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The Trib team hammered away at one main idea: "Eastern Europe today is anything but a unit. . . . We felt acutely aware of the oversimplification in a phrase like 'the iron curtain'. . . . It is inaccurate to think of the whole area as a collection of Soviet police states. ... The battle of ideas . . . is still wide open." They found civil liberties "practically unrestricted" in Finland, Czechoslovakia and Austria; they found "terror" in Rumania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. Poland and Hungary fell somewhere in between.
The correspondents found no Russian soldiers in three countries (Finland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia), guessed that there were only 400,000 in the other five—Poland, Hungary, Austria, Rumania and Bulgaria (best previous estimate: 946,000). However, the presence of the Red Army was a "major instrument of Soviet policy" and the Polish Army was run by 2,000 to 3,000 Russian officers.
The correspondents had hard words for a "stingy" Congress, which has "hacked away at our propaganda budget" until it is almost nonexistent; they found no effective voice for the U.S. behind the curtain. They also had harsh words for the State Department, which they felt had prematurely abandoned Eastern Europe ("It is no longer American policy to promote the recovery of Eastern Europe ... a negative American policy will strengthen . . . the Communists"); and for the U.S. press, which had "astonishingly few" trained American reporters in the area.
Pattern for Power. As a guide to understanding Communist progress in Europe, the correspondents detailed Communist tactics and strategy. Before Communists seize power outright (as they have in Rumania and Bulgaria), the correspondents noted seven "vital conditions": a Communist Minister of Interior to control the police, a Communist or pro-Communist Minister of Justice (courts), a Communist or "obedient" chief of staff (army), a Cabinet of Communists and others "willing or forced" to go along, a Parliament with a Communist-controlled majority, non-Communist parties "intimidated and badgered," a press censor under Communist orders.
With this groundwork laid, the Communists are ready to strike: "First—Accuse the opposition of plotting civil war, foreign (American) military intervention, and economic sabotage. . . . Second—Ban the opposition press. . . . Third—Now go ahead and make your arrests. . . . Fourth —Ban the most powerful opposition party. . . . Fifth—Now stop and digest your gains. Hang the opposition chief . . . and your work is complete."
* For further adventures of Henry Stanley, see BOOKS.