William N Oatis

American journalist who gained international attention when he was charged with espionage by the Czechoslovak government in 1951. He was subsequently jailed until 1953. In 1937, he started working for the Associated Press in Indianapolis, Indiana. Oatis served in the U.S. Army during World War II, studying Japanese at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Oatis was working as the AP bureau chief in Prague, Czechoslovakia, when he was arrested on 23 April 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 4 July 1951, a Czechoslovak court sentenced Oatis to ten years in prison. He was released on 16 May 1953, shortly after the death of Joseph Stalin and after an angry letter from President Dwight D. Eisenhower to the Czechoslovak government. Oatis contracted tuberculosis during his imprisonment and sought treatment shortly after his release. Oatis went on to cover the United Nations for three decades and retired in 1984 after a 47-year career at the AP. He was elected president of the United Nations Correspondents Association in 1970. In 1992, Oatis was inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame. Oatis died on 16 September 1997 at Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn, New York from complications of Alzheimers disease. Link to Wikipedia biography Read less