The Press: No Sale

Early in 1942, during the heyday of Anglo-Soviet friendship, the British anc Russian governments made a newspaper deal: the Russians would publish 50,000 copies of a weekly Soviet newspaper in Britain, and the British would do th same in Russia. In August, the first copies of Britansky Soyuznik (British Ally) were being distributed in Russia.

Featuring news of British armed forces English lessons and sport news, the twelve-page Ally soon made a hit with Russians. By steering clear of politics, it also avoided official Soviet criticism. Even after the war Ally’s course was smooth, although it occasionally quoted anti-Russian comments in speeches by British government officials. Since Ally’s two-ruble selling price (50¢) paid for little more than printing costs, the British government had to subsidize Ally to the tune of £50,000 a year, but thought it well worth it. The paper averaged 30 to 40 letters a month from its Russian readers, mostly laudatory, until last year. Then Ally’s troubles started.

Ally’s 52-year-old editor, Archibald Johnstone, a onetime London newsman and free-lance writer, who was regarded by friends in Fleet Street as an idealistic left-winger, walked out of his Moscow office one day, never came back. Later, Pravda published a letter from Johnstone announcing his resignation, both as editor and as a British citizen, because of the anti-Soviet bias of British “warmongers.” A few months later, Assistant Editor Robert Dagleish also resigned via a letter to Pravda and cast his lot with the Soviets. Lean, keen-eyed W. Richard Jones, assistant news editor of the London Daily Telegraph, went to Moscow as editor of Ally.

But times had changed. Mail from Ally’s Russian readers had dropped to six letters a month, all abusive. And Ally’s Soviet circulation agency suddenly announced that sales had dropped from 48,000 copies a week to 28,000. From then on the agency blandly returned, as “unsold,” all but 13,500 a week. Since they were still tied in their original bundles, the agency had obviously made no attempt to sell them.

Last week, Britain decided Ally was not worth the cost, suspended publication. Said Britain’s Foreign Office: the Soviet government had “decided to strangle British Ally by denying Soviet readers the chance of buying it.” But it cold-shouldered Britons’ suggestions that London retaliate by closing down Ally’s Soviet counterpart in England. Said a spokesman: “How could we close it down if we wanted to? This is a free country.”

The Russians have been putting the same squeeze on Amerika, the Russian-language, LiFE-like monthly published by the U.S. Department of State (TIME, June 6, 1949), even though they have the right to pre-censor it. Circulation has dropped from 50,000 copies a month to 20,000. But the State Department has made no protests, will continue to publish Amerika unless it is officially banned.