THE WEEK

Apropos the alleged superiority of Soviet education: A boy who studied for seven years in Russian schools told newsmen the other night that the work there wasn’t any harder than the work in American schools—at least in grades one through seven. Russian children, like their American counterparts, he said, often sign up for snap courses, the most snap of which, according to him, is the course in the Soviet Constitution.

Miss Nina Landau, a New York student whose devotion to a free press led her to violate U.S. regulations in order to have a prurient look at Red China last summer, is back, and has told Mike Wallace all about it. Chinese hospitality was simply scrumptious. All the doors were held wide open. Miss Landau was even invited to witness the execution of three “counter-revolutionaries” who had been condemned to death for leading an anti-government student riot. This kind of thing Miss Landau took in stride. She was “more curious than shocked” by the prospect of witnessing an execution, but she turned down the opportunity. Not, she made it clear, from a maidenly squeamishness (how else deal with counter-revolutionaries?) about watching men die; she simply wasn’t that “interested” (executions, after all, are rather commonplace nowadays). Instead, said reporter Landau, “I went to a marvelous ballet.” There is a lot to be said for going to the theater in China, where soundproofed walls keep out distracting noises of shots, and counter-revolutionary screams;

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Apropos the alleged superiority of Soviet education: A boy who studied for seven years in Russian schools told newsmen the other night that the work there wasn’t any harder than the work in American schools—at least in grades one through seven. Russian children, like their American counterparts, he said, often sign up for snap courses, the most snap of which, according to him, is the course in the Soviet Constitution.

Miss Nina Landau, a New York student whose devotion to a free press led her to violate U.S. regulations in order to have a prurient look at Red China last summer, is back, and has told Mike Wallace all about it. Chinese hospitality was simply scrumptious. All the doors were held wide open. Miss Landau was even invited to witness the execution of three “counter-revolutionaries” who had been condemned to death for leading an anti-government student riot. This kind of thing Miss Landau took in stride. She was “more curious than shocked” by the prospect of witnessing an execution, but she turned down the opportunity. Not, she made it clear, from a maidenly squeamishness (how else deal with counter-revolutionaries?) about watching men die; she simply wasn’t that “interested” (executions, after all, are rather commonplace nowadays). Instead, said reporter Landau, “I went to a marvelous ballet.” There is a lot to be said for going to the theater in China, where soundproofed walls keep out distracting noises of shots, and counter-revolutionary screams;