Now, Edward R. Murrow and the voices of President Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Herbert
Hoover, Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee, Connie Mack, General George C. Marshall, Senator
Kenneth Worry, Congressman Joe Martin, the 1st Marine Division, and the city of Peoria.
In the second performance of Hear It Now, a full hour program to be heard tonight and
every week at this time.
This danger has been created by the rulers of the Soviet Union.
It is completely obvious that Secretary Acheson and the State Department, under his leadership,
have lost the confidence of the Congress and the American people.
Dean Acheson has achieved the confidence of the free peoples of the world.
Hear It Now.
The Columbia Broadcasting System and 173 affiliated radio stations present a document for ear
based on the week's news and the men and women who made it.
All the voices and sounds you will hear are real and are presented as they were spoken
in the heat and confusion of a world in crisis.
It is broadcast in the hope that the collection of these scraps of sound into a weekly recorded
history may add another dimension to our understanding in the difficult days ahead.
Here is the editor of Hear It Now, the distinguished reporter and news analyst, Edward R. Murrow.
Time was running out on 1950.
The peace, the Cold War, Hong Nam, and the number of shopping days before Christmas.
In the sunken pavilion of ice in Rockefeller Center, they skated beneath the third highest
Christmas tree in the land.
And the music filled the plaza and drifted out between the crowded canyons and out on
the Fifth Avenue, where the smell of freshly roasted chestnuts mingled with the scent of
stale perfume and wild mink.
In Chicago at Marshall Fields and Carson, Perry, and Scott, they came close to breaking
all Christmas shopping records.
In Peoria, Illinois, where it has been snowing for two weeks, the throb of excitement was
divided between Christmas and the crack Bradley basketball team.
In Los Angeles, quitting time was early, and every night at 4.30, a caravan of shiny convertibles
lined the Eight Lane Cuyunga Pass and choked to traffic going to the ranches in the valley.
This was Christmas, 1950.
But in New York and Peoria and Hollywood, and all the communities in between, something
was missing this year.
And if you looked beneath the holly and the wrappings and the lights, you could easily
see it was peace on earth.
The blast of sound you hear comes from the 16-inch guns of the Big Mole, the battleship
Missouri.
As she stood off the east coast of North Korea and protected the quickly shrinking UN beachhead
on the frozen sands of Hungnam, where American foot soldiers were desperately trying to keep
their feet on Korean soil.
As the Missouri pounded away at the hills above the beach, other big guns of the UN
armada joined the barrage as the Navy sent its carrier-based Corsair planes in to attack
the enemy guns in the ridges.
We would never have imagined the threat of some Couldが回って economic force of the
farm, military
Eight, there was a nine. He must have dropped a pound too.
Here goes another one. Four.
Six. Look how low he's gone.
As the Navy's armada of at least one battleship and several carriers and cruisers protected our troops on the beach,
a fleet of tiny wooden ships protected the battle wagons and the carriers.
The minesweepers swept clean for the big boys.
It was a tough cookie to start with. We lost two of the boys going in.
They're good kids. I can't say too much more. This is 24 years of service for me.
I've seen an awful lot of sailors and an awful lot of officers.
But this bunch of boys, these little wooden ships, they're Iron Man.
This is the Iron Man wooden ship Navy. It really is.
For 12 days, the beachhead at Hung Nam, exposed to constant enemy attack, has been shrinking.
It has been nine days since correspondents have been allowed to mention 10th Corps evacuations.
But on Wednesday, the attacks from the hills seemed to grow less.
Our attack from the sea had brought heavy losses to the enemy.
On Thursday, the Red Drive, on what was supposed to have been another Dunkirk, stopped completely.
If this was to be the lull before the final storm, or if we had finally stopped the enemy,
or if this was all a screen for total evacuation, no man could say.
But on the windswept coast of an Asian peninsula, remnants of the 1st Marines,
two regiments of the 7th Infantry Division, and a group of British commandos waited for further orders.
As they waited and rested after the long, cold, exhausting march from the Changin Reservoir to Koto and Hamhung in Hung Nam,
they told the story of their ordeal by fire and frostbite.
Later, we're there in the holes, foxholes, shells coming in on you, killing your best buddies,
friends that you've known for a long time, some people you don't even know their names.
There's too many mons.
It's up one mountain, down another one.
You fight up one side of one mountain, turn around, you fight down the other side of it.
Pull a vonzai tight on you, push you back again.
They're not human. Nobody's human over there.
It's 21 below zero. We like to froze.
We made a break for it that night.
I'm the only one left alive out of it.
Call it lucky, anything you want to. It's more than lucky.
My number just wasn't up.
In the London papers of last Tuesday, an advertisement appeared, which said,
Merry Christmas from the commandos in Korea.
These British commandos had gone into battle late, but had fought side by side with the U.S. Marines,
and some of them had been able to walk out of the reservoir area alive.
With typical British understatement, one commando major tells the story of the withdrawal and the cold.
They were very well-laid ambushes.
They were the usual business, you know, the hills coming up on either side of the road,
and in the dark, it was getting dark in the gloaming, and as we went up,
they would lie in the hills either side and wait for you.
We had some tanks up in front, where they let the tanks through,
and then when the infantry and the soft-skinned vehicles came, followed on, they'd open up on you.
And if it wasn't very much opposition, we used to just fire back like mad and go through the thing.
But occasionally there was a lot of opposition.
One had to stop the fight back, and every now and again, they chopped the convoy up a little bit more.
And how does the major feel about the Chinese Red as a soldier?
Oh, that's a big question, isn't it?
I think they're trained after a fashion, and they are not really enthusiastic.
I think they're being forced on to do this thing, and they're good at infantrymen,
because they're tough people.
I think there's a hell of a lot of them, which is the main thing.
Their attacks go in the same way. You always get a Google call, followed by a whistle, another whistle, another whistle,
and they're coming in waves.
And from interrogations and things, one discovers that they, from prisoners,
that they just form up in lines of companies and come in a straight line, one after the other,
with a couple of boys in black with pistols right at the back,
persuading those who are not so keen on political commissars, I think.
What do you think of the shoe pack?
They're all right to stand around in, they're bloody awful at walking.
General MacArthur has now added up our casualties in the 16-day action that started as a win-the-war offensive
and ended with United Nations troops in quick retreat.
We lost 12,000 American casualties, the dead, the wounded, and the missing.
The American Second Division was hit hardest. They did a big job in the West.
In the East, the big casualty list marked the battle of the first marines, but now the last of them were out.
Sergeant Pete Bland, Abilene, Texas, squad leader, last squad out.
Sergeant Gerald A. Hanson, of Arkansas City, Kansas, platoon guide of the last platoon out.
PFC Edward F. Liddy, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, I was the rifleman in the last squad out.
PFC Ray Renfro, Fievel, Kentucky, machine gunner, last squad out.
PFC David Ziegaskin, Lacksville, South Carolina, paramedic, last squad out.
Corporal John A. Lydon, Niagara Falls, New York, fireteam leader of the first squad out.
PFC Glenn Allen Castor, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, machine gunner, last squad out.
Here, 7,000 miles away, is the voice of Red China's General Wu at a press conference at the United Nations.
When he announced that his government had sent him here to press charges against the United States aggression in Formosa and Korea,
and that because he had been unable to take his seat at the Council of Nations, he was returning to Beiping,
Canada's Lester Pearson worked desperately to get him to remain, to try to find a common meeting ground for the ceasefire resolution.
Our group did send an official communication to Mr. Wu, the representative of the Beiping government,
and we repeated that communication with the knowledge of Mr. Wu to the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China in Beiping.
It is as follows.
The purpose of this ceasefire in Korea will be to prevent the conflict from spreading to other areas,
to put an end to the fighting in Korea, and to provide an opportunity for considering what further steps should be taken
for a peaceful settlement of existing issues in accordance with the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
General Wu, through his interpreter, wished us all a Merry Christmas.
He rejected the ceasefire resolution, said it was just a trap to give the Americans more time to regroup.
Later, his government made the rejection official.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have come here to strive for peace.
We have proposed to the United Nations Security Council that effective measures be adopted in order to stop aggression and to restore peace,
to bring about the withdrawal of, by the United States government, of its armed forces of aggression against China's territory, Taiwan,
the cessation of its intervention in the internal affairs of Korea, and the withdrawal of all of its armed forces of intervention in Korea.
But unfortunately, though not unexpectedly, the United Nations Security Council, under the manipulation of the Anglo-American bloc,
rejected the rightful proposal for peace of the central people's government of the People's Republic of China.
Now, there's not going to be a question period, but we do welcome questions. Mail to our hotel. And this is the end of the conference.
And there was an unrehearsed, unedited voice from Northeast Korea, which answered another question.
How did the North Koreans up near the Yellow River greet the arrival of the American troops?
I noticed that those people were particularly happy to see the Americans. And in this one town up above on the eastern side of the reservoir,
where I was at one time, that was the first time that they had been given the opportunity to vote in 40 years.
And they were somewhat surprised also to see that we didn't take their rice away from them. And naturally, they were sort of bent toward staying with us.
Oh, in light the stars are brightly shining. It is the night of the dear Savior's birth.
In Korea, war and destruction and death. And on that tiny beachhead, a million miles away from Christmas, the resilient G.I.s remember the day.
And with their Korean allies sing Christmas hymns. At late success, the war of words and delay and confusion and a feeling of despair.
In New York, the teeming, celebrating throngs, and in Washington a little of each, all tied up with its own kind of red ribbons.
Congressmen who couldn't wait to go home and talk is of politics, plans, and bomb shelters, even among the housewives.
I'm used to being misrepresented, but I did say laughingly to some friends that if a guided missile were such a thing as a guided missile,
it would probably be addressed to my house because of the fact that I'm the former wife of General Douglas MacArthur.
That was the voice of Mrs. Alf Heiberg, who was the first wife of General MacArthur.
Mrs. Heiberg has a very old and beautiful home in the suburbs of Washington, and she's having considerable trouble in building a bomb shelter for a hundred or so of her friends.
So we started to construct what I thought would be a bomb shelter, large enough to hold about a hundred or a hundred and fifty of our neighbors
until the district got around to making their own bomb shelters for our safety.
We have what you call red tape. Not only did they want complete plans of this house that was built in 1800,
but they even wanted every pipe in the house for the plumbing, I suppose, on account of the case the pipes would burst,
and my neighbors would be in the cellar. Instead of having a atomic bomb, we might have a swimming pool.
Another resident of Georgetown, Dean Acheson, faced rather more serious problems.
The engines you hear are those of the Independence, the president's personal aircraft,
as it left Washington Airport carrying the Secretary of State to the North Atlantic Pact meetings in Brussels.
It was perhaps the most important mission of Mr. Acheson's career.
General George Marshall had gone to the airport to see the secretary off. We held a microphone between them.
Well, Acheson, you're going on a tremendously important mission.
I can't think of any more important in these days of crises.
I first wish you a safe flight and then all of your talents to bring about an agreement
that is so important to people of the United States and all of the free world.
Thank you very much, General Marshall. I appreciate deeply your coming down to see me off
and the words that you've just spoken to me.
I shall do my best to build on the foundations which you laid at the last meeting of the Defense Council,
in which your representative, Mr. Pace, is carrying on tomorrow morning.
We hope to be able to bring back an agreement which can be the foundation for the defense of Western Europe.
Mr. Acheson had the godspeed of George Marshall and the president,
but he by no means had the unanimous blessings of the politicians.
Two days before Mr. Acheson's departure to conclude the pact for the defense of Western Europe,
Minority Leader Joe Martin of Massachusetts presented a resolution to his Republican colleagues in the House.
In this critical hour, confidence of the American people in their leadership is essential to our security.
It is completely obvious that Secretary Acheson and the State Department under his leadership have lost the confidence of the Congress
and the American people and cannot regain it.
Recognizing this fact, we honestly insist for the good of our country that Acheson be replaced as Secretary of State
and that there be a thorough house cleaning in the State Department and changes in the personnel and policies responsible for this lack of confidence.
Senator James Murray of Montana said that Joe Martin was sabotaging Acheson's mission.
Dean Acheson has achieved the confidence of the free peoples of the world, as have few of his predecessors and none of his detractors.
The acceptance of his resignation would diminish American prestige and alienate our allies.
Republican floor leader Kenneth Wherry of Nebraska lashed out at the Secretary.
The people last November the 7th spoke emphatically for the removal of Mr. Acheson.
In the 82nd Congress convening next January the 3rd, the people's lack of confidence in Mr. Acheson will be evidenced
in many new faces in the Senate and the absence of Mr. Acheson's supporters who were repudiated.
Democratic Senator Fulbright of Arkansas, who three years ago had asked Harry Truman to resign his office, rallied to the defense of Acheson.
This condemnation of the Secretary of State, our representative at the conference, will largely, if not completely, destroy his influence
and consequently our nation's influence at this conference.
Certainly this action has caused confusion and uncertainty in the minds of our allies.
If the Republicans desire to change our foreign policy, which I assume they do,
I submit that they have approached their objective in a misguided and irresponsible manner, unworthy of a great party.
The Republicans in the House called for Mr. Acheson to be fired.
The Republicans in the Senate called for Mr. Acheson to be fired.
The President answered them with a ringing statement.
I refuse to dismiss Secretary of State Acheson.
If communism prevails in the free world, Acheson would be among the first, if not the first, to be shot by the Reds.
In Brussels, Mr. Acheson and 11 other foreign ministers made progress.
They agreed on the groundwork for the total defense of peace in Europe.
They agreed to try to get 150,000 Germans into their Western Army.
The President promised to send more troops to Europe as soon as they are ready.
And in response to action by the North Atlantic ministers,
Mr. Truman agreed to permit General Dwight D. Eisenhower to take over the top command in Europe.
The General was in St. Louis as he heard that his days as a civilian had ended.
We, like every other nation, should approach this whole thing from the standpoint of enlightened self-interest.
We must think of this thing from the inside out.
And if we find that our critical point is in a particular spot,
then we have to concentrate our efforts in that region.
We can't be, I may say, on a broad and big basis just the savior of the world
without having a definite plan that establishes priorities, interests, special interests, and working on that basis.
Otherwise, I think we would be on the wrong foot.
I honestly believe that today the big word in the American language should be duty for all of us,
not just me because I happen to be a 60-year-old soldier.
I personally and honestly believe that if this world doesn't find some way of preserving the peace,
and I do believe that it has to be done by strength on our side,
all our power in the world, as long as the world respects power, must not be centered in any one corner.
But I am sure that if through that strength we don't succeed in preserving peace,
it's going to be a tragic thing for our civilization.
So far as I'm concerned, gentlemen, don't mind telling you,
I am leaving at Columbia certain projects in which wonderful associates of mine and I have worked very, very hard.
And you can imagine the disappointment of just stepping out right in the middle of things.
Some of them have just now reached fruition.
We are just now being translated into the active stage, so I have to walk out from it.
Now, of course, the shorter the period I'd have to be away from that kind of thing, the more pleasing it would be to me.
But as I've tried to state from the beginning, I'm a soldier. I'm going to do what I'm told.
Thank you, General Eisenhower.
I hope you have a nice Christmas, General.
Thank you very much, ma'am.
I hope it doesn't get so bad over there that you fellows will find it necessary to get back in the old uniforms and the old...
I guess we will.
And across this great land, a generation of Americans who never had it so good or so bad,
when under the command of General Eisenhower, suddenly remembered the taste of mess kit aluminum
and wondered if they could ever get up at 5.30 in the morning again.
And Sergeant Mickey McHugh of Santa Barbara, California, who had been Ike's driver, orderly and confident during the crusade in Europe, had his say.
I wrote General Eisenhower some time ago that if I were called back into service, I would want to go back with him.
Of course, that is if he'd want me.
I got to be a master sergeant with General Eisenhower, and every time they gave me another stripe, they gave him another star.
As far as I'm concerned, there aren't enough stars in the heavens for the general.
We G.I.s used to call him when he wasn't around, you understand.
Our boy. By gosh, he still is.
But Sergeant McHugh's enthusiasm for his old boss's new job was not shared by all the statesmen of our nation.
Herbert Clark Hoover.
I have received hundreds of requests that I should appraise the present world situation and give to you my conclusions as to our national policies.
America's only living ex-president said our action in Europe was an invitation to another Korea.
It is clear that the U.N. cannot mobilize substantial military forces in the world.
It is clear that continental Europe has not in the three years of our aid developed that unity of purpose and that willpower necessary for its own defense.
It is clear that our British friends are flirting with the appeasement of Communist China.
It is clear that the United Nations is in a fog of debate and indecision whether to appease or not to appease.
Therefore, to warrant our further aid, they should show that they have spiritual strength and unity to avail themselves of their own resources.
But it must be far more than pacts and conferences and paper promises and declarations.
Today it must express itself in organized and equipped combat divisions of such huge numbers as would erect a sure dam against this Red Flood.
And that before we land another man or another dollar on their shores.
Otherwise we shall be inviting another Korea and that will be a calamity to Europe as well as to us.
Our policy in this quarter of the world should be confined to a period of watchful waiting without ground military action.
Mr. Hoover spoke the night before last.
That same evening, Judge Robert Patterson, former Secretary of War, took the opposite stand.
This is no time to withdraw our forces to our own shores as some Americans are whispering.
That is the counsel of discouragement, despair, and defeat.
To those who suggest that, I remind them that such a withdrawal would mean the loss to the cause of freedom of 250 million people in Western Europe.
About three hours ago, Secretary of State Acheson, just back from Brussels, held a news conference.
He summarized the results.
And then in these words, the Secretary of State took note of speeches by Mr. Hoover and others.
Now all along there have been people who didn't believe that we could build the strength we need by working with our allies.
They thought that instead we ought to let our allies go their own way while we withdrew to a defense of this hemisphere alone.
However, with this argument and the reason why the Congress and the President and our military leaders and all the other responsible authorities in this government have rejected it,
is that if you look at it closely, it turns out to be a prescription for defeat.
The effect of this course would be the following.
It would enable the Soviet Union to make a quick conquest of the Eurasian land mass.
This would put the Soviet Union in possession of military resources vastly superior to our own.
It would also give the Soviet Union positions of huge strategic advantage.
The Soviet Union would then be in a position to develop this military advantage so as to eliminate our military power.
This course would so strengthen the Soviet Union that it would make settlement on any question impossible except on Soviet terms.
This course would confront the United States with the eventual choice between capitulation to Soviet terms of so-called peace
or to fight under serious handicaps without allies and with the Soviet Union made stronger in the meantime.
Such a course would also have an important effect upon our national morale.
To write off the spiritual and cultural and religious ties with the free world would undermine our integrity and the vitality of our free system.
In short, this would be self-defeating. It would lead only to surrender and defeat.
Our allies and ourselves are moving ahead to help build our common strength.
They need our help in order to get their defenses moving quickly enough.
If we throw them to the wolves, we ourselves would be the weaker for it and the Soviet Union would be stronger.
We will not throw away the progress we have been making and sit shivering in the storm cellar waiting for fate to come and get us.
The confusion of voices failed to bring the issues into clear focus. We remain divided in our purpose.
The debate continues, not always on a very high level.
And our ears remembered another dark hour almost ten years ago when there was fear and uncertainty and four lines of poetry to brace a nation.
We take 30 seconds now for Longfellow to Roosevelt to Wilkie to Winston Churchill.
I can hear it now.
The other day, President Roosevelt gave his opponent in the late presidential election a letter of introduction to me.
And in it he wrote out a verse in his own handwriting from Longfellow, which he said applies to you people as it does to us.
Here is the verse.
Sail on, O ship of state, sail on, O Union strong and great,
humanity with all its fears, with all the hopes of future years, is hanging breathless on thy fate.
You are listening to Hear It Now, a weekly document for ear told in the actual recorded voices of the men and women who made the news.
The program continues immediately after this pause for station identification.
This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.
This is Hear It Now, a 60-minute program based on the week's news and told in the actual recorded voices of the men and women who made the news.
Now once again here is the editor of Hear It Now, Edward R. Murrow.
Winter arrived today and Florida froze.
Santa Claus, Indiana complained too much snow was hurting business.
Santa Fe's mock air raid was a flop.
People were too busy with their Christmas shopping.
The British Medical Journal said, keep up the customs of merry England.
Take a little nip on Christmas. It'll do you good.
In Wales, an old lady in true Christian spirit poured a bottle of whiskey down the throat of a dying horse and he immediately revived.
Stalin celebrated his 71st birthday, but he got no card from Truman.
Judy Garland said she was separated for keeps.
Shirley Temple remarried and said, our honeymoon will last forever.
A Latvian widow was on her way to Colorado for Christmas, the 200,000th DP to enter this country since the end of the war.
In a Covington, Kentucky divorce, the wife got everything but the kitchen sink.
A German soccer player was on the sidelines this Christmas, suspended for calling a referee a North Korean.
Railroad shares reached 19-year highs and a Louisiana congressman named Otto Passman estimated we're spending nine and a half million dollars an hour.
He's worried we might spend ourselves right out of existence.
But Charles E. Wilson, taking the oath as Defense Production Chief, held out new hope for the coming year.
As to the situation generally from the country's productive ability, I believe we're in far better condition.
And I'm very optimistic, as a matter of fact, about industry taking it generally, its ability to supply war material and indeed civilian material,
than was the case in, let's say, 41 when I came in the picture last time.
I'm very optimistic about the, about industry's ability to perform.
Lots of interesting things in the columns this week, some profound, some pretty puny.
Don Hollenbeck reads them all, and he figured one out this way.
Without regard to the merits of the case for or against Secretary of State Acheson, it is interesting to note the direction some of the attacks against him have taken.
These sometimes seem to be without regard to the merits of the case as well.
For instance, a recent comment by the columnist George Sokolsky, whose profundities are syndicated to about 400 newspapers and read by heaven knows how many people.
Mr. Sokolsky wrote that he had never understood Dean Acheson until he saw him on television the other day reading a foreign policy speech.
The columnist made his buildup with all the stops out, as he wrote,
The atmosphere was tense. Americans were being killed. Bombs were exploding. Blood discolored the Korean snow. But there Mr. Sokolsky wrote, sat Acheson cold and aloof, a voice untampered by emotion.
That's the way it was in my paper, a voice untampered with emotion, a face untouched by anxiety.
Dean Acheson droned away. The columnist continued, apparently unconscious of all this.
While Mr. Sokolsky's comments must be placed in the non sequitur or irrelevant allusion classification of commentary,
if Secretary Acheson had just done some mugging or if he had perhaps thrown his script into the air, burst into tears and rushed from the studio,
Mr. Sokolsky might have been more impressed by his statesmanship, but it seems plain that since he was able to keep control of himself, Mr. Sokolsky thinks the secretary ought to quit.
We have noted considerable space in the press recently devoted to another outburst of emotion, a personal encounter between the columnist Drew Pearson and the senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy.
The accounts have gone into great detail to give each side's version of this encounter, which in a way things sometimes do have of happening appropriately, occurred in a cloakroom, but an exclusive one, we understand.
Beyond yielding another tidbit for cloakroom gossip, we have not noted that the Pearson-McCarthy punching match or the comments which followed it contributed very much to a solution of our problems or even affected them very much one way or another.
Good evening. I should like to talk to you for a few minutes about my visit to America.
When I returned, I reported at once to the King and then to the Cabinet and Parliament. I thought you might like me to talk directly and intimately to you.
That was British Prime Minister Attlee telling his own people about his meetings with President Truman. A good portion of his report was on the atom bomb.
Talking of armaments, I know there's a great deal of anxiety about the atomic bomb. Let me say at once, there's no ground whatever for any apprehension that this weapon will be used lightly or wantonly.
But the fact that this weapon exists and that all know the terrible consequences which would result from its use is a powerful deterrent to those who might think of breaking the peace of the world.
I'm certain the heavy responsibility of a decision as to its use rests as far as the free peoples are concerned in the hands of men who share to the full the humane feelings which have been expressed in so many messages to me from men and women on both sides of the Atlantic.
The British people may have gained some comfort from Attlee's prediction that we would not use the bomb without consultation. They were also told that Marshall Plan aid for Britain was officially ended, but they would have to pay a price for it.
The British meat ration would be cut by 50 percent, a total of 14 cents worth of fresh meat per person per week, plus two cents worth of corned beef. But austerity and short rations are 12 years old in Britain.
Well, we never see steak in my home. We get so little steak for the money ration, it's of no use to me. That's why I'm glad of one thing, that our meat ration is our only ration food governed by the price.
And it means I can buy all the cheap cuts like breast of lamb, chopped meat and the bones. That lets me feed the family on soups and stews containing lots of vegetables, macaroni and beans.
That was Rose Buckner, a London housewife, age not given. Now, here is the voice of a Marietta, Georgia lady, age given, 87. Mrs. James Longstreet, wife of Robert E. Lee's good right arm, General Longstreet.
Mrs. Longstreet, who responded to McKinley's call in 1900, who heard Wilson cry out for a war to end wars in 1917, who answered FDR's mobilization plea by working 700 consecutive days at the Bell Aircraft Factory in Georgia, heard Harry Truman's speech last Friday night, and announced that she was grabbing her welder's torch and rallying to the colors again. Helen Dorch Longstreet.
I'm a young old woman, past 70, who aided in building bombers in the bomber plant at Marietta, Georgia, from which bombs were dropped over Hiroshima that ended World War II. Every citizen of our United States will give President Truman wholehearted support.
But Mrs. Longstreet wasn't the only veteran still going to the wars. In Philadelphia, Cornelius McGillicuddy, Connie Mack, who celebrates his 88th birthday tomorrow, said that Happy Chandler had got a raw deal, and that Mr. Mack was not through with baseball by any means.
I will travel with the team as much as possible, and all of the circuit I am going to make, I won't be able to say a word about how the team is doing. I am not going to sit in the dugout. I will sit in the grandstand. I will not interfere in any way with the Jimmy Dykes. I am sure of that.
And at Buckingham Palace this week, the King of England danced with palace servants at their annual ball. The Rose Bowl Association announced that a Korean combat veteran would take General Eisenhower's place at the Tournament of Roses on New Year's Day.
The Veep said he was fully recovered and felt as good as Clark Gable and Dean Acheson looked. Cole Porter brought a new show into New York. So far, neither hit nor a flop.
And the man of the week was a man in a red suit with a white beard.
Well, Judy is your name, huh? That's a very pretty name. Now then, what would you like for Christmas?
The big and wonderful performance of the week was by Santa Claus. And Abe Burroughs, that indestructible juvenile, was in the front row.
What a guy, that Santa Claus. He's still the greatest and he works to the toughest audience in the world. Kids, little children who study him carefully and lovingly, never taking their eyes off him.
Well, I went to see him again the other day and I would like to report that he's just as wonderful as ever.
I dropped in first at Macy's and there he was on a glittering throne. Seemed a little different than he used to be. Not quite as loud, not quite as jolly, not so many ho-ho-ho-hoes, you know.
And he wasn't quite as big as I remembered him. But maybe that's because I've grown taller.
He was quite gentle, but still he had that nice, reassuring fatherly firmness. Here, you can listen.
Well, hello, little girl. You better come up here. You're kind of little. Come on up on Santa Claus' lap, huh?
Now look at me, dear. Look right at Santa Claus. Now what would you like for Christmas?
An accordion.
A what, dear?
An accordion.
An accordion?
Yes.
Oh dear me. Can you play accordion? Really? Already? You mean you can play?
I play with my brothers.
Well, isn't that fine. You gonna practice real hard? Okay, we'll see if we can't get you an accordion.
Are you sure you've been a good girl now?
Yes.
Real sure? Okay, sweetheart.
He talked to thousands of children. Every hour sleigh bells ring and Santa Claus would say,
Well, I've got to go feed my reindeer. And he'd step out and a moment later he would appear on another throne.
Looked a little different each time he did that, but I guess that's because he was rested.
Well, then I went over to Gimble's and Gimble, Santa Claus sounded a bit louder.
This was because one of his little helpers had put a small microphone in his beard so everyone could hear him.
Then I walked down to the street and there was Santa Claus again.
This time he wasn't quite as comfortable as he was in the stores. He was kind of cold.
And he stood on a piece of cardboard to keep his feet warm.
Out on the street he was still very friendly, but well, maybe it was the cold.
Santa Claus didn't want people to touch his beard.
Don't touch my beard now. No, sir, no, sir. Keep your hands off. I don't want nobody to touch my beard.
I'm sorry, Santa Claus.
You know, we even visited Santa all the way out in Peoria, Illinois.
There were good little boys and girls in Peoria, too.
Being in Peoria seemed to make Santa a lot gayer. He sounded something like this.
I see. Well, Judy, what else would you like for Christmas?
I want a doll, Santa Claus.
A doll? Well, what kind of a doll would you like?
Well, it's one of the new kinds. It can do all kinds of things like...
I see. All right, yes, all right, Judy. Old Santa will see what he can do for you.
Oh, he's a great man, Santa Claus is, and I hope he gets to visit all of you on Christmas Eve.
You'll know it when he gets there. You'll get a kind of quick, happy feeling.
There'll be lots of smiles. And then you may even hear a fella saying...
Now, just a minute, children. I've got to go out and feed the reindeers.
The music you hear is from the folks of Peoria in Peoria County, Illinois.
Each week on Hear It Now, we hope to do a close-up, sometimes of a man or woman, sometimes of an issue.
And tonight, we lend an ear to a city as it faces the challenge of mobilization.
This then is Peoria, Illinois, population 125,000.
Principal industries, caterpillar tractors, and the Hiram Walker Distillery,
surrounded by rich, flat farmland, a Republican city with a Democratic mayor.
Not because Peoria is the greatest town in America, or the richest, or the safest, or the prettiest.
It's a good, comfortable city with a fine record.
And we want to examine it this 51st week of 1950, as it responded to the President's call for mobilization.
I'm talking to you tonight about what our country is up against and what we're going to do about it.
Our homes, our nation, all the things we believe in are in great danger.
This danger has been created by the rulers of the Soviet Union.
Last Friday evening, the lights in the homes along Columbia Terrace and Western Avenue burned bright.
The movie houses on Main Street were reasonably deserted.
The President was reporting on the state of the nation, and the state was bad.
Peoria waited and listened, and the next day, along with every other American city, reacted.
Here is the way Peoria sounded during the next days.
Tom O'Connor is an official of the local AF of El Bartender's Union, number 286.
I don't think there'll be very much whiskey made after the first year as soon as they get around to it.
They'll do the same thing we did in the last war.
I guess I got contact with as many people as there is in the city of Peoria, because I'm out in the field all day,
and hear these people discussing these things, especially in the taverns, and also in the luncheon clubs that I belong to.
And I think that the people feel that the government should have went all out and prepared for this situation a long time ago
and shouldn't have went into Korea unless they were prepared, or if they're prepared to stay there.
That's what I can't understand.
If the people on the street could recognize this emergency and the danger that confronted the people of the United States and the rest of democracies,
why the people in Washington didn't recognize it?
But labor has always went all out, 1,000 percent, and they'll do it again.
It's a crisis, and the trouble is that maybe some of the people don't understand what this crisis really means.
They don't know that this thing has been coming on since Anin and Taraski over through the regime of Kerensky.
That was in 1917, that they appropriated a million dollars for World Revolution then, and they never deviated one bit from that program.
And they're still going down the road for that program.
So you see, we're up against an ideology and not man.
I think that Judith Harris was in the field the same way.
The president said, we have a big job ahead.
We are expanding our armed forces.
Louise Yovanovich, chief clerk for all three of Peoria's draft boards, said,
Well, today the three boards in Peoria County have inducted approximately 250 men,
and the calls are expected to be doubled after the first of the year.
On Saturdays in Peoria, the streets are lined with cars bumper to bumper in front of the supermarkets and spilling over into the parking lots in the rear.
And we asked a grocer in the East Bluff section if he felt the threat of war was affecting our eating habits.
People seem to be buying just a little bit more of the items that they recall being short in World War II.
They're picking up maybe an extra package of pepper, an extra sack of sugar, and extra flour, and a few of the spice items.
And a lady shopper said,
You don't eat as many steaks as you used to, hamburgers and so forth, and you cut out on a lot of extra soft drinks and that sort of thing.
We should go all out for mobilization and that we should definitely get this thing over with so our boys can live again.
Peoria is a thousand miles from the Atlantic and five thousand miles from Moscow by way of the North Pole, and perhaps not a primary target if war comes.
But the people of Peoria no longer think they are completely immune.
And it is presented somewhat of a problem to Mayor Joseph Malone.
When I have read, there seems to be a dispute as to the necessity of construction of bomb shelters.
However, if the state or national governments feel they should be constructed, I know it will be done.
And I know the cost thereof must be assumed by the federal or state or both as the city has no funds for such purposes.
You walk out of the mayor's office and turn right past a Salvation Army band playing on the corner.
A little off key, it was six above and snowy.
You walk down Fulton Street to busy Washington Street and proceed to Union Depot where the Peoria and Pekin Union Railroad does its switching.
And there you ask railroad man Milo Nelson what he thinks of the President's speech and the emergency.
The crisis or the present situation has quite disrupted our family connections.
My wife at the present time is in California taking care of my daughter in San Diego who gave birth to a daughter last Thursday
while the father was on the Philippine Sea in the Korean sector.
Naturally, my daughter was quite disrupted due to the fact that she knew that he was in the shooting end of the war.
And it gave her quite a bad outlook on the birth of this baby.
Naturally, my wife wanted to be there to help her.
That means that we won't have any Christmas at our house.
Naturally, the family revolves around the mother and when she's gone, why, there isn't any home there.
So I guess we're going to have to go and eat with some of the neighbors or some of our relatives for our Christmas dinner.
In World War II, Peoria sent more than its quota of young men into the armed forces.
Had a crack engineering battalion building the Lido Road in Burma.
Hopes it won't ever have to send its men again.
But stands ready. Herbert Epperly speaks for some of the veterans.
Those of us that did spend some time in the Army, most of us are civilians.
We're civilian soldiers and we have no great desire to go back.
It seems to me that conditions as they are now are out of our hands, out of our hands and in the hands of the foreign powers.
And they're more or less forcing us to come back.
And certainly if I have to go back, I'm not anxious to go back because since I've come home from the Army, I've married and I'll have a child, build a home.
Pretty well along my career.
I don't realize the idea of going back.
However, I feel that the position we're now in, we have no choice.
In the days ahead, each of us should measure his own efforts, his own sacrifices by the standard of our heroic men in Korea.
In Peoria last Saturday, none of the boys were back from Korea.
But there was a mother with a boy in the 1st Marine Division who was presumably safe.
But there had been no male for many weeks.
Mrs. Florence Hughes.
Up until the last of this month, I have received two letters.
And the last letter was on the day of this last big invasion and I haven't heard from him since.
He told me that it was very cold.
It was between 25 and 30 degrees below zero and that each morning that the boys would awaken, that there would be so many of his buddies froze to death.
It was very cold.
And he said that we folks just didn't know what was coming off over there.
It was terrible.
He said, Mother, we're waiting.
He says, if any more of these Chinese come down out of the mountains, our life won't be worth a snowball in age.
On Sunday morning, you go up Union Hill and out Moss Avenue to the Westminster Presbyterian Church and hear the Reverend William R. O'Neill speak of the crisis and religion.
A part of the restlessness and uncertainty all of us feel in this day comes from the fact that the issue has not been clearly drawn.
A great sigh of relief would rise if someone in authority would give voice to the conscience of the free world.
We have too many tongues crying survival or speaking expediency.
What we need is a clear word on this critical issue of the moral differences that exist in the world today.
And someone to say, here we stand.
Later that afternoon, your ear catches a few random voices in the oria.
Most of us in business do not like to see any more controls than are absolutely necessary.
But because the way the prices have been advancing, I think something definitely has to be done.
If our wages would be brought up equal to the increase in the cost of living, I would be perfectly willing to see a wage freeze go into effect.
Well, you know, oftentimes the word isolationism has been used trying to want to hurt the person who was an isolationist.
I don't think protecting America is isolationism. I think it's just good business.
And at the expense of the American public, we've thrown this money away and still we're isolated.
You don't know if you like everything you hear in Peoria.
You like the people and the way they talk and work and live and keep their city and love their country.
But there is a confusion and bewilderment and a lack of the unity and direction that made Peoria and the rest of the nation great the last time.
And you realize that what's wrong with Peoria is wrong with the entire country.
And then on the way to the municipal airport, you turn on the radio and you hear Phil Gibson reporting the Peoria scene Monday through Saturday over WMBD, first in the heart of Illinois.
You listen to him. You think of Peoria as a little America. It sort of lifts your heart.
Here among our dying elms and perhaps a few political chestnuts are snow and our gripes. Hometown and fireside problems still are high on the agenda.
But an interloper has crept into an otherwise lush Christmas season. This new crisis, this portent of dire days to come.
Peoria will give as she always has. She'll prepare. She'll send her sons.
Peoria will produce with a lavish heart, perhaps bellyache with a caustic tongue. But this is Peoria. She will not be weighed and found wanting.
This has been our first week of official national emergency for Peoria and for the rest of us.
Business has been better than usual. Taxes may go up. Profits may be reduced. We may work longer hours, but not yet.
Government has sought, often in vain, for men who might be touched with greatness to serve it.
Powerful voices have been raised to demand that the intelligent and promising student should be exempt.
Do they mean that only the stupid should serve? We have heard speech after speech demanding that we acquire great strength,
and not a few demanding that we hoard that strength here on this continent until we are assured that our allies are strong enough not to require it for their survival.
We have urged unity and sacrifice upon our allies. Have you observed unusual unity or demands for real sacrifice here at home?
Do you know in all history of a people who has been great unless their leaders demanded it?
And has any greatness been demanded of you recently?
The news from Korea has not been dramatic. Death by freezing takes time.
Imagination is no substitute for experience, and we are inclined to think that because a thing happens a long way off, it doesn't happen at all.
But it does. That is why we have tried to bridge distance tonight with the voices of some of the men who were there.
We sent them there. Their defeat is our defeat. Their weakness is our weakness.
We cannot share their final agony, cannot bring them home for Christmas, but we can realize that they and we are in a war.
We can conduct our great national debate with more restraint, can appreciate that time works for those who use it,
and we can as free men and women accept and welcome the demands that are belatedly being made upon us.
On behalf of Fred Friendly and myself and the many individuals here at CBS and at radio stations throughout the country who have contributed to this program,
permit me to wish you the best possible Christmas.
Our favorite Christmas card this year carries this text.
The night is long and pain weighs heavily, but God will hold his world above despair.
Look to the east where up the lucid sky the morning climbs. The day shall yet be fair.
You have just heard the second program in the new CBS series, Hear It Now, a weekly document for ear to be heard every week at this time.
All the sounds and voices you heard were real and were recorded in the heat and confusion of a world in crisis.
Hear It Now is edited and produced by Mr. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly with active assistance from Joseph Werschbard.
All combat reports were recorded in Korea by the Armed Forces and CBS correspondents.
The Peoria sequence was prepared by station WMBD and Brooks Watson.
Other portions originated at New York, WTOP Washington, WCAU Philadelphia, KSDJ San Diego, WGST Atlanta, WWVA Wheeling, West Virginia, KNX Los Angeles, KCBS San Francisco, WBBM Chicago, KIST Santa Barbara, the British Broadcasting Corporation, and United Nations Radio.
Theme music is composed by David Diamond.
Edward R. Murrow can be heard each weekday evening over most of these stations at 7.45 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Warren Sweeney speaking.
Where does the world stand? Where is it heading as 1951 approaches?
On Sunday, December 31st, the last day of the year, CBS will bring you a timely, exciting appraisal of the world situation and some of the answers to these vexing questions when ten top CBS correspondents are heard in a special broadcast entitled, The Challenge of the 50s, Years of Crisis.
For the past month, these famous CBS reporters have been interviewing world leaders. On Challenge of the 50s, you'll hear on special recordings what these leaders predict and also the views of the correspondents themselves.
Edward R. Murrow will be the moderator in this unusual, significant broadcast, Challenge of the 50s, Sunday afternoon, December 31st, on most of these same CBS stations, with shows on the Columbia Broadcasting System.