Now, Edward R. Murrell and the voices of President Harry Truman, General Dwight D. Eisenhower,
General Douglas MacArthur, Eric Johnston, Senator Tom Connolly, Harold Stassen, Senator
Kenneth Wherry, Leo DeRosha, David Lilienthal, and more than 40 other men and women in the
news in the seventh performance of Hear It Now, presented tonight and every week at this time.
Let no Russian leader underestimate the fabulous productive capacity of this country. If we must,
we can fight and we will fight and we will win. The gruff, arrogant policeman has no place in
modern society. The policeman cannot afford to lose his temper, however great the provocation.
The steak comes to 325. What? 325 for a steak? Oh, Fred.
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. They 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. Murrell.
The important new phrase in the American vernacular this week, as it was last week,
was the great debate. The great debate on sending troops to Europe was being waged around the country
generally and specifically in Washington. Perhaps not as well argued as the Lincoln-Douglas debate
of 1858, but considerably more abundant in words, gestures, and protagonists. Mr. President,
will the Senate yield? I yield to my good friend from Massachusetts. But all the debates in
Washington were not the great one, perhaps fortunately for the nation's sanity, if not
its safety. There were also some arguments in Washington which had nothing to do with
remaking the world. The two voices you just heard were those of Senator Leverett Saltonstall of
Massachusetts as he interrupted an oration by 64-year-old William Langer, the senator from
North Dakota. Langer was using the Senate floor to declaim at great length, as he has done so
often before, on Dakota's unsung physical resources, human and otherwise. The senior
senator from Massachusetts interrupted Senator Langer to ask why, if North Dakota possessed
such vast physical resources, the senator had turned elsewhere for his bride. I think the
senator from North Dakota is presenting his case in a very strong light. I should like to ask the
senator one question. Did not the senator himself go to Columbia University in New York for a good
legal education? And did he not at that time find a very lovely lady, then a resident of the state
of New York, who has since been his fine wife and good mother to his four daughters? I may say to
my good friend from Massachusetts that before I went to Columbia University, I went to the University
of North Dakota. Naturally, when I got to New York, I was of an age where I was attracted by some very
fine girls. However, I want to make it clear that at the time I met the lovely young lady who became
Mrs. Langer, I did not know from what state she came. Mr. President, will the senator yield further?
North Dakota yields to no other state when it comes to the beauty of its women, their intellect
and their charm, or their ability to make fine wives, lovely hostesses, and excellent mothers.
The nice thing about this country is that in every state we are proud of the fact that American
women are at the very top of womanhood in the entire world. During my travels in Europe, I never
saw any women who could compare with the women of the United States. The great debate, now in its
fourth big week in the nation's capital, was still playing to packed houses, but so taxing were the
roles that the stars seemed to change each week. Last week it was Truman and Taft. This week it was
Wary of Nebraska and Connolly of Texas. Last week's principals, Senator Taft and the president,
seemed almost mellow this week. The Ohio senator willing to make certain concessions, and here is
the president, obviously making some kind of friendship gesture to the opposition. Somebody
sent me a cartoon from Punch a day or two ago in which the cartoonist was depicting an argument
in the Senate of the Carthaginians, and one able senator of the Carthaginians was saying that
Hannibal should not be allowed to use elephants in Italy because the Senate should control the use
of those elephants. That's been going on ever since we had Senates and senators, and I've served
ten years in the Senate and I know just exactly how they feel. There isn't a senator in the Senate
who's not just as anxious to see the United States government continue as the free government of the
world as I am, and I know that no matter what they say for publication, when the time comes for action,
they'll be right there in their way. On Tuesday, two of these senators locked horns over the
president's right to send troops to Europe without the consent of Congress. The Democrats
held that since George Washington's day, U.S. presidents in time of emergency had such a right.
Senator Kenneth Wary, Republican of Nebraska, said that his fellow Republicans and according
to his mail, the American people, did not acknowledge any such right for Mr. Truman,
and the minority leader offered a resolution on this. The resolution that I put in the Senate
around which all of this debate is centered, and regardless of what happens to the resolution,
believe me, it's the basis upon which all of these debates have been held, and it's served the most
useful purpose because it has aroused and alerted the American people to what the president said he
would do. Tom Connolly of Texas, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, violently
opposed burdening the commander in chief with any such instructions, stated that Wary was trying to
make him swallow a piece of paper. Connolly said, I have already swallowed Wary's piece of paper and
it gave me indigestion, and then went on to say, the Wary resolution which sought to limit the
power of the president under the Constitution and transfer that power to the Congress with
reference to sending troops to Europe was considered by the Senate and substantially it was rejected.
By unanimous consent, the resolution was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations and the
Committee on Armed Services. This joint committee will consider the matter and possibly hold hearings
on the same. It will have general eyes now before it and will receive his report on the results of
his trip to Europe. The senator from Texas managed to get the Senate to commit the Wary resolution to
two committees for further study, but when newsmen asked Senator Wary if he considered this a defeat,
the senator from Nebraska replied, you say this resolution is dead? It's just as live this minute
as it was this morning, it's just as live as it was before it was committed, and someday,
somehow, somewhere when this report is made, that issue will be voted upon. In this week's edition
of the Great Debate, both Connolly and Wary used the same word over and over again, Eisenhower.
Members of both sides of the debate were keeping an interested eye on the gentleman from Kansas and
Columbia as he toured the Atlantic Pact countries and ending most of their arguments with the
expression, of course, this is all dependent upon what Ike has to say when he gets back from Europe.
General Eisenhower, 3,000 miles away from the Potomac, was obviously the most important man
in Washington this week. Eric Severide, CBS's chief correspondent in Washington, summed it up this way,
after a moment the Congress is waiting for General Ike to get home and tell it what Europe is doing
and what he thinks Europe will do to defend itself. And on the basis of what he says,
Congress will express itself as to what we ought to do to help Europe help itself.
A certain amount of polite pretense seems to be necessary to keep our check and balance system
of government operating smoothly, and this is a case of polite pretense. The President has the
power to send over American troops whether Congress likes it or not, but it's better for him that
Congress say in advance that it does like it. Congress knows perfectly well already that General
Ike will give it a cautiously optimistic report about Europe's efforts and recommend that we do
send troops, but it's better for the Congress that it hear from the general in advance.
This complicated procedure may waste time, but it does spread the responsibility three ways between
President, Congress, and the military. Everybody feels a little safer and more comfortable that way,
and in case of future trouble, each one can say, yes, I went along with it, but so-and-so told us,
etc., etc. Governmentally as well as mathematically, the triangle seems to be the most solid geometric
form. In Europe, the general, with a minimum of long lunches and receptions and a maximum of hard
talk and logistics, was completing his swift survey of the willingness and ability of West
Europe to defend itself. As he moved from France to Italy to Belgium to Denmark to Norway to England,
the propaganda machines of the communist country shouted out from behind the iron curtain
warnings about the imperialist Eisenhower from the warring United States. We asked the National
Committee for a free Europe to monitor some of these propaganda blasts from the satellite
countries and Russia so that we might let you hear them and know what Russia is saying about
General Eisenhower and his mission. They were broadcast in many languages, including English,
and are recreated for us now. We thought it better if we let General Eisenhower answer them
in his own words from speeches we recorded from his last two weeks in Europe. First,
the Bulgarian radio. The instigator of the new war is Eisenhower. Dressed in the gown of the
Dean of Columbia University, he declared that at present there is not peace, only an armed
armistice. It is better to risk war and possible annihilation than to work for peace. That was the
Bulgarian radio on Eisenhower. Now here is the General on January 6th as he left for Paris,
first stop on his mission to Europe. Mr. President, I devoutly pray that the mission on which I am
leaving this morning will result in nothing but peace, security, and tranquility for our various
nations. Moscow radio on January 10th. The Supreme Commander-in-Chief, the Gauleiter, wishes to feel
the pulse of Europe. It is easy to discern behind all this gross military and political blackmailing
operation so characteristic of Washington's political morals. Our money or our men is what
Eisenhower will tell his vassals. General Eisenhower on the subject of allies at his news
conference in London. As far as I'm concerned, my arms are wide open for any free country that wants
to get into it and put his heart into it. I never had too many allies in a fight. Again from the
factory where it is made, the Moscow radio on January 12th. It is not for nothing that in the
very first few days of his stay in Paris, Eisenhower broadcast a speech in which he pointedly said that
the French, the Dutch, the Italians, and representatives of the other Western European nations must rid
themselves of their prejudices in which American propaganda includes the conception of national
sovereignty. Now listen to what General Eisenhower did say about the French, the Dutch, the Italians,
and prejudices. In the great heritage of Europe must be found the will, the moral strength,
and much of the means to build defenses behind which its children may prosper and live in peace.
These are the children of Europe, not just of Holland, Italy, France, or other nations. Let us
work for them and put aside all prejudice and past grievances. It is possible that German troops
will be included in the defense armies from Prague in Czechoslovakia, where in better days
they hung portraits of Ike, there was this broadcast. It could be anticipated that Eisenhower
wouldn't have too many reasons for friendship with these Nazi generals. However, he declared
recently that he was looking forward to friendship with the German generals. He must have forgotten
1944 rather quickly. Eisenhower in Frankfurt on January 20th. I shall hope someday that the
great German people are lined up with the rest of the free world because I believe in the essential
freedom, loving quality of the German people. The general went on to say, I've come to know there
is a real difference between the regular soldier and officer and Hitler and his criminal group.
All along the line the Russian charges could be proved false and ridiculous. Perhaps they
appeared most ludicrous when they got around to Ike's personal habits. In West Point, the American
Army Training Center, in the citadel of American reactionary mercenaries, he was, as admitted by
his biographers, a mediocre student. And if ever he excelled in anything, it was again as football
player. He became famous in school, let us not forget, for beating up a Negro. Rather than let
the general speak for himself on this one, we turned to someone who would know more about this
subject than even the Russians. I'm Sergeant First Class John H. Montgomery of Starkville,
Mississippi. I'm one of the people who worked on General Eisenhower's staff during the time of
Chief of Staff of the Army. I worked for him from 1944 until 1947 when he retired from the United
States Army. I also think he's one of the greatest men who ever lived, as personally and otherwise.
And I also understand there were some remarks about him being a football player that I don't
know about because it was before my time. In regards to the Russian story of General Eisenhower
mistreating a colored soldier, I know personally that he's not that kind of a man. And I do know
that if anyone, any Russian or anybody else that would say that he would do a thing like that,
I'm sure, I'm positive that they're lying because I never known him to say anything or do anything
towards any of the fellows who worked with him the time that I was there that he ever would attempt
to do such a thing or either take any action towards something that you wouldn't like because
he never did it towards anyone that I know. What neither the Russians or even the general had said
was that no public servant, no soldier had ever undertaken an assignment with more to lose
personally and more to gain for his nation and the free world than General Dwight D. Eisenhower.
As for himself, he was easily one of the most respected men of this republic. His record of
past performance could perhaps be equaled, but he could go no higher. He could only go down if the
Atlantic Pact fails. But at a time when there was a worldwide drought of leadership, the
time when there was a worldwide drought of leadership, he had been willing at the age of 60
to attempt what some think to be impossible, had been willing to risk his name, his stature,
his prestige, perhaps his health to stop the threat of communism in Europe. He would return
on Wednesday of next week. His report to the Congress on Thursday might well determine the
road down which we will march or stumble. You have heard some typical examples of communist
propaganda and distortion. Now, in contrast, brief reports from our CBS reporters who watched
General Eisenhower at work. Howard K. Smith, our chief European correspondent from London.
General Eisenhower's visit to Europe has by all accounts been a shot in the arm to this weary and
rather frightened continent. The mere fact that he accepted the Atlantic Command has been a sharp
antidote to fears that America might go back into isolation. For as a London paper said the other
day, a man who could probably be president of the United States if he wanted to would not accept this
job unless he were sure it were going to be worthwhile and fully supported by his own country.
David Schonbrunn from Paris. General Eisenhower left Paris this morning for Iceland and he got a
ringing send-off from the people of France who refused to follow a communist call to demonstrate
against the general. For the French government, it was a smashing victory, a victory of much more
than local importance. The complete defeat of the communist attempt last night has international
significance. Now, Winston Burdette reports from Rome. There's no doubt that the very brief talks
which General Eisenhower had with Italian leaders, talks which began mid-morning and were all over
before lunchtime, were a definite political success. The Italian government just now is going
through a critical time. It is launching a big defense program that is going to tug hard at the
weak seams of the Italian economy. Many leaders here have had serious misgivings about Italy's
exact place in the Atlantic Pact, about how much importance the high command would give to the
Italian front in case of trouble. For both these reasons, the government needed a word of reassurance,
a moral boost, and General Eisenhower, with his great personal gift for appreciating other people's
problems, gave them that boost. So chiefly, his trip here was a kind of psychological tonic
in a country where morale often tends to wobble badly and public opinion is extremely volatile.
And Richard C. Hotelet tells what the Germans thought of Eisenhower.
General Eisenhower came to Germany because it is indispensable to the effective defense of Western
Europe. He found here a country which is indeed physically capable of becoming the strongest
continental ally, but which for some time has been showing all the symptoms of nervous breakdown,
total defeat in the last war, millions of dead and crippled, poverty and occupation have made
peace at any price, almost a national fixation. Germany is most directly threatened by Russia.
It is intellectually a part of the West. Nevertheless, the Germans have been profoundly
unwilling to commit themselves actively to the common cause. General Eisenhower's purpose here
was to plunge to the psychological root of this German dilemma, and he succeeded from the moment
he arrived. He radiated confident leadership and sincerity. Everyone he met, government and
opposition alike, was deeply impressed. He gave the assurances which the people had been demanding,
that bygones are bygones, that German soldiers will be treated as equals, and that the West will
mobilize its strength in the cause of peace. Public response to his words showed that there is some
spirit here in Germany which can be roused for the alliance. The Russians and their satellites
would not hear the reports of Smith, Hotelet, Burdett and the others, but America was finally
beginning to get in some licks against the communists inside Russia. Last Sunday was the
24th anniversary of the death of Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Republic, the man Joe Stalin claims
as his idol. This week, the State Department's Voice of America, in many languages, told the
Russians that Stalin was never Lenin's choice as his successor. This is what some Russians heard
this week. These are Lenin's words. I am outraged by the arrogance of Ordzhonikidze and the
connivance of Stalin and Jushinsky. It is of course necessary to hold Stalin and Jushinsky
responsible for this out-and-out great Russian nationalistic campaign. I think that here the
hastiness and administrative impulsiveness of Stalin played a fatal role and also his spitefulness.
As a rule, spitefulness plays the worst possible role in politics. From the first Lenin had opposed
Stalin's candidacy to be general secretary of the communist party. He had observed that cook will
concoct nothing but peppery dishes. Stalin is too rude and this fault becomes insupportable in the
office of general secretary. Therefore, I propose to the comrades to find a way to remove Stalin
from that position and appoint another man more patient, more loyal, more polite, and more
attentive to comrades. You have been listening to a program recalling the death of Vladimir Ilyich
Ulyanov, Lenin, 27 years ago this week on January 21st, 1924. This has been a presentation of the
voice of America. U.S. propaganda against communism was improving, but the big question was the number
of radio sets behind the iron curtain which could tune us in. There were those returning from Europe
who said the dissatisfaction within Russia was growing, that in the event of war the people would
revolt. Harold Stassen, just back from a world tour which did not take him behind the iron curtain,
said that in a report to the board of trustees of the University of Pennsylvania on Monday night.
The rulers of the Russian Kremlin will not initiate an all-out world war, but in my view,
America and the world faces years or even decades of struggle, but not the devastating horror of an
all-out third world war. I base that, of course, upon my finding that there's much unrest inside
Russia. There's trouble inside the Red Army. There's trouble inside the iron curtain. In my judgment,
this trouble would burst forth in genuine counter-revolution if an aggressive world war
were initiated by the communist rulers. This week there was a strong new voice in foreign affairs.
The Republicans, with one new seat due them on the vitally important foreign affairs committee,
finally decided who the new senator should be. Wayne Morse of Oregon, Homer Capehart of Indiana,
and half-dozen others had looked, hopefully, to the seat. The man chosen was Abel Charles Tobey of New
Hampshire. The senator said he would try to follow in the footsteps of Arthur Vandenberg.
In this crucial epoch, facing problems extremely complex and far-reaching,
I feel that partisanship should be conspicuously absent, and I hope to emulate the fine,
constructive example of my friend and colleague, Senator Arthur Vandenberg, whose illness and
enforced absence we all so much deplore. In confronting our foreign policy problems,
we must above all take a positive approach for the time for critical inspection of past policies
as been replaced by the urgent necessity for constructive, imaginative, cooperative action.
There is no cause for defeatism. There is no ground for final fear.
A poll of the Senate conducted by the Associated Press showed that a majority of senators would
approve sending troops to Europe, but the debate on troops on foreign soil was not limited to Europe,
nor were the lines evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats.
Senator Edwin Johnson, Democrat from Colorado, said we should put up in Korea or get out.
Senator Johnson.
Three weeks ago, in a telephone message to a mass meeting in Boulder, Colorado,
I coined the phrase, all out or get out. These five short words express what I think our policy
should be. To me, it is more important for us to save the lives of our GIs than the red faces
of our discredited policymakers. When our troops departed from the Hung Nam beachhead some days ago,
a GI spoke for America when he wrote these immortal words on a billboard at the point of
at the point of debarkation. We didn't want the damn place anyhow. On the Korean peninsula this
week, it was sometimes hard to figure out who wanted what places. All week long, our armed
patrols probed for the enemy. We came across his small patrols, his isolated units. We moved in and
out of towns we had given up a few weeks ago. One Jew was one of these. At least six times,
it changed hands. Then we took it to stay. CBS correspondent John Jefferson went in with a
reinforced infantry battalion. We are now in Wanju itself. The town is quite battered, except for the
very south side where the buildings for the most part, the usual Korean thatched huts, are,
merely have broken windows, broken frames. But here in the center, where our around the airfield,
the buildings, the quonset huts that were once put up by us that our B-29s hit the other night,
the wreckage is quite complete. And a few minutes later, Jefferson watched the new commander of the
second division, Major General Clark Ruffner, land at Wanju airstrip to meet with the battalion
commander. Jefferson asked the general to describe the mission of our troops. Here General Ruffner's
reply. You've asked me to say a word or two as to why we're here. We're here to carry out a well-known
principle, keep contact with the enemy. And therefore we have returned into this area to
reestablish and affirmatively decide where he is and what strength in order to keep contact with him.
There's too much negative information. We want positive information. Our troops got positive
information at Wanju and kept moving north. Today, Allied tanks, troops, and artillery,
three strong task forces, captured Su-1 without a fight and found themselves within 15 miles of
evacuated Seoul. As some of the troops moved forward looking for the enemy, behind the lines
in such centers as Taigu, there was time for relaxing, time to get away from the war for an
hour or two, time for song. I am Staff Sergeant Merl Strang of Bangor, Maine. This song is being
sung by the International Choir of the 5th Air Force. The song is Arirang. It is the famous
Korean folk song. This choir was started in Seoul, Seoul, Korea, and when we left we brought 60
members of the choir down here to Taigu and we have built the choir to 150 voices.
There were other voices and other sounds at Taigu. The voices you hear come from a mess hall
beside one of the busiest airstrips in the world at Taigu. Some days as many as 1,500 sorties take
off from this strip. The mess hall is used for many purposes. The airmen eat there three times a day,
sing there once or twice a week, and almost every morning just before dawn they use it for a briefing
session for the flights that will strike north against the communists. I'm going up on an airfield
strike up here today. I want to get a little information from you intelligence people about
the flap situation and what I can expect on the airfield. What am I supposed to find there? What
information have you got on it? That was Lieutenant Colonel Charles Williams of San Antonio, commander
of the 9th Fighter Bomber Group, a jet outfit. Williams is about to brief his fliers, but first
he must be briefed by the intelligence officer. There are definitely flak positions on this
particular airfield. Also there are reports that enemy Yaks are in these two revetments here in the
northeast section of the airfield. Now your primary mission be to knock out those Yaks. Young Colonel
Williams gets the mission clearly defined in his own mind, then his pilots troop in for their briefing.
Okay boys we're going to start up in a few minutes here going up to hit this airfield. I've been down
to intelligence and got all the poop on it. Anybody got any questions? Colonel what's the weather up
there in the target area today? The weather up there is supposed to be pretty good. There was some
ground fog. I think it'll be burned off the time we get there. We should have about eight or ten
miles visibility. What kind of trouble do they have with flak over there the last couple missions?
The last couple missions have gone in. There's a lot of flak around the target area. However the
route that we picked out to go in I don't think we'll get bothered with any of it. We'll be low
enough and fast enough. I don't believe that air is coming. We should get through there with no
sweat. Colonel do you expect any air opposition? There's possibility there may be some Yaks.
There's a 26 got jumped by a conventional Yak up there yesterday but if we see any of them we
shouldn't have any trouble handling them. A few minutes later Colonel Williams is in his own jet,
talks to his crew chief. If you listen closely you will hear the actual sound of his parachute
gear clicking closed. Sergeant how about give me a hand with my chute here will you please?
Okay let's wind it up.
That is not yet the sound of a jet engine. Jets like Model Ts need cranking to get up the speed
of the engine. That's an auxiliary motor about 25 horsepower which is rolled up beside the plane to
start it. The engine is brought to speed. Williams opens his throttle. He applies ignition. The
kerosene based fuel flows in. It catches. The air is sucked in through the opening at the nose of
the plane where the propeller would be. The air is heated by the fuel, becomes combustible, expands
through the turbo and is ejected from the tail of the plane in the form of gas thus forcing the
plane forward and into the air. The jets take off in a matter of seconds are out of sight in less
than 30 seconds. Less than one hour but more than 500 miles later the ground crews are sitting near
the control tower waiting for word of the mission. The planes check the tower for landing instructions
before they are seen or heard. In the case of the jets they'll be on the ground in about 40 or 50
seconds. Seven two five two five two three king two tower go ahead. I'll let you two five two three
landing left and traffic runway three one left winds are calm. Altimeter three zero three two
set turning down window. Less than a minute later the planes have landed and this time it's the
fliers turn to do the briefing. How's the ship sir? Our ship's okay. We didn't do too good on a mission
on the airfield. We had to dive bomb a ton. Everything went all right. Nothing wrong with the airplane. It's okay.
Colonel Williams' ninth fighter bomber group based at Tygoo had a surprise visitor this week.
The SCAP, the aircraft of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur at 71 in the battle of his life.
He stood beside his plane at the Tygoo strip and while other planes took off on missions to the
north the general gave the reporters a statement. He spoke slowly so that they could copy down every
word. There has been a lot of loose talk about the Chinese driving us into the sea. Just as in the early
days there was a lot of nonsense about the North Koreans driving us into the sea. This command
intends to maintain a military position in Korea
until just as long as the statesmen of the United Nations decide we should do so.
In the last fortnight the statesmen of the world, both those with and those without portfolio,
have offered many solutions as to how to end the war in Korea. The New York Daily News,
the largest newspaper in the world, is often a symposium for the statesmen without portfolios
who write endless letters to the editor. The paper calls its letters column the voice of the people.
This Wednesday there was one suggestion that might have been endorsed by Trig Villi
and certainly would have the approval of any New York cop. Dear voice of the people,
the UN Army in Korea needs some help. How about sending some of New York's 11,000 taxi drivers
there with their cabs? They are more dangerous than any bomb Stalin may drop on New York.
Very truly yours EWS. Before it was time for General MacArthur to requisition the 11,000 taxi
cabs of New York for combat against the enemy, the delegates to the United Nations would have to make
sure that they had exhausted all the more peaceful methods of ending the war in Korea.
On Saturday of last week America in the voice of Warren Austin asked the UN to declare Red China
the aggressor. Both houses of our Congress voted unanimously that this should be done,
but the proposal was not enthusiastically supported by all other nations. In Britain,
Prime Minister Attlee thought it would be a mistake. Sir Gladwin Jeb speaking for him said,
not for the first time, let's go slowly. On Wednesday, Sir Benegal Rao of India had reported
that the Chinese government at Beiping, which has three times turned down our ceasefire proposals,
really wants peace and concessions. Ambassador Austin, usually a very calm man, was furious,
said that China was just trying to split the free world. That it is a transparent effort to divide
the free world and to delay the exercise of the Pacific functions, the peacemaking functions
of the United Nations, postpone, delay, procrastinate. And so far as one can
understand the English language, it is not even new. It is not a proposition.
It is not addressed to the United Nations. It isn't much more than a postal card would be.
If the United States succeeds in getting the UN to brand red China the aggressor,
it will have to decide then what to do next. And some people in Washington are saying,
use the atom bomb. One of the controversies now raging is just how far can the atom bomb go in
winning a war? Can we, if total war comes, bring the Soviet Union to defeat through our atomic
weapons? One of the men who knows most about atomic energy is David E. Lilienthal, who until
a year ago guided the US atomic energy program. Today's Collier's magazine has a rather
startling article by Mr. Lilienthal, who is leaving shortly for India and private conversations with
Prime Minister Nehru. Here is David E. Lilienthal. The A-bomb has indeed been a great deterrent on
Russia up to now. But in the five years since Hiroshima, the A-bomb has been overvalued in the
popular mind and in the military mind as a kind of guarantee of victory in case of war. Korea
jarred us free of this notion, this notion that the A-bomb is an all-powerful, all-sufficient,
one-shot answer to all of our security needs. We mustn't go astray in our thoughts or hopes or
plans because of the H-bomb either. No such weapon as a hydrogen bomb now exists. Whether there ever
will be is only a remote possibility. We've got to get strong the hard way. There isn't any easy way.
We must buy security the costly way. There isn't any cheap way. An atomic attack would not destroy
Russia. It would gravely, terribly wound Russia but not defeat her. Our reluctance to go to war,
our efforts to avert that awful tragedy for ourselves and for the world, may lead to
miscalculations by the Russian leaders. If they underestimate the power of this country to wage
war, to devastate Russian cities, they will have made an error that will never be forgotten.
They will have caused the erasure of most of the industrial progress built with such pride and such
deprivation by the people of Russia. Let no Russian leader and no rattled American for that matter
underestimate the fabulous productive capacity of this country or of our ability to produce
fighting men the equal of any. Let no one fool himself by talk of how we shall exhaust ourselves
by fighting a war all over the world or by providing arms for Europe. A war with Russia
would be terrible. It would be bloody. It would be costly and heartbreaking.
But if we must, we can fight and we will fight and we will win.
You are listening to Hear It Now, CBS's weekly review of the news told in the actual recorded
voices of the people who made the news. We pause briefly for station identification. This is CBS,
the Columbia Broadcasting System.
This is program seven in the new CBS 60-minute document for air based on the week's news and the
problems and tasks facing the American people. Once again, here is the editor of Hear It Now,
Edward R. Murrow. This week, food prices soared to all time new highs. The meat industry said it was
due to hoarding that panicky citizens had hidden away in their freezers over a million pounds of
meat, thus sending prices soaring. The meat industry said it was due to hoarding that panicky
citizens had hidden away in their freezers over a million pounds of meat, thus sending prices soaring.
Later in this program, we shall try to make a brief report on meat USA, including the biography of a
pound of steak. Most prices and all wages in this country have been frozen as of last midnight.
The government issued the orders a few hours ago and the men who must administer them make it clear
that this is a sort of stopgap device to hold things as they are until better regulations can
be worked out. There will be no rollback of either prices or wages, but they must stay as they are
except for certain food prices, which under the law can still go up. The man in charge of this
overall stabilization program is Eric Johnston, the former head of the Motion Picture Association.
As he sees it, inflation is to be feared as much as Russia. Inflation is one of the greatest
threats that we face in the United States. I think it is just as great a threat as Russia, because I
think Russia could lick us if we weaken ourselves by inflation. Wage and price controls are only
part of the answer. We will have to do it through increased production, through vigorous credit and
tax policies, and through other measures to relieve the pressures of inflation. We will have to do it
and do it vigorously. If we don't, inflation can ruin us all. It is a silent thief that steals from
everyone's pocketbook. But one long-standing controversy was apparently ended this week.
I once made a crack to the effect that nice guys finish last. Well, it's been taken a little too
literally. That was the voice of Leo Ernest de Rocher, the lippy and successful manager of the New
York Giants, who once in his turbulent career coined the expression, nice guys finish last.
Today, Leo took back that phrase, particularly as it applied to a certain umpire. In Florida,
Bill Clem, the elder statesman of big league umpires, is 78 and very ill. Mr. de Rocher heard
about his old friend in the blue suit who often had the last word, and said he'd like to send this
word to the ump who always called him as he saw him, Leo de Rocher. I've been tossed out of more
than one game by old Bill, but I never resented it, and Bill never harbored any grudge against any
ballplayer that I ever knew that questioned one of his decisions. I recall one time while I was
playing for the St. Louis Cardinals, the old Gas Horse gang, I was the captain of the club,
Frankie Frisch, now manager of the Cubs, was then managing St. Louis. And Bill Clem was well
known for after being in an argument with managers or players, he would walk away and draw a line
with his foot, saying that if you cross that line, you are automatically out of the park.
Well, this day, I had gotten into a beef with Bill and was tossed out of the game,
and Frisch charged up and run right up to the line, and Clem was waiting for him,
just looking at him, and Frisch stopped dead and then walked around it. And Clem just looked at
him, he said, same thing, he says, on your way, and tossed us both out of the game. Well,
you know, those are the things that stay in a ballplayer's mind throughout the years.
Bill Clem was noted for that, but also everybody knows that Bill Clem is a very sick man right at
this moment. In fact, he's fighting for his life, and I once made a crack to the effect that nice
guys finish last. Well, it's been taken a little too literally, but I still don't retract it, except
to say if there's one guy it never applied to, well, it's Bill Clem. Get well, Bill, baseball
would just never be the same without you. And New York's police commissioner, Thomas Murphy,
had this bit of advice for a graduating class at the police academy.
The gruff, arrogant policeman has no place in modern society. You must remember you are the
public representatives of the city, and your attitude and demeanor will redound to the credit
or discredit of yourself, the department, and of the city. The unnecessary use of force is a
despicable thing that brings discredit to the policeman and to the department. The policeman
cannot afford to lose his temper, however great the provocation. Earlier in this program, you heard
Eric Johnston say, inflation is one of the greatest threats that we face in the United States.
I think it is just as great a threat as Russia. We talk a great deal about Russia on this program.
Now let's talk about inflation where we feel it most. In the past 30 days, the price of steak
went up more than 4%. How? Why did it happen? This next story on Hear It Now is the documented
biography of a pound of steak. During 1951, the average American, that most elusive figure,
will eat 148 pounds of meat. This is the biography of one of those pounds, and the voices you are
about to hear originate in the Chicago stockyards, a ranch in Montana, a feed farm in Iowa, and a
butcher shop in New York. Before we begin, just a few statistics. As we said, we each eat roughly
148 pounds of beef, veal, pork, and lamb a year, and spend 6% of our income on these meats.
Since 1941, the story of meat is the story of inflation. We take you now to the office of Ewan
Clegg, Chief of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in Washington, for a very quick report on the
price of round steak since 1939. August 1939, just before the war began in Europe, 36 cents.
1941, the year of defense preparation, 39 cents. 1942, the first full year of America at war,
44 cents. 1943, 44 cents. 1944, 42 cents. 1945, 41 cents. June 1946, while the OPA was still on,
42 cents. July 1946, just after the OPA ended, 61 cents. 1947, 75 cents. 1948, 90 cents. 1949,
85 cents. 1950, 94 cents. December 1950, one dollar. Now you're in the butcher shop of Fred
Loeb at 1300 First Avenue in New York. It might well be the butcher shop just around the corner
from you in your hometown. Hello Fred. Hello Miss Terriga. How are you? Okay and you? How are the
kids? Hi. What would you like to have? Oh I don't know. No, no, you know what I think I'll have? I
think I'll have a nice sirloin steak. Special occasion tonight. All right, you got a good steak.
Yes. How big you need it about? Well enough for us, you know. All right, I go inside and get it.
Is that big enough? Oh that's fine, fine. All right, I'll put on a scale. That steak comes to 325.
What? 325 for a steak? Oh Fred, how much a pound is it? Well don't you read the papers?
Neat wind up. Again? Look Miss Terriga, it's not my fault that the prices are so high.
Well whose fault is it? I have to pay more the wholesaler and I have to charge more. So it's the
poor housewives that have to suffer. You know things are so expensive, so darn expensive, that
you're afraid to eat, afraid to shop, afraid to do anything. That's not my fault. I have to pay for
it so the housewife has to pay for it. So it's not your fault, it's not the housewife's fault,
and whose fault is it? Mrs. Klettiker wants to know who is to blame. The butcher says he
isn't making any more money. It must be the wholesaler. So we went down to the market area in Manhattan
and asked the wholesaler. We as wholesalers only operate at a gross profit of a penny and a half
per pound. Now you could readily see that the wholesalers are not making as much money as people
think. We have to pay more money to the packers, those who slaughter the cattle, and this cause
must be passed on to the retailer who in turn passes it on to the consumer. Who's to blame for
all this condition? We cannot at this time place our fingers on the proper source that's creating
this condition. The wholesaler says that he makes less than a cent and a half on every pound of round
steak he sells, buys his meat from the packing house in Chicago, may be there to blame. So our
reporter in Chicago went to the packers. It is a fact that because of increased income, the demand
for meat, especially the more favored cuts of meat, is quite high. However, the outlook for meat is
excellent, about a billion pounds more than in 1950. It is for this reason and remembering the
black market that developed during the last war that the livestock and meat industry feels there
is no necessity at this time for the imposition of price controls and rationing which inevitably
would discourage production and lead to the restoration of black markets. What I am trying
to say is that Mrs. Consumer is the real boss of the meat situation and it is within her power to
extend her meat dollar as far as possible through careful buying. We always thought the packing
house which does the actual slaughtering got the cattle from the grower but in between there is a
commission agent in Chicago. He says he isn't making any money either. The commission man does
not take title to any livestock. He is not a broker in the sense that he speculates on the livestock.
He charges a commission which is based on a unit cost. I might add that this time that that
cost is a very small one and the last figures I have on costs for selling on over $600 million
worth of livestock sold on the open market. Percentage wise, the commission figured $4,100
of one percent. I would like to underline that that is less than one half of one percent.
The commission agent said to try the feeder. The feeder is the man who gets the steers when
they are young calves, feeds them on corn until ready for the market. Near Cedar Rapids, Iowa,
J.C. Holbert, a feeder, says I'm not responsible. If you buy good calves you got to pay from 35 to
38 cents a pound from them as feeders. Well, you start with that high cost. Then let's do just a
little simple figuring here. Any schoolboy can figure. It takes about 20 pounds of corn at least
to make two pounds of gain on these steers. So it costs you 30 cents a pound to put on that gain.
You're a pretty good feeder if you can do it for that. If this cattle feeder is going to stay in
business with the increase of cost of labor and increase of cost of feed, he's got to have a good
price for these finished cattle or the American public is not going to have beef to eat very long.
The feeder in Iowa said that he was just one chapter in the life of a pound of steak and the
steer that bore it. That the calf that he feeds to maturity started his life in Montana. So we went
to the ranch of Frank Spencer, 40 miles from Great Falls near the Canadian border, and asked him who
is making all the money in cattle. Even though finished cattle are selling on the market for a
much higher price than they were in 42, my percentage of profit per unit is considerably
less now than nine years ago. I do not believe that the rancher can be held responsible for the
price of beef when he has no control over the feeder and packer prices which affect the retail
counter price. In my opinion, the final price is dependent on the housewife herself. So we went
back to the housewife and reported to her on what the butcher, the packer, the commission man, the
feeder, and especially the rancher in Montana had said. Oh I don't know, it all confuses me. I don't
know the answer. My husband makes more money now than he did, but what he comes home with, with
taxes taking out, I just about live. I don't know. To me it seems like the old army game of passing
the buck. And a 50 cent buck at that. We went still further, asked the farmer in Nebraska who
grows the corn for the feeder in Iowa why corn was so high. He said his farm machinery cost twice as
much as it used to. And in Illinois, the machinery manufacturer said the cost of labor is more than
twice as high as it was in the 30s. And at the end of the round robin, the working man who is paid by
the tractor company says he needs high wages because the price of food has gone so high.
Everyone seems to blame everyone else. And no one seems happy in spite of the fact that there will
be 12 percent more meat available this year than ever before in our history. Even the butcher's wife,
Mrs. Ruth Loeb, is unhappy about it all. I wish people wouldn't fight with my husband in the store
about the high prices. And it's not his fault that you're paying the high prices. He's paying more
for the wholesaler, and that's why he has to charge you more too. In this strongest, most bountiful land
in the world, we're back where we started from. There's more meat on the market than ever before.
Prices are higher than ever before. The normal equation of supply and demand won't stand up.
And while obviously somewhere along the line someone is making a profit on meat, it always
seems to be the other fellow. We don't know the answer, but we do know the American housewife is
in the middle. And tonight's freeze on steak offers her only this doubtful consolation.
Prices can only go up another five percent.
Is your ear having difficulty in identifying the strange sound you hear?
It comes from Wichita, Kansas. Eight words a minute, typed by a mother of two children
by holding a pencil between her teeth.
Ken Davis, who runs the news operation at KFH, our CBS station at Wichita, called us yesterday and
said, if you guys want a March of Dimes story for this week, I've got it.
From Wichita, Kansas, Mrs. Margaret Shapley.
The doctor came back for an unscheduled evening visit. The little Catholic sister slipped into
whisper, I'll pray for you. So here was death. To my surprise, the doctor was not there.
I was not afraid. I was not sure about God. But if he was like they say, he would judge me fairly.
I asked him one thing. If I had to leave my boy and girl, he would take care of them.
The long night dragged. The steady pump of the iron lung was not enough. I gasped for breath,
and the nurse brought oxygen, turning it stronger and stronger. Finally, my need levelled off,
and by morning somehow I knew I wouldn't die. Afterward, I wished I had. For one day,
I knew I would never walk nor use my hands again. In despair, I would have taken my life.
But a paralyzed person can't reach for a bottle of poison or jump off a bridge.
I couldn't escape, so I fought with the only weapon I could find, faith. Faith that somehow
I could make it up to others and to myself for the burden I am. I am typing by holding
a pencil between my teeth. Many friends have thought I might sell stories. Now is my chance
to try. John, who isn't quite five, is my best critic. His favorite character is Oscar,
a fat little worm who became a butterfly. Carol, a blue-eyed, golden-haired little charmer,
likes stories too. She climbs onto my bony, hard lap, opens a magazine upside down, leans back,
and commands, weed to me, Mommy. A friend came by to visit, saying simply, I was lonesome.
Those words made me very happy, for if I can give comfort or companionship to someone lonely or
troubled, then I am paying a bit of my own way.
To that story of patience and fortitude, we can add nothing, but permit us to remind you
that our heritage demands that we measure an individual's usefulness in terms of his
example and his service to a society at peace. The March of Dimes needs and deserves our help.
You have just heard Program 7 in the new CBS series Hear It Now, a weekly document for
ear based on the week's news. All the voices you heard were real. They were recorded on the scene
of history in the making. Hear It Now is edited and produced by Edward R. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly
and the CBS staff, which includes Irving Gitlin, Edmund Scott, and Charles Ashley.
Portions of tonight's broadcast were recorded by CBS correspondents George Herman and Robert P.
Martin in Korea and by Armed Forces radio teams. Art Buckner is the engineer.
Other portions of this program originated at WTOP in Washington, WMSC, Columbia, South Carolina,
WEI, Boston, KMBC, Kansas City, WCAU, Philadelphia, WAGA, Atlanta, WBBM, Chicago, KFBB, Great Falls,
Montana, WMT, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, KCBS, San Francisco, KNX, Los Angeles, and the British
Broadcasting Corporation. Special acknowledgement is made to Northwest Airlines for rapid shipment
of combat recordings for use on this program.
Edward R. Murrow can be heard each weekday evening at 745 Eastern Standard Time
over most of these same CBS stations. This is Olin Tai speaking.
This is CBS where you'll laugh at Jack Benny every Sunday night the Columbia Broadcasting System.