The Press: D'ye Ken John Peet?

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To his friends and acquaintances, shy, scarecrow-thin John Peet was not easy to ken. At 34, he had gone through an odd succession of careers: enlisted man in Britain's crack Brigade of Guards, English teacher in Prague, private in the Spanish Civil War's International Brigade, policeman in Palestine, chief Berlin correspondent for Reuters news agency. Some people considered John Peet insecure, haunted and unhappy; others regarded him as witty, well-informed and likable. Allied officials in Berlin had privately marked him down as a Communist or at least a fellow traveler, who passed information to the East Germans in exchange for news beats, but his Reuters bosses considered Feet a nonpolitical man who filed factual dispatches and never picked sides.

Last week Newsman Peet picked sides. At a press conference staged by Communist Propagandist Gerhart Eisler in the Soviet sector of Berlin, Peet charged the Western Allies and their press with "distortions" and "warmongering." Then he asked the Communist government of East Germany to let him stay there.

In Britain, the defection was Page One news. Even so, one news agency threw away a good eyewitness account of the press conference. Under the circumstances explained Reuters, that seemed the best thing to do: it had been filed by John Peet.