William N. Oatis - Arrest and Detention

Arrest and Detention

Oatis was working as the AP bureau chief in Prague, Czechoslovakia when he was arrested on April 23, 1951. Deprived of sleep and subjected to continuous interrogation for 42 hours, Oatis signed a statement confessing to the charge of espionage. The case made international headlines, as well as leading to trade and travel embargos against Czechoslovakia. On July 4, 1951, a Czechoslovak court sentenced Oatis to ten years in prison. He was released May 16, 1953, shortly after the death of Joseph Stalin and after an angry letter from President Dwight D. Eisenhower to the Czechoslovak government. The Czechoslovak government said it had been moved to pardon Oatis by a poignant plea from Oatis' wife, Laurabelle. A Czechoslovak court cleared him of all charges in 1959, but the decision was reversed in 1968 after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. In 1990, after Czechoslovakia's "Velvet Revolution" the previous year, he was cleared again.

The Voice of America called Oatis "the first American martyr to press freedom behind the Iron Curtain." The United States Department of State denounced the Czechoslovak verdict as a ludicrous travesty and the U.S. press said Oatis was condemned for no more than doing his job as a reporter. The case's Orwellian overtones were highlighted by the prosecution's assertion at the show trial that Oatis, a careful reporter, was "particularly dangerous because of his discretion and insistence on obtaining only accurate, correct, verified information." Oatis contracted tuberculosis during his imprisonment and sought treatment shortly after his release.