Publisher's Letter, Apr. 23, 1956

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Dear TIME-Reader From time to time this letter has discussed you—the TiME-reader—in general. This week I should like to salute a few remote and lonely TIME-readers who read our magazine behind the Iron Curtain, often at considerable risk.

Our general circulation in the Communist world after World War II was chopped off with the suddenness of ax strokes. As the Kremlin seized con trol of one country after another, our circulation department went through the motions of informing readers in those countries that we were canceling their subscriptions unless otherwise notified. We were rarely notified. Early in 1949, when the Communists consolidated their hold on the Chinese main land, our Hong Kong bureau cabled an urgent warning to stop sending TIME to some 1,450 Chinese subscribers. "Cut them off, or they'll have something else cut off," said the message. "Their subscriptions are endangering their lives."

At present, the handful of copies sent to Russia go to foreign diplomats in Moscow or to official libraries and institutes. The rugged individualists who still read TIME behind the Iron Curtain are in the satellites. Their eagerness for news of the Free World must make them hardened to danger, for they sometimes communicate with us, insist that we continue their subscriptions, and by some oversight of bureaucracy receive their copies of TIME regularly—sometimes for years.

Dean of these subscribers is a man whom we shall call Jan Zymark. Recently he wrote:

"Since ten years I am in a unique and extremely happy position, being here in — — one of the few subscribers of TIME Magazine. This exceptional position I owe your understanding of my difficulties ... I don't intend to write to you, Sir, anything about the advantages of this magazine because they are worldwide known, but I must repeat the same sentence I have written you almost five years ago: TIME is for me an immeasurable source of infor mation; in our present conditions, it is even more — it represents for me the only 'golden thread' in my monotonous and uninteresting life."

On a more hopeful note, the letter continued: "I have no possibility of sending any money for this subscription; nevertheless, I suppose that it will come a happier time, when I shall be able to send my subscription fee regularly and also pay my debt for those past years."

We join in that hope. Meanwhile, our friend's subscription will, of course, continue.

Cordially yours,