General Mikhail Romanovich Galaktionov, military editor of Pravda:

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 369, 19 July 1946, Page 21

General Mikhail Romanovich Galaktionov, military editor of Pravda:

"Will you alldw me to greet you in the name of my colleagues of the Soviet press. Our trip to this country was accompanied by ‘certain difficulties and delays. My colleagues and I came more than 10,000 kilometres to get here, and for Mr. Ehrenburg and me, who came from Moscow, and for Mr. Simonov, who came all the way from Tokyo via Mos: cow, the trip was inevitably accompanied by extreme difficulties, but we overcame these difficulties in order to be here, first and foremost because we love and respect

the Americarf people. Speaking in al! sincerity, we tried hard to get here. "The second reason why we tried hard to get here is that we also, like Mr. Wilbur Forrest, consider that the best way to move forward and to progress is to work together on both the consideration and the decision of all queéstions which concern the Russian people and the American people. Contact on every level and along every line, including the one which joins us in this room

to-day, is the best method to achieve that progress. "Most: of all, I would like’to express my satisfaction that the first word I heard in this meeting was from Mr. Forrest, whom I saw in Moscow when he visited the editorial offices of the newspaper Pravda, where I work, and where we made the first. step toward the contact along newspaper lines from which we hope for much. "It seems to me that in a consideration of these questions, we should start not with our differences, but with those things held in common by the Soviet Union and by the United States, and especially by the Russian people and the American people. "This field of general agreement between us is best seen in the common action we carried on against Hitlerite Germany and against imperialist Japan. -I think it was no accident that our peoples fought together against Fascism and against imperialism. It was due to the fact that, as peoples, we had the some feelings, we had the same thoughts, and we had the same general ambitions

during the war. This community of interest shown on the battlefield in blood, I should like to hope as a soldier, can be transferred into things. which will concern us in time of peace. "I should like to make only one comment on what was said earlier by Mr. Forrest by saying that in the Soviet Union there is and does exist freedom of the press. As editor of the newspaper Pravda I fulfil that function and edit it as I assume that Mr. Forrest fulfils that

function and edits his paper in this country, but I believe that that is not inconsistent with the freedom of the press."