The State Department said today that it would not protest to Soviet authorities regarding police actions against two American correspondents on successive days in Moscow while they were meeting with unnamed Soviet Jews. The correspondents were James Peiport, of the Associated Press and James Yuenger, of the Chicago Tribune. Inquiries by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency indicated that neither the AP nor the Tribune planned to lodge protests.
According to reports from Moscow, a plainclothes policeman broke into a conversation on Gorky St. July 19 between Peiport and a Soviet Jew. They flashed a red card and ordered Peiport to leave. The plainclothesman seized the Jew by his arms and said “come with me.” He told the American newsman that the matter was none of his business. Yesterday Yuenger was picked up by Moscow police and detained for ten minutes at the police station after he tried to meet a Soviet Jew who was described as “an informant.” The Jew was also taken to the police station but was kept apart from Yuenger. State Department spokesman Charles Bray said today that a report on the Peiport incident was received from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow but none on Yuenger’s detention. No information was available here on what happened to the two Jews involved.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
