Wincheil in Brazil

Chauvinistic Columnist Walter Winchell had his mind and heart in the war long before it came to the nation on Dec. 7, 1941. A lieutenant commander in the Naval Reserve, he immediately asked for active duty. After some voluntary public-relations duties in New York City and four beseeching trips to Washington, the Navy finally, on Dec. 1, 1942, ordered him to report for active duty to the Commander of the South Atlantic Force at Recife, Brazil.

At a stopover in Miami, a photographer wanted to take the customary picture. Winchell asked him not to, said the Navy would have to answer why. That stirred more curiosity. The editor of the Miami Herald called Winchell, wanted to know where he was going. Commander Winchell said: "I am running an errand for Uncle." The Miami Herald then ran a story making Winchell's mission sound secretish, the A.P. picked it up and some of the U.S. press heckled Walter Winchell for sounding off.

In Brazil reporters soon learned what Commander Winchell's orders were: cannon-voiced Vice Admiral Jonas Ingram had assigned him to mix with Brazilians, get to know something about them and their country, find out what they think about the U.S., then report to the U.S. via the Navy and State Departments. Since Brazilians had begun to think that they had heard much more about the U.S. than the U.S. had heard about them, the job seemed worth while.

Under the auspices of the Brazilian Government and Foreign Minister Oswaldo Aranha, Winchell whirled about the country. He talked with big & little Brazilians, to U.S. officers and men stationed in Brazil. In Sao Paulo's big industrial plants he made brief translated talks to the workers. His biggest official hit was at a press banquet in Rio when he raised his cup of coffee to the level of his Brazilian host's cup and gave this toast: "Never above you--never beneath you--always beside you." The Brazilian press adopted the toast as a slogan.

Off duty, he has been plain & fancy Walter Winchell. The first three women he met in Brazil were former models and chorus girls who had married rich Brazilians. Since he brought only uniforms (he did not know where he was going when he first got his orders) and there are many occasions in Rio where officers appear in civilian clothes, he appeared at his first cocktail party in a white suit borrowed from a waiter. He has been to nightclubs only twice, but is constantly on the trail of hamburgers: "What wouldn't I give for a hamburger?" He spent Christmas in bed with desarranjo (bowel discord).

Last week Walter Winchell was master of ceremonies on the inauguration program of Brazil's new--and South America's first -- 50,000-watt short-wave radio station. Owned and operated by the Government's Radio Nacional, it has the unabashed purpose of spreading Brazilian propaganda, news and culture over the world--an answer to Falangist broadcasts from Franco Spain.

To "Mr. & Mrs. Brazil" Winchell radi-orated: "For 20 years the Nazi press has been telling our respective countries that we are separated by a language. Your warm welcome to my countrymen tells the Nazi press again, I hope, that our countries are united in ideals. . . . To survive this dark hour, civilization has had to mark carefully her enemies. This means that for bright centuries to come she will also remember her friends . . . and conspicuous in civilization's friends is Brazil. . . . The fury of battle is the test of a soldier; the attack from within is the test of a Republic. Hitler failed to wreck London and Moscow from without . . . and he failed to wreck your country and mine from within.

Brazil and my country--the twin Gibraltars of freedom--will stand guard in the Western Hemisphere . . . more than good neighbors . . . good brothers!"

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