RUSSIA: Word from the Speakwrite

Subscribers to the government's Big Soviet Encyclopedia got in the mails last week an intriguing note of advice from the publishers. "The State Scientific Publishing House . . . recommends that pages 21, 22, 23 and 24 be removed from Volume V, as well as the portrait between pages 22 and 23. To replace these, the pages of a new text are enclosed. The above-mentioned pages should be cut out with scissors or a razor blade . . ."

The new pages included, among other things, pictures of the Bering Sea. Spot to be filled: a gap in the BER section of the encyclopedia caused by cutting out biography and portrait of Policeman Beria.