Wiliam 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.[4]
The case made international headlines, as well as leading to trade and travel embargos against Czechoslovakia.[5] On July 4, 1951, a Czechoslovak court sentenced Oatis to ten years in prison.[6] 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.[7]
The Czechoslovak government said it had been moved to pardon Oatis by a poignant plea from Oatis' wife, Laurabelle.[7] 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.[8]
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