When the New York Herald's Henry Stanley found Dr. David Livingstone in darkest Africa, the Herald scored an exciting scoop.* Last week the Herald Tribune front-paged the results of another notable foray into dark territory: the report of a four-man team of Trib correspondents, on ten weeks behind the "Iron Curtain."
The series was perfectly timed. It broke the day before news of the Comintern's revival, with the result that more than 25 other top U.S. newspapers promptly signed up the series. (Nine book publishers also bid for it.) The eleven articles would take few prizes for good writing, but their unemotional factualism and scope made them an impressive job of reporting. With some of their startling conclusions, many a reader would probably take issue—even though they were backed by the conservative Trib.
Pattern for Reporting. The idea for the expedition was chiefly that of the Trib's able Foreign Editor Joe Barnes, 40. He knew that the Trib could not spare the space or the foreign staff to compete with the rival Times. But Barnes hoped that four fast-moving reporters could turn out a roundup that would tell more about Eastern Europe than daily datelines.
To lift the curtain, Barnes picked four of the Trib's brightest and best young Rover Boys (TIME, Jan. 27). From Paris: Bureau Chief Walter Kerr, 35, who covered wartime Moscow, and Bill Attwood, 28, a World War II infantry captain. From London: Bureau Chief Ned Russell, 30, ex-U.P. man and Trib war correspondent. From New York: Editorial Writer Russell Hill, 29, who reported World War II from Tunis to Berlin.
They prepared 35 basic questions to ask in each country (sample: What Cabinet posts are held by Communists?). Then they set off, by plane and train, to search for the answers.
Pattern for Travel. They found it surprisingly easy to get around: only Kerr (who had offended the Yugoslavs with an earlier story) had visa trouble, and only in Yugoslavia were people unwilling to talk. In Helsinki, Attwood got nowhere with some Communists until he mentioned the C.I.O. Newspaper Guild; the Finns were first astonished ("How can you belong to a union and work for a capitalist paper?"), then friendly.
When the ten weeks were up, the four met on the Fontainebleau estate of the Trib's European Edition Editor Geoffrey Parsons Jr. to drink applejack and compare notes. They wrote three articles each, but nobody's drafts pleased anybody else. So they sat down and rewrote the series together, comma by comma; sometimes one sentence went through five versions. Joe Barnes ran the articles as cabled.
Pattern for Error. The most eye-catching conclusion: "Everywhere we found freedom of worship. Even in Yugoslavia . . . churches were open and crowded. In Poland and Hungary religious instruction by priests is still compulsory in state schools. Nowhere has there been an official attempt to prevent people from worshiping as they please. . . ."