FOREIGN RELATIONS: Invitations to China

From Washington and Peking, the world got some remarkable facts last week about what Dag Hammarskjold brought back from his mission to Communist China. The U.N. Secretary General did not return with a promise that the prisoners would be released, but he did give to the U.S. State Department pictures and medical reports on the physical condition of 13 prisoners and invitations to their families to visit China.

The invitations confronted the prisoners’ families with a difficult choice. They were torn between a desire to see their imprisoned kin, doubts about Red China’s motive, and the practical difficulties involved in making the trip. The most enthusiastic of the invited were Mr. and Mrs. Harold Fischer Sr. of Swea City, Iowa, the parents of Air Force Captain Harold Fischer. For some time they had been writing to their son and to his captors about visiting him. Farmer Fischer had written that he might bring along some of his registered Hampshire hogs. His son had reported the reaction of a guard to that proposition: a good idea; the pork might cement relations.