Reporters: Fall of a China-Watcher

It was an unexpected summons. The usually aloof Chinese Foreign Ministry had invited Yugoslav Correspondent Branko Bogunovic, 47, for a chat. Over Indian tea, the woman in charge of the press section recited some Mao-thoughts. Then she got down to business. Bogunovic had to leave the country for writing "distorted and slanderous stories about the Chinese Cultural Revolution." After filing 2,500 stories from Peking since 1957, Bogunovic hastily collected his wife and boarded a train for the Soviet Union.

Bogunovic's ouster is a loss for China-watchers everywhere—capitalist, Titoist, Moscow-revisionist. They had come...

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