To the U.S. embassy in Moscow came an urgent message for 45 youngish Americans, self-appointed delegates and observers at a monster Communist world youth festival, who had accepted an invitation for a cut-rate propaganda junket to Communist China. "Dear Fellow Citizen," wrote Acting Secretary of State Christian A. Herter. "By traveling to Communist China at this time you will, in the considered view of your government, be acting as a willing tool of Communist propaganda intended, wherever possible, to subvert the foreign policy and the best interests of the U.S." Herter added that the Americans who went to Red China might eventually face criminal prosecution under the Trading with the Enemy Act because the U.S. and Red China were still in "a quasi state of war."
In a 2½-hour meeting the Americans considered Herter's letter (delivered to them by embassy officials) and reached individual decisions: 41 of them flatly reaffirmed their acceptance of the Red China invitation, two heeded Herter's message and turned down the invitation, two more turned it down but added that they might try to catch up with the group later on.
The Conglomeration. Most of the Americans were students or recent students —17 from New York City, eleven from Los Angeles. Some were headed for Red China to have a good time, to see what an Asian country looked like, to take advantage of a nearly free trip. Many were no strangers to Communists or to the Communist Party line. Among these:
The Rev. Warren McKenna, 39, the group spokesman, graduate of Wesleyan University and the Episcopal Theological School of Cambridge, Mass., recent (1955) rector of St. James's Episcopal Church at Amesbury, Mass., and more recently assistant pastor of a church at Dalston, England. Minister McKenna, who signed a petition urging clemency for the Rosenburgs, attended the famous Communist World Peace Congress in Poland in 1950, was listed by New Hampshire Attorney General Louis C. Wyman as having associated with twelve Communist-controlled or Communist-influenced organizations since 1947.
Sally Belfrage, 17, raised in Manhattan by her British father, Cedric Belfrage, editor-in-exile of the Communist National Guardian who was deported from the U.S. in 1955 and who now works for Moscow Radio. Sally is touring Communist-land at the behest of devoted father Cedric "to absorb both Eastern and Western atmosphere."
Peggy Seeger, 25, folksinger daughter of a retired Santa Barbara, Calif, musicologist, who rejected a don't-go-to-Red-China cable from her father because she believed she was infringing not U.S. law but only U.S. policy. Her half-brother Pete Seeger, 38, a folk singer once named by Manhattan's Daily Worker as "People's Artist," said that Peggy-in-Communistland ought "to learn a lot."