“Banquet’’, a Fipameoh by Joseph Hirsch.
GUIDE TO GOOD READING i

Book exposes Fie as Xin
U.S. project against peace

Ir YOU ONLY buy—and read
—one book in the coming weeks,
make it Derek Kartun’s Tito’s
Plot Against the Peace. .

A masterly work, more thrill-
ing than any detective thriller,
it is the story of the plot of the
Tito gang in Yugoslavia, under
the direction of U.S. state de-
partment intelligence agents, to
overthrow the governments of
Hungary and the other people’s
democracies. It is the story told,
for the first time, in one ac-
count,

Kartun, a London Daily Work-
er correspondent, covered the
trial of Laslo Rajk, former Hun-
garian foreign minister with
whose exposure the ramifications
of this plot were bared. In 128
exciting, easy-to-follow’ pages,
Kartun takes the reader into the
intrigue-ridden atmosphere of
the pre-World War II Balkans,

traces the careers, as police in-,

formers and foreign spies, of
Rajk and his associates.

Through the intricate pattern
of European politics, down
through the years of the Spanish
civil war, the appeasement ‘of
Hitler, World War IH, the Chur-
chill-Truman plans to halt post-
war social progress in Europe,
the reader follows, step by step,
the activities of Trotskyites, em-
igre aristocrats and spies as they
worked together.

And Kartun tells the sordid
story of the U.S. intelligence’s
ascension as “boss” to the agents
who only a little while ago were
serving the Nazis.

We have compared the sus-
penseful skill of Kartun’s writing
the the detective thrillers. But
no fictional story matches the in-
exorable logic of Kartun’s book,
There are no “holes” in Kartun’s
story. Rather, as he draws to-
gether the diverse strands in the
counter-revolutionary conspiracy,
-Kartun makes thoroughly clear
what the real truth about Tito is,
how his regime fits into the pat-
‘tern of “Project, X,” the US.
state department - Pentagon plan
to overthrow the European de-
mocracies.

eo ae

KARTUN answers the ques-—

tions some ask about Tito and
Rajk and his co-conspirators:

“How was it possible that people
with a record of anti-fascist
struggle could so betray that rec-
ord? How can one explain the
abject confession of Rajk and
his implication of his Yugoslav
and U.S. superiors?”

He explains: “It is difficult to
understand why people expected,
or pretend to expect, anything
but abject confession from men
of this kind. What right has one
to anticipate principled or con-
sistent behavior in such a situa-
tion from men whose lives have
been nothing but inconsistency
and a monstrous and total denial
of principle? ... Could one ex-
pect Rajk ,whose treachery dated

back to 1931, suddenly to be loyal

enough to his fellow conspirators
to refuse to give them away?”
As for Tito, after lucidly de-
tailing the imperial British gov-
ernment’s (and later, the U.S.)
deals with Tito during the last
war, Kartun sums up the Yugo-
Slav regime with: .
“Perhaps the word ‘Bonapart-
ism’ is the most convenient and
helpful for us in seeking to an-
alyze the case of Tito. For Bona-
partism means the degeneration

‘of the revolution into dictator-

ship and terror, the abandon-

ment of principles and the end-
ing of freedom. This is precisely
what has happened under Tito’s
rule in Yugoslavia, And there is
surely enough evidence even
within these pages to indicate
the nature of that downward
progyession and its more salient
and easily recognizable features.”

And it is exactly evidence
which Kartun supplies, evidence
drawn both from the Rajk trial,
people who knew him and his
associates, as well as newspapers
and other sources.

Tito’s Plot Against the Peace
is in the tradition of The Great
Conspiracy by Sayers and Kahn,
which in the same brilliantly ef-
fective manner told the story of
the anti-Soviet conspiracy. The
Tito-Rajk plot, of course, was a
continuation of the larger, still-
functioning effort to destroy So-
viet socialism.

Kartun’s book richly deserves
the same mass audience which
found The Great Conspiracy ex-
citing reading and potent am-
munition. Don’t miss Tito’s Plot
Against the Peace, It is now on
sale in a 60-cent, paper-covered
edition at the People’s Cooper-
ative Bookstore, 337 West Pen-
Ger Street, Vancouver.

WHAT'S ON THE SCREEN

PREVIEWED at the Park this
week was a British film, The Hid-
den Room, starring Robert New-
ton, one of Britain’s better
tors.

ac-
This is a who-dunit but with
a difference. In this one, as
know the murderer and the vic-
tim, who hold long conversations

about getting away with murder.

The Hidden Room was directed

by Edward Dmytryk, one of the:

Hollywood Ten and a good job it
is too. It grips your attention
at all times and there is a very
effective use of music throughout
pointing up the drama. ,

By placing everyday actions
side by side with the sinister be-
havior of a murderer, the Script
skillfully builds up the tension
and you are never sure whether

Dmytryk directs different

the movement of the murderer
will turn out to be just some single
everyday act or not. The writer,

_too, has given us an adult ending.

Wone of the cast is less than
competent, and in the case of
Robert Newton and the two ac-
tors playing the Scotland Yard
Superintendent and the American
the acting is excellent.

Whodunits aren’t my dish, but
I consider this one of the better

ones, —GC.L,
KKK

Home of the Brave.

* kk
History of Mr. Polly; Quartet;
' The Heiress; Lost Boundaries;
Johnny Belinda; Passport to
Pimlico.

**
The Hidden Room; Tell it to
the Judge; Down to the Sea

MUSICAL TOILET ROLLS TOO

American ‘culture’ as

they sec it in Britain.

THIS SATIRICAL COMMENT on American ‘

‘culture’ ap-

peared in the London Daily Worker last month. The writer is Derek
Kartun, whose book, Tito’s Plot Against the Peace, is reviewed on

this page.

IF SIR. STAFFORD CRIPPS stopped bothering about the

export of motor cars and whisky and concentrated on musical toilet
rolls and self-propelled teeth, we might get somewhere in the Ameri-

can market.

I am driven to this conclusion as a result of a careful study of

the advertisement columns of the
glossy U.S. magazines.

In these advertisements there’

is far more information about the
American Way of Life and the
U.S. market than is to be found
in the Nibrary of Congress or the
records of the National Associa-
tion of Manufacturers.

Here, for the help of British
manufacturers anxious to increase
their dollar exports, is a glimpse
of what the American public is
being urged to buy.

x * *

LET US PUT IT squarely: Were
you drunk last night? Is your
head balanced insecurely on your
shoulders while hammers pound
it from within?

You were? It is?

Then have a Hangover Hat —
“zippered like an ice-bag top. Ear-
flaps have pockets for cotton wool.
Blinders shield the eyes.”

It’s only $2.95 postpaid, and you
can get it from a firm with the
engaging title Bar Mart. :

Do you want to be the life and
soul of the party, yet find that
people never seem to notice your
rather distinguished features?

You do? Then invest $2.98 in
a Frankenstein Mask . Hit’s
eerie.”

This fascinating little piece of
equipment fits over the entire
head and — if the advertisement
is to be believed — is a “greenish,
lifelike, terrifying likeness of the
famous monster.” Lifelike?

Anyway, you can get it from
Magic Center, and it is guaran-
teed to be made of sanitary rub-
ber.

Are we sending the American
public sanitary rubber masks of
British monsters? And if not, why
not?

On the other hand, you may
prefer to be greeted at parties with
a guffaw rather than a shudder;
in which case it’s the Talking
Teeth for you.

This, says the advertisement, is
the funniest gift ever. They
Walk! They Talk! They're
Alive! Just wind them up — and
watch ’em Yakity-Yak. _

It appears that your friends will
be in stitches and you yourself
will achieve unheard-of-popularity

whodunit

‘in Ships; The Fan; Inspector
Gemeral; The Red Pony; The
Window; Portrait of Jenny;
Sword in the Desert; Take One

False Step; Command Deci-
sion; Scott of the Antarctic;
Stratton Story. ;

Mrs. Mike; The Lady Takes: a
Sailor; Black Magic; White
Heat; Abandoned; Beyond the
Forest; Prince of Foxes; I Was
a Male War-Bride; Jolson
Sings Again; Look for the Sil-
ver Lining; The Fountainhead;
Under Capricorn; Thieves’
Highway; Bride of Vangeance;
Miracle of the Bells; Look Be-
fore You Love. —
SKIP;

Red Danube; Ranite of Iwo
Jima; House of Strangers;

Red Menace; Walk a Crooked
Mile,

as your Talking Teeth go Yakity-
Yak across the table.

They are only one dollar and it
is suggested that you buy several
pairs immediately, keeping one for
your private delight and sending
the others to those of your friends
who require cheering up.

* x *

THERE IS NO limit to the fas-
cinating variety to be found in
these advertisement columns.

‘If you are a man, you can have
for $2.50, a pair of pants decorat-
ed all over with brightly colored
pictures of a wolf in a top hat,
leaning against a lamp post.

“Whoooeeeee!” says the adver-
tisement, unintelligibly.

Or you can acquire a gadget
calling itself the Cocktail Eyeful.

This is a cocktail glass, in the
bottom of which as you drain
your drink can be seen “a color
transparency of a girl in her birth-
day suit.”

For just under $5.00 you can
get a set of six — all different.

If you like variety, you can take

your gin in one of these giasses,
and your beer in a Torso for Tip-
plers.
, Let the advertisement tell its
own story: “Wow! what a full-’
bodied drink you'll serve in this
tempting torso. Luscious white
ceramic lass holds a potent high-
ball.”

The illustration shows a hollow

torso. The price, $1.25.
* * *

AND THEN THERE IS the
musical toilet roll.

I apologize for mentioning this
wretched contraption at all, but
our exporters must face up to the
problems they will encounter in
the American market, and I re-
gard the musical toilet roll as a
problem of first-rank importance.

It is marketed by the Siesta
Novelty Corporation of Miami
Beach, Florida, and it is described
as “perfect for your own home;
charming as a gift to others.”

Let us call a spade a spade and
say right out exactly what it is.

It’s a holder for a toilet roll with
@ musical-box attachment. “Just
pull the paper,” say Siesta Novel-
ties, “and enjoy the music.”

The musical movement is guar-
anteed Swiss. The price is $6.80.
And I am sorry to have to tell you
that the tune that it plays is
“Whistle While You Work.”

You cannot blame me for this.
It is the American way of life.
I am simply reporting it to you.

There is a good deal more be-
sides, but I fancy that go-ahead
British manufacturers now have
enough data-to work on.

I have tried to think up one or
two suggestions for products
Which could compete with the
Talking Teeth and the Torso for
Tipplers,

Frankly, I have had no success.

It only remains for me to add
that I did find another advertise-
ment which will be of distinct
interest to one and. all.

It was a guaranteed remedy for
nausea, and showed a life-like
Picture of a man who was about
LD

But never mind, We have had
enough American “culture” for
one morning, ;

—DEREK KARTUN.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 10, 1950—PAGE 10