Planned Panic

Radio station CHLP speaks in a modest (one kilowatt) voice, but entertains a devoted audience recruited mostly from Montreal's French-speaking east end. One night last week, listeners heard the announcer start off the 9 o'clock show with a recording by Chanteuse Yvette Giraud. Then with a brutal rasp the needle was knocked across the record and a harsh voice interrupted the program:

"This is Colonel Zoraguine of the Third Soviet Army Corps operating in the province of Quebec. The first elements of the Fourth Ukrainian Armored Division are in the heart of Montreal ... All resistance is useless. The Red Army is victorious on all Canadian fronts."

The colonel snapped out brusque instructions to his listeners. He ordered all able-bodied men to report to Dorval airfield; house owners were warned to take down crucifixes and religious images in their homes. Later bulletins flashed the news that the Red flag was flying in Ottawa; New York was under attack.

Within the first ten minutes, police received 1000 calls from panicky citizens. At suburban Dorval, a dozen men actually marched up, hands dutifully clasped behind their necks, ready to surrender. A good many Montrealers, it seemed, had never heard of Orson Welles or his "Martian" radio broadcast of 1938.

The program that startled Montreal had been announced in the press with the title, "If Canada Should Become Communist." For young (29) Director Jean Bradley, who had made his radio debut only six weeks before, it was the high-water mark in his series, C'est arrive demain (It happened tomorrow).

Bradley planned to go on with the series. This week's offering: "What would Adam and Eve find if they came to Montreal today?" At Station CHLP everyone gave thanks that it was not a television program.

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