More U. S. Prisoners, More Censorship

The Administration has written off as “hopeless” the case of 22-year-old William Makinen, arrested and sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment as an American spy by Soviet authorities. The State Department says the charges against Makinen are false. But beyond making the ritualistic protests, State plans no other action—not even the denial of visas for other American tourists to visit the Soviet Union where they have no guarantee against arbitrary arrest and secret trial. When Khrushchev wanted to demonstrate to the world a year ago that the United States was engaged in espionage activities against the USSR—at the time of the U-2 incident—he rounded up a dozen or more young American students and either expelled them at once, or tried them as spies and then expelled them. This year, to coincide with his fresh terror campaign, he picked on a likely candidate, William Makinen, who now joins several thousand other Americans in Iron Curtain jails.

In 1954, the Soviet Union released two imprisoned Americans, Homer M. Cox and Leland Towers, after they had been identified by returning Austrian prisoners. Cox and Towers, in turn, named four Americans they personally knew to be in Red hands and reported the whereabouts of six others. The State Department then admitted that more than 5,000 American citizens were held in the USSR and satellite countries, in addition to several times as many whose claims to U. S. citizenship were tenable.

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William Schulz

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The Administration has written off as “hopeless” the case of 22-year-old William Makinen, arrested and sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment as an American spy by Soviet authorities. The State Department says the charges against Makinen are false. But beyond making the ritualistic protests, State plans no other action—not even the denial of visas for other American tourists to visit the Soviet Union where they have no guarantee against arbitrary arrest and secret trial. When Khrushchev wanted to demonstrate to the world a year ago that the United States was engaged in espionage activities against the USSR—at the time of the U-2 incident—he rounded up a dozen or more young American students and either expelled them at once, or tried them as spies and then expelled them. This year, to coincide with his fresh terror campaign, he picked on a likely candidate, William Makinen, who now joins several thousand other Americans in Iron Curtain jails.

In 1954, the Soviet Union released two imprisoned Americans, Homer M. Cox and Leland Towers, after they had been identified by returning Austrian prisoners. Cox and Towers, in turn, named four Americans they personally knew to be in Red hands and reported the whereabouts of six others. The State Department then admitted that more than 5,000 American citizens were held in the USSR and satellite countries, in addition to several times as many whose claims to U. S. citizenship were tenable.