COMMUNISTS: Defections

COMMUNISTS Defections

Busman Charles Henry Darke, conductor on London's No. 60 bus route from Colindale to Old Ford and a faithful Communist for 18 of his 42 years, is a Communist no longer. The heroic stand of Britain's Gloucestershire Regiment against the Communists in Korea (TIME, May 7) had set him to thinking. Said he to newsmen last week:

"I cannot stand the thought of hundreds of British lads being killed, and then going out on a street corner and shouting that Attlee is a warmonger. I'm British and I'm proud of it. We are not in Korea because we want to be, but because the U.N. told us to go . . . The Communist Party wants people to believe that it was America who instigated the trouble. I'm not convinced. I have no sympathy with the present party line—to alienate the British people from the Americans . . . I'm not going to say that everything the British do is wrong just because the party tells me to say so."

"I'm through."