She frowned, prettily. "I'm not sure. I suppose I'm still in the process
of forming an opinion."
Their host was calling them together and leading the way to the garden
where chairs had been set up. There seemed to be about twenty-five persons
present in all. Ilya Simonov had been introduced to no more than half of
them. His memory was good and already he was composing a report to Kliment
Blagonravov, listing those names he recalled. Some were Czechs, some
citizens of other satellite countries, several, including Catherina, were
actually Russians.
The American, a newspaperman named Dickson, had an open-faced freshness,
hardly plausible in an agent from the West trying to subvert Party
leadership. Ilya Simonov couldn't quite figure him out.
Dickson was introduced by Leos Dvorak who informed his guests that the
American had been reluctant but had finally agreed to give them his
opinion on the press on both sides of what had once been called the Iron
Curtain.
Dickson grinned boyishly and said, "I'm not a public speaker, and, for
that matter, I haven't had time to put together a talk for you. I think
what I'll do is read a little clipping I've got here--sort of a text--and
then, well, throw the meeting open to questions. I'll try to answer
anything you have to ask."
He brought forth a piece of paper. "This is from the British writer,
Huxley. I think it's pretty good." He cleared his voice and began to read.
_Mass communication ... is simply a force and like any other force, it can
be used either well or ill. Used one way, the press, the radio and the
cinema are indispensible to the survival of democracy. Used in another
way, they are among the most powerful weapons in the dictator's armory. In
the field of mass communications as in almost every other field of
enterprise, technological progress has hurt the Little Man and helped the
Big Man. As lately as fifty years ago, every democratic country could
boast of a great number of small journals and local newspapers. Thousands
of country editors expressed thousands of independent opinions. Somewhere
or other almost anybody could get almost anything printed. Today the press
is still legally free; but most of the little papers have disappeared. The
cost of wood pulp, of modern printing machinery and of syndicated news is
too high for the Little Man. In the totalitarian East there is political
censorship, and the media of mass communications are controlled by the
State. In the democratic West there is economic censorship and the media
of mass communication are controlled by members of the Power Elite.
Censorship by rising costs and the concentration of communication-power in
the hands of a few big concerns is less objectionable than State Ownership
and government propaganda; but certainly it is not something to which a
Jeffersonian democrat could approve._
Ilya Simonov looked blankly at Catherina and whispered, "Why, what he's
reading is as much an attack on the West as it is on us."
She looked at him and whispered back, "Well, why not? This gathering is to
discuss freedom of the press."