861.918/12–1045: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 10—6:24 a.m.]
4112. American correspondents here inform me that without warning their stories are again being subjected to the same scrutiny and censorship which has prevailed during the war. Deletions are again being made in their copy and stories are being held up without explanation.
[Page 930]Zinchenko31 has been brought back as head of the Press Section and the same arbitrary attitude of the censors which previously pervaded has returned.
The only possible explanation which correspondents have given me in [is] that the Reuters representative had intentionally been “trying out” the freedom from censorship to see how far he would be permitted to go and had been filing stories which, though accurate, he knew would cause displeasure for example, on the activities of the NKVD32 (Soviet secret police) in restricting personal liberties within the Soviet Union and on the crime wave in Moscow.
During the month of freedom the stories of Randolph Churchill33 who was in Moscow on a short visit were the only ones that had been censored and explanation had been given that he was not a resident correspondent.
It will be of interest to note whether this reversal of policy in Moscow will have any influence on the censorship of foreign correspondents in countries where the governments are dominated by Communist Party.
Sent Dept as 4112, repeated to London 625; Berlin 182; Sofia 143; Bucharest 172; Budapest 60; Paris 439; Warsaw 67 and Vienna 31.