Romania: Death of a Dictator : Violence Catches U.S. Journalists Off Guard : Media: Peaceful change in the rest of Eastern Europe brought a false sense of security, news executives say.

The order came as CBS correspondents and their crew headed into the television station in downtown Bucharest.

“Halt!” shouted the soldiers guarding the television building that has become the headquarters of the new Romanian government.

But before Martha Teichner and Bob Simon and the rest of the group could identify themselves, the soldiers opened fire.

“They nearly killed us,” Teichner recalled. But no one was hit, and the soldiers came forward to check passports. They were not satisfied, however, and held the CBS group all night at gunpoint, spread-eagled and face down against a tank.

The next person to come along, a man identifying himself as a doctor, was less fortunate. “They just opened fire on him and hit him, and his body just sort of flew back and fell,” Teichner said over the phone on “CBS This Morning.”

The incident Tuesday is an example of the hazards that the media face in covering the Romanian revolution, an event far more brutal and dangerous than even television, with its instantaneous coverage, can convey.

Although footage often has been graphic, some incidents have not been shown on American television because broadcasters deem them too brutal.

At least two foreign journalists have been killed and five wounded. Five have been wounded, including John Tagliabue of the New York Times and John Daniszewski of the Associated Press. Countless others have been caught in firefights.

Some editors concede that they were lulled into a false sense of security by the relatively peaceful nature of the change in the rest of Eastern Europe. They expected it to be peaceful in Romania, too.

Some of the danger is a function of the covert nature of a resistance fought by secret police.

“When the initial reports came of (Nicolae) Ceausescu fleeing, no one expected” the counterattack launched by his secret police force, said Bernard Gwertzman, foreign editor of the New York Times.

“I thought it would be the same peaceful kind of thing in Romania as it was in the rest of the Eastern Bloc,” said Nate Polowetzky, assistant general manager of the Associated Press for foreign news. “I think maybe we weren’t completely prepared, subconsciously.”

In part, this unpreparedness stemmed from the closed nature of Romanian society, which left the American press largely uninformed about the country. No Western news agencies were allowed permanent bureaus there. , although ABC News had Romanian nationals on retainer to help when its reporters were able to obtain visas to visit.

In fact--in a situation unthinkable a year ago--most American news organizations were relying on Soviet and East Bloc media to monitor events in Romania in the early stages.

“In the critical hours when the story first broke, the main source of news was the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug,” NBC foreign news director David Miller said. The AP picked up Tanjug’s Bucharest bureau dispatches in Belgrade. Others watched East Bloc television, including Romanian TV. One of the side stories of the Romanian revolution, indeed, is the growing skill and ability of the Soviet media.

Restrictions on American journalists were so severe in Romania that most are there now only because of the breakdown of order when Ceausescu was deposed. The Los Angeles Times has three correspondents in Romania: one a White House reporter, one based in Paris and one based in Warsaw.

When he first heard about Ceausescu reportedly fleeing the country early Friday, NBC’s Miller ordered teams from five different countries to head to Romania without visas.