Home Front

The nation's broadcasters last week found themselves the bearers of a new responsibility. Menaced--so they really believed for the first time--from the air, San Franciscans and Los Angelenos hugged the radio as if it were mother's knee. At first, as elsewhere in the nation, people exploded with sudden disgust at the remnants of saccharine sales talk lilting from loudspeakers.

When the news bulletins ceased to come, people felt a little lost. For nine-and twelve-hour periods in Oregon and Washington, various but generally shorter spells in California, nothing at all could be tuned in on many sets during daytime but a blank buzz. This tribulation was imposed by order of the coastal Interceptor Commands. Reason: carrier-based enemy planes could have flown in above the weather, found military objectives by triangulating on radio broadcasts from commercial stations.

Airline radio beams were also cut off, lest Japanese planes follow them to airports or Army fields. In Seattle the Army Air Forces allowed United Air Lines to use its beam for ten minutes, long enough to get out of town with Fiorello LaGuardia. A few stations in the coast area were used by the Army for 15 to 45-second flashes. But at week's end uninterrupted daily broadcasting was restored to most stations --subject to quelling on five minutes' notice.

On the third day of the war, at lunch time, radio stations on the Atlantic seaboard had to grapple with a scare report (see p. 61). In a sweat of swift thinking ("hardest thing I ever had to do") CBS's News Chief Paul White decided that until it was more than an unconfirmed rumor, the cause of the alert should be treated as such. He called up NBC's News Chief Abe Schechter, reached an internetwork understanding. Slight inducement to panic thereafter came from CBS or NBC announcers.

Morale. Neither holding the nation's hand nor slapping the nation's back, several dependable radio voices helped keep the nation's head clear. CBS's William L. Shirer, in never-flustered tones, anticipated President Roosevelt in explaining what war meant in terms of information. Dry humor was provided by CBS's Elmer Davis, who snorted gently at Hitler's bombast about "a year of greatest decision." Said Elmer: "To judge from the precedent of the past two years, he's going to have to put the same old record on in 1942...."

Mutual's deliberative Raymond Gram Swing gave the most searching of all the week's radio analyses. "We have been the safest-minded people on earth," he said. "And we have indulged to the full the extravagance of underestimating our opponents....There is however one mercy in this grievous situation....Our defeat has come at the beginning....We can outproduce the Axis. And we can out-will the Axis."

New Routine. The broadcasting companies at week's end were nearly acclimatized to wartime. Guards stood at their control rooms and transmitters. All NBC employes were fingerprinted. In the 2nd Corps Area (N.Y., N.J., Del.) the Army decreed: "the public press and radio broadcasting stations form no part of the air-raid warning system." All-night tricks for announcers were discontinued. President Neville Miller of the National Association of Broadcasters wired all stations to "report war news calmly, slowly and deliberately, so as to avoid horror, suspense and undue excitement."

Though the Defense Communications Board was formally empowered to commandeer radio facilities. FCC Chairman James Lawrence Fly declared emphatically that the Government was not going to "take over" radio. Broadcasters, feeling their responsibilities, rather desired than feared censorship. But what precise form it would take--other than at the sources of news--remained to be worked out.

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