The Guardian

Newsman Bill Worthy, He Toured Red China

Mr. William Worthy, correspondent for the Baltimore Afro-American and Nieman Fellow at Harvard, who defied the State Dept. and toured Communist China in the style of Richard Harding Davis, will speak Sunday, February 17th at 10:30 A.M., at The Community Church of Boston, Conservatory Auditorium, 31 Hemenway St., on, "Freedom of the Press and the Cold War - A Report from Red China."

Mr. Worthy reported the Bandung Conference and toured Asian countries as well as Russia for his newspaper last year. His reports from Moscow and Budapest were carried last week by the Columbia Broadcasting Company. The meeting will be conducted by the minister, Rev. Donald G. Lothrop. Miss Dorothy McNeil, soprano, will be the guest soloist and Bertram F. Whippel will be at the organ.

The Community Church is non-sectarian and the public is invited to attend.

Worthy arrived in Boston via Pan American Airline from London last Sunday. Shortly after arrival he boarded another plane for New York for a CBS Television appearance on Eric Sevareid's World News Round-up.'

He is still in possession of his passport. He rebuffed attempts of U.S. Consular officers in Budapest and Vienna to seize his passport. At London Airport no effort was made to take his passport.

Worthy says he deliberately violated the State Department ban on travel to Red China because he considers it a violation of 'the traditional American freedom of movement which, until a decade ago, all of us took for granted.'

The newsman said he had challenged the government and is prepared to take all the consequences.

He was expected to return to Harvard Monday to resume his studies of Middle East conditions as a Nieman Fellow.

The 35-year old newsman on leave from the Baltimore Afro-American interviewed Chou En-lai during his stay of more than a month in Red China.

William (Bill) Worthy is well known in the Hub as the son of the late Dr. and Mrs. William Worthy. One may say his penchant for newspaper writing may be partly inherited, for his mother was rated exceptionally able as an essay writer.

The Civil Liberties Union, he said, cabled him while he was in Budapest that it was ready to handle the case for him; and he agreed.

The Union said through its Executive Director, Patrick M. Malins; "The State Department action is, in effect, a cancellation of Worthy's passport and it violates the principles of freedom of travel and of the press.

'If the government seizes the passport, we will start an immediate legal suit to recover it without restriction as to place of travel and to prevent any other punishment.'