Death in Prague

For years, Lidove Noviny (People's News) was Czechoslovakia's best newspaper, often favorably compared with the New York Times. Politically independent, the paper built up a large staff of foreign correspondents and a list of notable contributors (Thomas Mann, Winston Churchill, Karel Capek, Leon Blum). At the peak of its influence in the '20s and '30s, the Lidove Noviny had a circulation of 80,000 and always made money.

But when the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia, Political Editor Ferdinand Peroutka, along with other staffers who opposed the Nazis, was thrown into concentration camp. Not till 1945 was Peroutka released. Back in Prague, he took over as Lidove Noviny editor in chief and fought the Communist infiltration of the government as bitterly as he had fought the Nazis. During the Red coup in 1948, the Communists fired him and other anti-Red staffers. In his last editorial, Peroutka warned: "Even if you Communists now take possession of Lidove Noviny . . . what will you have taken possession of? Nothing more than the twelve letters in the paper's title. Everything else will go with us."

Shortly after, Peroutka escaped from Czechoslovakia, hidden in a furniture van, and made his way to the U.S. The Reds continued to purge staff members, and last week eliminated the "twelve letters" completely. The Lidove Noviny was closed because it "was not keeping pace with the expanding and manifold cultural life of Czechoslovakia." In its place the Reds began to publish a faithful imitation of Moscow's Literary Gazette.

In his weekly broadcast from New York to his homeland over Radio Free Europe, ex-Editor Peroutka sadly said: "The suspension of Lidove Noviny is a signal for the remaining Czech writers to take leave finally of whatever last illusions they may have."