Word: newsmen
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...hint of that possibility came next day, on the first anniversary of the Shah's departure from Iran. As American journalists packed their typewriters and cameras, awaiting their flights home, surprisingly few Muslim militants turned out for a scheduled embassy protest. But some newsmen speculated that the expulsions might presage new moves involving the hostages, such as show trials. For now, what happens in Iran will have to be gleaned by the U.S. press in roundabout fashion: placing long-distance phone calls to Iranian officials and foreign diplomats in Tehran; making arrangements with the remaining Western reporters...
...lowed in. Almost immediately there was tension. Photographers snapping pictures of Soviet troops found themselves detained, their film confiscated. One ABC news team tried to avoid interference by entering Afghanistan from Pakistan to film a guerrilla maneuver, only to find that the skirmishes occurred by night. So the newsmen turned on their battery-powered floodlights in the dark. That move attracted the Pakistan army, which rapidly escorted them back over the border...
After a Jan. 10 news conference in which President Karmal castigated the Western press, the Afghan welcome wore thinner. Two Italian TV newsmen were treated to a burst of semiautomatic rifle fire at their feet when they tried to film Soviet soldiers near the Salang Pass. A Kabul-based stringer for Germany's Der Spiegel had her car tires shot flat. TIME'S David DeVoss, traveling with Dutch Photographer Hubert Van Es, was stopped by Soviets northwest of Kabul when Van Es tried to photograph some newly widened artillery pits. The pair was held in a snow-filled...
Over the next two hours, captives and captors exchanged pleasantries in French, and the newsmen learned that the Soviets are quite delighted to be in Afghanistan. A middle-aged private showed off his thick, standard-issue felt boots. "They are for Siberia," he said proudly. A lieutenant ventured that Soviet soldiers prefer liquid warmth, and are glad to receive "100 grams of spirits a day." Throughout, the smiling Soviets never lowered the Kalashnikovs...
...follow the story, the newsmen bivouacked at the Kabul Inter-Continental Hotel, plying diplomats for information over ashak canapes (leek-stuffed pastry in a sour cream broth) and mutton, or drinking Czech pilsner beer in the hotel bar. Here one evening last week a sheepish employee announced that all American newsmen were to have their passports checked in the lobby by two Afghan policemen. Instead, the U.S. newsmen sallied forth with blazing floodlights and whirring film cameras. Terrified, the Afghan policemen fled. But the reprieve was short-lived. By 8 the next morning, armed Afghan police sealed off the hotel...