Balloon Conversations

The Communists are beginning to worry aloud about the tens of thousands of "freedom leaflets" spilled from huge plastic balloons wafted over their lands from the West. Western Europeans are apt to regard the balloons (a U.S. idea) as a lot of hot air. But Red army units in Austria opened up on them with antiaircraft guns, and the Czech Communists sent armed guards, at least one of whom was captured, to destroy the balloon-launching sites. Two months ago the Hungarian government made an angry official protest to the U.S. that the leaflets were inciting anti-Communist Hungarians to rebellion and subversion.

Last week the U.S., rejecting the Hungarian complaint, said that Crusade for Freedom and Radio Free Europe, which provide the balloons, are purely private ventures. In any case, added the State Department, "the U.S. is at a loss to understand [why] the Hungarian government apparently finds repugnant the points made in the leaflets: that the Hungarian government could improve the conditions of the Hungarian people by vesting real authority in popularly chosen local councils; enforcing the practice of constitutional guarantees of free speech and free assembly; assuring equality before the law; guaranteeing the right of the working peasant to a just share of the fruits of his labor; respecting trade unions; establishing in practice free education and the constitutional rights of freedom of worship and conscience."

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