Inside Report (1)

June 19, 1981

Meanwhile, Moscow insiders are waiting to see how the US copes with a dilemma on the television front. Acting Ambassador Jack Matlock is groping for a way to criticize Soviet policy in Afghanistan and Poland without forfeiting the traditional TV message allowed to various foreign diplomatic missions on the occasion of their national holidays.

Last July 4 American Ambassador Thomas Watson was denied the TV time because the wouldn't delete criticism of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan from his prepared text.

Western diplomats on the scene say Matlock will try to get across American thinking on the Afghan and Polish situations clearly -- but in directly.m