Word: czechs
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...week ago, the newspaper reporters of the United States made a pilgrimage to Idlewild airport to welcome William N. Oatis, the A. P. correspondent who had been imprisoned by the Czech Communists. But to those who wanted Oatis to recall forced confessions and false charges, the interview was disappointing. Oatis admitted no torture and did not even infer that his arrest was unwarrented. When asked whether he was gathering information for the United States government in defiance of Czech law, he replied, "I am not going into that...
...journalists, robbed of any honest sensationalism, fabricated a little of their own under headlines twisted to an "Oatis refuses to admit torture" type. The reporters forgot that Oatis admitted violating a Czech law and had long portrayed him as another Mindzenty. For so many months the press had assumed Oatis' innocence that when the facts did not justify their speculation, they were unable to reverse themselves. Of course, the American public relishes reports of Communist cruelty and injustice. But in this case, by lording sensation over truth, the free press has sacrificed its principles...
Oatis justifiably has been the special hero of the press. But this bias has been extended even to the news columns of papers with large circulations and enviable reputations for accuracy. Though the Czech law is an abridgement of freedom of the press, each newspaper has the right to say so only in its editorial columns. For it is also an abridgement of the standards of the press to twist a valid case under a given law into an injustice. The newspapers can protest the Czech law but they have an obligation to the people that these protests be labelled...
...excellent health. He has always maintained his physical condition by taking long walks along country roads. While in Czechoslovakia, he and his wife used to walk 230 miles from Bruno to Prague whenever a visit to the city was necessary. When he is staying at his favorite Czech farmhouse in the Catskills, he takes regular hikes and, according to his former secretary, will almost break river ice for a morning swim. A year ago while Jakobson was hiking along a highway, a car struck him. For an hour he lay helpless until an ambulance finally came, and doctors say only...
...Czech capital Jakobson built his reputation as a linguist and his researches resulted in scores of important monographs. He mixed crudite dissertations with vitriolic polemic against the rising Nazi Party. Later, when the Germans invaded his adopted country, Jakobson, who was then living in Brno, became a refugee for the second time. "Few people knew the Germans were going to invade the next morning," he says. "The news was announced on the radio and we left Brno for Prague the same night. This time we didn't walk, however, for there was no time. I had to burn my valuable...