Show US U.S. lawmaker I Breaks reths Ihm hIm I 1 Im r 1 R I I BERLIN Representative I tive Thurmond Chatham of North Carolina recently told of a 50 mile I jeep ride behind the Iron Curtain and an eyewitness account of new Soviet baby tanks and jet planes Had he been een caught in such for for- forbidden forbidden forbidden bidden territory he would have been held as a spy and perhaps executed The congressman said he was es es- escorted escorted es- es escorted on the trip by a Russian of of- officer officer he had befriended while they were doing liaison work w o 0 r k during World War II IL Chatham told this startling story He recognized the Russian in civilian clothes in a west-Berlin west I night club He threw his arms around me I 1 and we had a good talk He asked if I would like to take a trip with I him and I accepted Barked C rl cd Way Through I The next day the Russian took Chatham to the Soviet sector of I Berlin put on the uniform of a senior Red army officer and took tooka I a jeep from the Russian motor pool He barked his way through half halfa a a dozen check points explaining I his companion was a friend from one of the east European satellite I countries At an airfield completed only six weeks before Chatham said he saw I new jet planes with swept back bad wings that looked to him as sleek and fast as the latest American I types At another base there were about I 20 tanks built lower than anything he had seen while in combat in both world wars wars about about three feet high but armed with long guns Chatham speculated that hat t h a t the tanks might be almost immune to ordinary fire from weapons that could not lower their muzzles enough to aim at the low tanks The drivers he conjectured probably lie prone to operate the tanks Russians Lose Face Chatham said his Russian friend gave him three personal opinions 1 The Soviets have lost face in Asia over the Korean war the y fr j drive to bring hrin I I 1 I I I I 0 about ab but ut- ut 1 t eus-t st tin n-tin G r p n- n ship under Communist rule has failed so 50 far 3 Every Everyone one legged German would carry a gun against us the Russians now The congressman said he saw thousands of Russian soldiers in inI uniform bringing in the harvest The officer he related explained this as a measure to maintain dis- dis disI discipline in any army cooped up most- most mostly mostly Ily ly in Ll compounds and barracks He HeI estimated the troops numbered |