful as to the treatment of American organizations and personalities; it seldom brings anything very aggressive, and when it does quotes the paper directly. This was the case with the Bishops* Statement, the Digest brought quite a good number of papers upholding and lauding it; I think, however, that the number must have been larger, especially with the papers in languages from the East of Europe, and I have the suspicion that favorable comments from non-Catholic papers were withheld. This I cannot prove because I do not have the papers themselves at my disposal. The same thing must be the case with the Portuguese and Spanish press here, especially in the latter there is very sledom some Catholic issue mentioned and if it is, like in articles on the policy of the Vatican and Spain, invariably in a derogatory way, Among the Portuguese language press here, a Protestant Mission Organ, E7ANGELISTA, of Tauton, Mass., never fails to be mentioned or quoted, A similar case in the one of PRZEBUDZENIE, Chicago organ of the so-called Polish National Catholic Church the attacks of which on the Holy Father are never omitted. When IL GROCIATO brings something against the Soviets, the author of the Italian Press Digest immediately adds a Note of the Editor stating that the author of the article in question is a former member of the Fascist Party and so on» i:ith this they are extremely cautious, they would not say it themselves, but they quote some other newspaper, I have in these cases the impression that the author of the Digest intends to draw the attention of some American Govern- ment Office, F-B.I. for instance, to the writer and "bring the Law down on him". |