all hard labor. In 1950 the noted Irish essayist and historian, Hubert Butler, and Quaker friends managed to visit Stepinac in prison. Troubled by the Catholic Church's support of the Ustaše, and the Church's role in the wartime conversions of Orthodox to Catholicism, Butler asked Stepinac why he had appointed as his deputy on conversions, the bishop Josip Šimrak, an enthusiastic advocate of converting the Orthodox. To which Butler noted, “the archbishop gave the stock reply he had so often given at the trial – notre conscience est tranquille (our conscience is clear).” In 1950, a group of United States senators made foreign aid to Yugoslavia conditional on Stepinac's release. On 11 November 1951, Cyrus L. Sulzberger from The New York Times visited Stepinac in Lepoglava. He won the Pulitzer Prize for the interview. A visiting congressional delegation from the United States, including Clement J. Zablocki and Edna F. Kelly, pressed to see Stepinac in late November 1951. Their request was denied by the Yugoslav authorities, but Josip Broz Tito assured the delegation that Stepinac would be released within a month. Stepinac was released as a precondition for American aid, on the condition that he either retire to Rome or be confined to his home parish of Krašić. He refused to leave Yugoslavia and opted to live in Krašić under a form of house arrest, to which he was transferred on 5 December 1951. Among the reporters awaiting Stepinac in his native Krasic were those from the American Time Magazine, who reported that Stepinac "walked easily and firmly", stating of his prison days that “he was not maltreated, could say Mass, have visitors, books and newspapers”. When asked about the conditions of his release, Stepinac responded: "I was not released under any conditions. They released me on their own wish...The reason I did not ask to be released is that I don't feel guilty." He lived in the parish presbytery and was able to say Mass in the adjacent church. He stated that: "They will never make me leave unless they put me on a plane by force and take me over the frontier. It is my duty in these difficult times to stay with the people." At a meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Croatia on 5 October 1951, Ivan Krajačić said, "In America they are printing Crvena ruža na oltaru [Red Roses on the