`Osservatore 5 welcomes p.o.w. plan

But Moscow Radio attacks again
AN agreement on the exchange of sick and wounded prisoners could well pave the way towards the restoration of peace in Korea, said the Osservatore Romano last week in an article on Red China's proposals for the repatriation of war prisoners.
The comment stressed the "human side" of these proposals and declared that "essentially political problems" should not be allowed to stifle the hope and relief that the war prisoner proposals have caused to rise in human hearts.
The article recalled in this connection the peace efforts of Pope Benedict XV during the first World War, when His Holiness reminded the warring nations that "humanitarian actions should not be forgotten in the heat of battle or become drowned in blood."
But new and bitter attacks by Moscow Radio on the "war-mongering" Vatican led the Osservatore a few days later to say that these "contradict the words of peace spoken at the same time and tend to kill the hopes raised by the Communist peace proposals."
Commenting on the broadcast of an article by the Soviet propagandist Eugene Tarle, who accused the Vatican of "preaching war, mass killings, political and economic oppression and atomic warfare." the paper said: "The words of Malenkov are different from those of Tarle and the Moscow Radio."