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Show (Gold. SI (ED by Robert M, Cipes since he was forced to flee from Czechoslovakia j comedian Jara Kohout has been of wit against its waging a Communist captors. His daily and weekly broadcasts, beamed to Czechoslovakia by Radio Free Europe, are keeping up the spirits of the people and leaving the Communists shaking with rage. Kohout (his name means rooster in Czech) was one of his country's top comedians in the thirties, packing theatres and cabarets witta on political situations of his sharp take-ofthe day. Then came the Nazis. Says Kohout: "Like the Communists they also could not take a theatre was closed joke' As a resultvKohout's downand he was thrown into jail. History repeated itself, and in 1948, when the Communists took over his country, Kohout found himself again defying the regime with his political satires. This time he decidedto make his escape before it was too .r one-man-crus- ade A V. fs U - v .... " 1 . MCV 4 n.. Ami i II 1 late.;:: r ...... . , . is- s f , iv A - 4 A " ' - t - - -' ,- r . t- - ' - . V" Kchout imitates Czech listening to Red broadcast: "Slavo labor is abolished. . . . Now we have the eight hour day." a r i Ml- . 4- - , - - ' '.' ' - - - ' I - J' - r i .., , k ..r-- ' - - 4 I t v t.1 e- - v ' -- ; To lull the suspicions of the secret police who were keeping a close watch on him, Kohout had it widely advertised that he would appear in the theatre of a small town that happened to be near the German border. On the night advertised, while the entire tovn including most of the border police waited in the theatre, Kohout and his family slipped across the border. Before coming to the U.S. he settled in Paris where he broadcasted his satires over Radio France. For the past two and a half years Kohout for the Czechohas been a comedian-writ- er slovak desk of Radio Free Europe, broadcasting arm of the privately supported Cmsade for Freedom. Whenever Kohout speaks, the Communists' most powerful transmitters are thrown into action in an attempt to drown out his voice. Here's an example from one of his programs jto show why: "Whenever something is on sale behind the Iron Curtain, there is a long line of people waiting. One morning Comrade Hejna (Joe Doakes) saw a line six blocks long, headed by a cop. He joined the end of the line and asked his neighbor what it was all about. 'They say that 100,000 watches just arrived from Russia,' he answered. 'Well, in that case said Hejna, 'I'll wait. Maybe I can find mine among them." Communist jamming has been unable to silence Kohout's devastating wit. The few letters that nianage to get out of Czechoslovakia attest to Kohout's wide popularity and tell how his jokes are passed from person to person" On these pages Jara Kohout shows the reactions of a typical Czech citizen as he listens to a Communist propaganda broadcast. PHOTOGRAPHS BY WALLACE UTVIN - our solidarity with Comrade Mao in China." "Here in Czechoslovakia tho black market is abolished. t |