A fortnight ago Correspondent Don Burke closed TIME Inc.'s Cairo bureau and made his exodus from Egypt. During his year there as bureau chief, the war in the Holy Land made things unusually difficult for journalists. The press censorship was intolerable to the point where Egyptian censors even rewrote correspondents' copy to suit themselves ; there were repeated acts of violence against foreigners on the streets of Cairo; TIME was banned for being "unfriendly to the Arab cause" after our May 24 cover story on King Abdullah of Transjordan.

Toward the end Burke was spending much of his time grappling with Egyptian bureaucracy. Last week, when he got to Rome, he was able to file an uncensored cable covering the events of his final weeks in Egypt: "One morning early in July a tarbooshed plainclothesman appeared at TIME'S office. I was to report to the Cairo governate. There I was ushered in to see another plainclothesman in what I presumed was the security police office. I asked him who he was and why he had summoned me and he said, 'You have applied for a new residence visa and I must ask you some questions.' I told him I had already received the visa. He was somewhat abashed. His questioning, mainly about my home and family, led nowhere and after he again refused to say who he was or why I had been summoned, I politely excused myself and departed.

"Shortly thereafter, TIME'S office telephones, which had been cut off in June on a thin technicality, were restored to service. However, something new had been added. Whenever you picked up a receiver, the racket of the wiretapping apparatus sounded like a pinball machine.

"The second summons came late in July--this time from the security section of the Ministry of Interior. En route I picked up two American Embassy officials for protection. The Egyptian Interior official, somewhat confused by my 'protection,' kept bouncing out of his office for quick hallway briefings during the questioning. At length, he asked sharply: 'TIME and LIFE are banned in Egypt. Why are you here?' I corrected him: TIME was banned; LIFE was not. He disappeared again, returned and said: 'That's all; you can go.'

"The third summons arrived August 4. This time we went to Interior's Passport Section. As my protectors and I arrived at the office of a Captain Sabry, one of them said: 'I was spit on only once climbing the stairs ; I guess that's par for the course.' With a face-cracking smile the captain demanded my passport, flipped through it and said: 'Your residence visa has expired.' I pointed out that it had just been renewed. Said he : 'I am cancelling it. You will get a temporary visa. You will leave Egypt within seven days.'

"I told him it would be impossible for me to leave in seven days because I had a 14-day-old daughter. He escorted me up one echelon where a somewhat more pleasant official said I could have 15 days to get out of the country. When I once more asked why, he shuffled through my dossier, looked up and naively said: 'I'm not supposed to tell you.'

"No one seemed to know the reason for my expulsion except the security police, and they weren't talking. Knowing the explosive qualities of Egyptians, I asked for and got police guards for my house and TIME'S office. I also applied for an export license for the baby's special food because Rome, our next stop, had cabled that none was available there. The license was never granted. Later, I mentioned this to Sabry when I had to see him about passports. He smiled, shrugged and said: 'The baby's old enough to travel.' Then, despite the fact that we were being tossed out of Egypt, he demanded two dollars for the exit permits.

"As I left for Rome by plane from American-built Payne Field, I suspected that other American correspondents would soon follow me out of Egypt, whose citizens have yet to know the benefits of a free press and whose journalists have special jail cells set aside for them when they 'err.' "

Cordially yours,

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