War Babies

One day last week as the Germans marched on Paris, Paul Archinard, NBC's correspondent, sat down at a typewriter in his newly decorated apartment (also NBC Paris office), began to peck out his next scheduled broadcast. Suddenly an air-raid siren screamed, and Archinard, together with his two girl helpers, headed out of the apartment at the double quick. They were huddled in a hallway when several Nazi bombs whammed down upon adjoining buildings, exploded with a crash that blasted doors and windows out of Archinard's apartment, ruined 10,000 francs worth of fresh paint and plaster. White-lipped but determined, Archinard waited for quiet, then returned to his machine. Brushing aside bits of broken glass, he proceeded to bat out an eyewitness account of the bombing that added another feather to radio newscasting's well-feathered war bonnet. The German advance has closed one after another outlet to U. S. war broadcasters. But while they had spots to talk from, they have done their jobs well.

Recognized as the most ingenious, best-organized radio newsgathering agency in Europe, the CBS bureau, supervised by smart Paul White in New York, now employs eight full-time correspondents, has four stringmen on tap for special assignments. From London, the bureau's European chief, Edward Murrow, onetime president of the National Student Federation of America, wields an efficient baton over this radio symphony. Among stars that he commands are Thomas Grandin, who patrolled Columbia's Paris beat, and William L. Shirer, whose talks from Berlin have established him as the ablest newscaster of them all. Roving assistants to Grandin in Paris were Eric Sevareid, once editor of the Paris Herald, Larry Leseur, a U. P. man'until he joined Columbia, Mary Marvin Breckinridge, who graduated into radio newscasting via Vassar and photography. Edwin Har-trich, a onetime Herald Tribune man who covered for Columbia the invasions of

Holland and Belgium, helps Shirer in Berlin.

As opposite numbers for these CBS flashes, NBC has as its permanent staff a talented trio headed by tall, cadaverous Max Jordan, veteran London representative Fred Bate, and French-born, ex-poilu Paul Archinard. Number three U. S. network, MBS, is headed by John Steele in London, by Waverley Root in France, depends on space-rate orators like veteran Newshen Sigrid Schultz in Berlin and hard-working Arthur Mann, now covering the R. A. F. Both NBC and CBS have their European correspondents on the air regularly for two 15-minute periods daily.

Mutual broadcasts from its foreign headquarters five times a week, stresses more heavily its nightly talks by war experts in the U. S.

Most recent CBS scoop was the collapse of Belgium, tipped by one of their European representatives to CBS in New York four hours before it hit the press wires.

He cabled slyly: "There will be no more Brussels sprouts,"a phrase the censor freely passed. Such finagling is not often attempted. Radio newscasters usually talk straight, depend on inflection to convey shades of meaning.

Strictest censorship today is that exercised in the remaining neutral capitals, fearful of offending Nazi blitzers. Among the belligerents, England has the speediest, most reasonable censorship, superior to Germany's, well ahead of France's. In London, BBC men, acting for the Ministry of Information, serve expertly as censors, permit wide leeway in comment on political bigwigs.

Paris censors were tough, frequently tied up scripts for hours in yards of red tape. Between British leniency, French severity, is the Nazi censorship, which has its headquarters on Adolf Hitler Platz in Berlin. There Lord Haw-Haw holds nightly court. There U. S. broadcasters take their scripts and three carbons to be okayed by political and military censors.

Since radio commentators shy away from military matters, the latter seldom question a script, but the political censors are pretty rigorous. Odd to most correspondents is the sound of their stuff being read in German to the Propaganda Ministry over the phone. Odd too is the willingness of Nazi censors to listen to squawks, even give way on many a quibble.

By no means unaware of the importance of radio newscasters, the embattled Europeans have often gone out of their way to help them get stories. The Finns were generous with Warren Irvin, who served NBC skillfully in Scandinavia, was with Leland Stowe in Oslo during his celebrated scoop'-producing stay there. Now reported in the French Army, Irvin while in Finland was anxious to broadcast the sound of guns at the front. Eager to please, the Finns agreed to string a microphone to one of their emplacements, cut loose with a dozen batteries simultaneously to make a grand effect. Eminently successful was the broadcast. Irvin was barely clear of the front when all hell began to pop along the line. Not in on the game, the Russians imagined the Finns were starting an offensive, fired 8,000 rounds before night had passed. During his career with NBC, Irvin cooperated with William L. White, then working in Finland for CBS. Preparing for holiday broadcasts in 1939, they decided to draw for Christmas and New Year. By capturing Christmas, White was enabled to put on the air the moving broadcast that inspired Robert Sherwood to write his play, "There Shall Be No Night."

To bring their news roundups from Europe costs NBC and CBS about $10,000 a week each. Mutual much less. In arranging programs, the networks in Manhattan usually talked to London, Paris, Rome on a cue channel (private phone). How they will reach their French correspondent henceforth depends on how the Battle of France goes.

Berlin has no two-way channel. Shirer and NBC's William C. Kerker have to broadcast from there without benefit of telephonic instructions. They do not hear the "Go Ahead Berlin!" with which the networks add a bit of drama to their programs. Tail end of most network broadcasts is reserved for London, where radio correspondents keep enough censor-cleared material on tap to cover any silences that may occur elsewhere. Poised last week in Rome, anticipating excitement, were three radio newscasters: for CBS, lean ex-I. N. S.man Cecil Brown; for NBC, chubby, wavy-haired Charles Lanius; for Mutual, Peter Tompkins.

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