Brooks Atkinson, took a respite from his duties as theater critic to serve as a war correspondent. After the war ended he was assigned to Moscow, Mostly he reportedf hard news from but for the April 14 Arts section he took a look at the Moscow Art Theatre's production of Oscar Wilde's "An Ideal Husband." Atkinson wrote that the city's theater critics had panned the production but David Zaslavsky, Pravda's chief expounder of the official party line, had sprung to its defense. "Wilde's play exposes the hypocrisy of the British aristocracy and its connections with financial circles," Zaslavsky declared, giving the 19th-century comedy the stamp of Party approval. The play had been drawing crowds. Atkinson, however, agreed with the critics finding the production "a pompously acted charade from which the spirit of comedy has silently departed."
Atkinson's reporting from the Soviet Union won him a Pulitzer. He later resumed his duties as chief drama critic for The Times. Zaslavsky wrote an article that appeared that same day in The Sunday Times magazine defending Soviet censorship of news from Eastern Europe.