The Press: The Wayward Editor

For 30 years, Shanghai's China Weekly Review was a respected, independent English-language magazine. When Editor-Owner John Benjamin Powell died in 1947 (as a result of Japanese imprisonment and torture during World War II), his son John William Powell took over. Young Powell had different ideas, most of them Communist. He changed the Review into a monthly, converted it into a Communist mouthpiece, until it was forced to shut down more than a year ago because of currency regulations and shrinking circulation (TIME, Aug. 17, 1953).

Last week, back in the U.S., Editor Powell, 35, appeared before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. Fifty-three...