London After Dark

Three weeks ago CBS Newschief Paul White and CBS European Director Ed Murrow started arranging by cable and short-wave conference to present from England a show called London After Dark. Working with BBC, Murrow lined up nine commentators, including Vincent Sheean and J. B. Priestley, got them spotted with portable mikes all over Lon don. Last week the program was heard in the U. S. Unexpected was the cooperation of Adolf Hitler, whose bombers flew over London, but dropped no bombs.

First commentator heard on the CBS roundup from England was Ed Murrow. Said he: "This is Trafalgar Square. The noise you hear at the moment is the sound of the air-raid siren." Calmly Murrow described the searchlights stabbing the London sky, the muted traffic, the shelter beneath St. Martin's in the Fields. He was still talking when the program moved on to the kitchen of the Savoy Hotel, where Bob Bowman described a menu that included eight hors d'oeuvres, eight different kinds of meat and game. With him was famed Chef Franc,ois Latry, who remarked: "I'm very happy to say hello to my friends . . . and to tell them we are well and food is plentiful. The war has not affected my cooking."

Moving on to an anti-aircraft battery, to an Air Raid Precautions station, to Hammersmith's, London's big dance hall, the program was effective all the way.

Said Eric Severeid from Hammersmith's: "There are 1,500 people in this place at the moment; it's 15 minutes before mid night and that's the wartime closing hour for Saturday night. There was an air raid alarm, as you know, 15 minutes ago. The orchestra leader simply announced they'd go on playing as the crowd wished to stay and I don't expect more than half a dozen people have left." From Hammersmith's the program jumped to Piccadilly Circus, where Vincent Sheean spoke briefly of the silent streets. Following interviews with trainmen by BBC men in Euston Station, the program wound up with J. B. Priestley:

"I'm sitting at an open window in Whitehall. . . . Just opposite me is the tall, pale, rather ghostly shape of the Cenotaph commemorating a million dead, many of them friends of mine, boys that I played with as a boy, men that might have been leaders now. Behind the great Government offices, the Home Office, the Colonial Office, the Treasury, is the heart of our great capital city; it is also historic ground. Henry VIII married Anne Boleyn near here. Elizabeth saw Shakespeare's plays and the masks of Ben Jonson here. Charles I was executed a few yards from where I'm sitting. It's historic ground, and I think today it's probably more deeply sunk in our world's history than ever, because it's the very centre of the hopes of free men everywhere. It's the heart of this great rock that's defying the dark tide of invasion that has destroyed free dom all over Western Europe."

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