The Press: Kicked Out

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In the strife-torn Middle East, foreign newsmen work in the daily realization that they may be singed by the fires of nationalism. Last week, two of them were.

In Teheran, New York Timesman Michael Clark, 32, son of Freda Kirchwey, editor-publisher of the Nation, was called on the carpet by Iran's Deputy Premier Hussein Fatemi. He clutched a copy of the Times containing a Clark dispatch which said that Premier Mossadegh's "remarkable go-to-o vote of confidence in the Majlis" on his return from the U.S. was helped by "incipient terrorism, i.e., the threat of assassination held over Mossadegh's opponents." Cried Fatemi: "Intolerable insults against the government."

When Timesman Clark replied that he was only reporting "what I saw with my own eyes and heard with my ears," Fatemi snapped: "You are expelled from Iran . . . You are an agent of the former Anglo-Iranian Oil Co."

As his evidence, Fatemi cited the fact that "Clark has reported about terrorism, and the same day the New York Times has published [an Anglo-Iranian] advertisement because it will get $4,000 for that. Newspapers like the New York Times are helping the former Anglo-Iranian Oil Co."

Said the Times in an editorial: "These charges may have their effect on the street crowds of Teheran. They need no answer here. Journalism simply isn't conducted in the United States along the lines indicated by Dr. Fatemi."

In Cairo, the Egyptian government ordered the expulsion of the Associated Press Bureau Chief Fred Zusy for pro-British bias, "bad faith" and "harming the interests of Egypt" in his reporting. Milwaukee-born Zusy, 37, denied the charges. The news sent Egypt's ambassador in Washington, Kamil Abdul Rahim, into a flap. When he warned Cairo of the bad effect Zusy's expulsion would have on U.S. public opinion, Cairo reversed its decision.