IT IS INSTRUCTIVE to compare Mr. Fryer's account with versions
appearing behind the Iron Curtain. Bashkimi (the Albanian Communist newspaper) of December 9 has an 'eye- witness account' of the events in Budapest—an interesting example of the Communist press ethics which Mr. Burgess recently urged us to live up to : `We have seen with our own eyes "drivers" and "nurses" wearing the Red Cross armband distributing machine-guns, automatic pistols and grenades. Cars flying the American flag distributed pamphlets in Hungarian, in which it. said : ". . . fight, we will help you with food and reinforcements." Every- where could be seen cars which were flying the American flag. . . . We saw disembowelled workers pleading for water; the Horthyists stuck automatic pistols into their mouths. We saw the Horthyist officers wearing doctors' white coats get out of ambulances of the French, British and Italian Red Cross and discharge their weapons at the wounded who were crying for treatment. There were cases in which, when desperate little girls or women came out to their doorsteps and made signs to American cars bearing' the Red Cross, the "doctor" clad in white coat, bag in hand, entered the house to see a wounded father or husband. Two minutes later a shot and the wailing of children were heard'
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