Now, Edward R. Murrow and the voices of General Douglas MacArthur, President Harry Truman,
Vice President Barclay, Senator Arthur Vandenberg, Winston Churchill, Speaker Sam Rayburn, Joe
DiMaggio, Onis Wagner, Connie Mack, and more than 40 other men and women in the news in
the 19th performance of Hear It Now, presented tonight and every week at this time.
From a military standpoint, the above views have been fully shared in past by practically
every military leader, including our own Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Those soldiers never die.
They just fade away.
And like the old soldier of that ballot, I now close my military career and just fade
away.
It took five years to take the world apart.
It would not be surprising if it took at least that long to put it together again.
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 recorded
in the heat and confusion of a world in crisis.
Here is the editor of Hear It Now, the distinguished reporter and news analyst, Edward R. Murrow.
This week, like last week, the United States existed in a supercharged atmosphere of tension
and dynamics.
But these seven days, unlike last week's, had a climax which Americans would remember
for generations.
This was a week of history.
Members of the Congress, I deem it a high privilege and I take great pleasure in presenting
to you General of the Army Douglas MacArthur.
The sound you hear is the Congress of the United States, 1500 visitors, guests and members
of both the House and Senate as they stood and cheered, one of the most successful generals
of all time and undoubtedly the most controversial general of his day.
The verdict on MacArthur, the military leader, is not for debate.
His stature and place in history are assured.
But this week, the general, dismissed but not dishonored, came home to place his views
on global strategy before the bar of public opinion.
The stirring pronouncement of his doctrine to the Congress, to the public and to the
world was his first opportunity in 14 years to reach more than a handful of his countrymen
at one time.
His speech was a vital pronouncement and document which was the climax of this week of news.
We shall try to tell it as it happened, attempt to review the drama and international significance
of these last seven crowded days.
I have been in contact with Tokyo and have found out General MacArthur would be delighted
to accept an invitation to come to Washington and speak before the members of Congress.
By Saturday of last week, the initial shock was over.
MacArthur was out as Supreme Commander in the Pacific.
No one seriously challenged the President's constitutional right to remove him.
Mr. Truman's judgment and method was a matter of severe criticism by many and approval by
some.
As the week began, even that dissent was dwarfed by the fact that one of America's great heroes
was coming home.
Excitement was enough to chase even the Kieffauver Committee and the RFC hearings off the front
page.
On Sunday, the General left his home at the Embassy in Tokyo for the last time.
Personally shook hands with each of the servants, rode through shouting adoring crowds on the
route to Haneda Airport.
Where against the background of a 19-gun salute, hundreds of thousands of Japanese stood bare
headed to wave goodbye to the man who had conquered them.
General and Mrs. MacArthur, they're standing on the steps waving goodbye to the crowd below.
The General is now inside the plane.
The door has been closed, partially closed, now it's fully closed, and the Air Police
are pulling the stairs away from the side of the plane.
The band has broken into the strains of O-Lang-Zai, and perhaps you can hear it.
With the Tan, a constellation for engine aircraft, circled Tokyo Bay, started the 8,000-mile
journey home, bringing Douglas and Gene MacArthur for the first time since 1937, their 13-year-old
son Arthur for the first time ever.
Back on the mainland, as the islanders call the U.S., Sunday is Saturday, and Saturday
was the evening of the Jefferson Jackson Day dinner for the Democrats.
In Washington, 5,300 of them gathered in a political jamboree at $100 a plate to cheer
their leader facing the toughest challenge of his life.
Our present President of the United States is more like Andrew Jackson than any man has
lived since his days.
That was Speaker Sam Rayburn, who on Thursday would introduce MacArthur in the Congress.
And Vice President Barclay even went so far as to defend the President's letter-writing
habits.
They say that our President is a human being, and so he is.
They say that under the tense and taut tensions of the day in which we live, that now and
then he has given expression to words that you might not have used or that I might not
have used.
So be it, what of it?
These, these are but the superficial excrescences that follow universal frailty of human nature.
President Truman, with what could be one of the most trying weeks of his administration
ahead of him, spoke too.
He said some people are playing petty politics with the future of the country, and without
mentioning any names, said this about his political opponents.
They say they want other free nations to resist aggression, but they don't want us to send
any troops to help our friends and allies.
They want us to get out of Korea, but they urge us to wage an aggressive war against
China.
Now beat that one if you can.
They say it will provoke Russia to attack, to attack if we send troops to Europe, but
they are sure Russia won't be provoked if we carry the war to China.
It has been categorically stated that Russia will not come in if we bomb Manchuria.
That statement was made to me about the Chinese not coming into Korea, and it was made on
good authority too, and I believed it.
As the Bataan moved across the Pacific toward Hawaii, the President's opposition went into
action.
Republican Senator Harry P. Kaine of the state of Washington asked for a declaration of war.
I think because of what the President said last week, that there is good and sound reason
on Tuesday of next week, which is after the weekend is over and a lot of people have thought
about it, for a resolution to be offered in the Senate of the United States, declaring
war in Korea against all of the enemies of the United Nations fighting either in Korea
or using contiguous and adjacent territories from which to launch attacks.
The Senator did introduce his war resolution, but he too had weekend thoughts.
He introduced a second resolution calling on the government to pull the troops out of
Korea if we weren't going to make it a bigger war.
The Republican Party offered him scant support.
While the debate continued, General MacArthur reached Hawaii.
He had been as far east as Hawaii once before in recent years in 1945 to meet Franklin Roosevelt,
but this had been a guarded wartime meeting.
This time the citizens of Honolulu turned out to cheer him and wish him well.
The next stop, the mainland and home.
In San Francisco, on the 45th anniversary of the famous earthquake that a young Lieutenant
MacArthur had helped to fight, the city extended the most spectacular and largest welcome in
its history.
Standing beside the baton in a cool night, pinpointed by a giant spotlight and the television
lights, the General said thank you for the tumultuous welcome.
I can't tell you how good it is to be home.
For long, long, dreary years, Mrs. MacArthur and myself have thought and thought about
this moment.
But now that it's come, the marvelous hospitality and the wonderful reception that this great
city has given us has made it seem even more delightful than we had anticipated.
Thanks will not forget it.
The next day, after a triumphant motorcade through the city, the General spoke of himself
and politics.
I have no political aspirations whatsoever.
I do not intend to run for any political office and I hope that my name will never be used
in a political way.
The only politics I have is contained in a simple phrase known well by all of you.
God bless America.
On Wednesday afternoon, the baton lifted itself from the San Francisco runway, bound for Washington.
In Washington, President Truman, originally scheduled to speak one hour after the General
on Thursday, canceled the address, saying it was MacArthur's Day.
And although he would not attend the joint meetings of Congress, he did not wish to detract.
If Mr. Truman did not wish to attend, he was just about the only one in Washington.
Fish Bait Miller, the doorkeeper of the house and custodian of its cherished seats, was
besieged with requests.
Senator Mr. Miller reports on his problem.
We sure are having a time here in Washington.
Our office has been a really hum-dum down there.
I didn't know I had so many friends.
Then this morning, I find out that MacArthur has too many kinfolks.
And I don't know where I'm going to put them.
They're not that many places left.
In fact, they're not any left, not any to start off with.
But we mustn't forget our members of Congress.
They only get one ticket each.
The prospect of Douglas MacArthur addressing Congress far outshadowed anything that was
said in either house all week.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Baton left San Francisco.
Eight hours later, the General was back in Washington.
That noise of engines which you hear are the engines of the Baton bringing General MacArthur
to Washington.
It's wheeling up right in front of us now, the floodlights on it, faces in the windows.
One can't tell which.
The door is open and one of the members of the crew is standing there, waiting for the
landing steps to be rolled up.
There comes Mrs. MacArthur.
Big crowd, big cheer goes up from the crowd behind General MacArthur.
Neat and military in a trench coat.
Mr. Truman designated his military aide, General Vaughn, to represent him at the arrival.
And some of MacArthur's old colleagues, now Washington's top military men, were there,
including Generals Bradley, Vandenberg, Collins, and Secretary of Defense George Marshall,
whom you hear now.
Speaking for the Defense Department, the Army, and the Navy, the Air Corps, and the Marines,
my privilege to welcome General MacArthur back after a great many years, after a magnificent
campaign from New Guinea up to Japan.
Republican Congressman Joe Martin, whose release of the MacArthur letter on Formosa and China
caused the recall, was there, as were other prominent Republicans.
That night, the MacArthur slept at the Statler.
It had not even been built in 1937 when the General lived in Washington as Chief of Staff.
The MacArthur schedule moved as swiftly as welcoming officials and wildly enthusiastic
crowds would permit.
At one minute before 1230, the General entered the ancient American Forum.
Magnificently, he strode down the right aisle, across the front row, past his old comrade,
General Wainwright, and his young son, Arthur, to the rostrum, there to shake the hands of
Speaker Rayburn and Vice President Barclay.
A tense moment of reflection as he surveyed the cheering audience, a knowing nod in the
direction of Mrs. MacArthur in the first row of the balcony, and then the traditional introduction
from the Speaker, who has introduced so many of the history-making orations since Pearl
Harbor.
Members of the Congress, I deem it a high privilege, and I take great pleasure in presenting
to you General of the Army Douglas MacArthur.
And out across the country, in our cities and towns, the nation held its collective
breath.
Subways in New York were deserted, stores in Chicago empty, taxis in St. Louis parked
and listening.
Had it been for just MacArthur, the victorious warrior, all this would have been his due
and rightly so.
But returning as a displaced commander, he stood there before the Congress and the nation,
a symbol of their own dissidence and disunity.
I stand on this rostrum with a sense of deep humility and great pride.
Here are centered the hopes and aspirations and faith of the entire human race.
I do not stand here as advocate for any partisan cause, for the issues are fundamental and
reach quite beyond the realm of partisan consideration.
They must be resolved on the highest plane of national interest if our cause is to prove
sound and our future protected.
I trust therefore that you will do me the justice of receiving that which I have to
say as solely expressing the considered viewpoint of a fellow American.
In a tightly written, superbly delivered speech, the general first spoke of the relationship
of the East and the West.
The issues are global and so interlocked that to consider the problems of one sector oblivious
to those of another is but to court disaster for the whole.
While Asia is commonly referred to as the gateway to Europe, it is no less true that
Europe is the gateway to Asia and the broad influence of the one cannot fail to have its
impact upon the other.
There are those who claim our strength is inadequate to protect on both fronts, that
we cannot divide our effort.
I can think of no greater expression of defeatism.
MacArthur on the Asiatic mind and the stomach.
World ideologies play little part in Asian thinking and are little understood.
What the people strive for is the opportunity for a little more food in their stomachs,
a little better clothing on their backs, a little firmer roof over their heads, and the
realization of the normal nationalist urge for political freedom.
General MacArthur on the war he and his men fought in Korea and which Matt Ridgway now
carries on.
While I was not consulted prior to the President's decision to intervene in support of the Republic
of Korea, that decision from a military standpoint proved a sound one.
As I say, proved a sound one.
As we hurled back the invader and decimated his forces, our victory was complete and our
objectives within reach when Red China intervened with numerically superior ground forces.
This created a new war and an entirely new situation, a situation not contemplated when
our forces were committed against the North Korean invaders, a situation which called
for new decisions in the diplomatic sphere to permit the realistic adjustment of military
strategy.
Such decisions have not been forthcoming.
The general on the future conduct of the war in Asia and the basic reason for his disagreement
with President Truman.
Apart from the military need, as I saw it, to neutralize the sanctuary protection given
the enemy north of the Yalu, I felt that military necessity in the conduct of the war made necessary.
First, the intensification of our economic blockade against China.
Two, the imposition of a naval blockade against the China coast.
Three, removal of restrictions on air reconnaissance of China's coastal areas and of Manchuria.
Four, removal of restrictions on the forces of the Republic of China on Formosa with logistical
support to contribute to their effective operation against the common enemy.
For entertaining these views, all professionally designed to support our forces committed to
Korea and bring hostilities to an end with the least possible delay and at the saving
of countless American and allied lives, I have been severely criticized in lay circles,
principally abroad, despite my understanding that from a military standpoint, the above
views have been fully shared and passed by practically every military leader concerned
with the Korean campaign, including our own Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The opponents of General MacArthur insist that the use of Chiang Kai-shek's forces
against China for the bombardment of communist bases above the Yalu River will cause Russia
to spread the war.
MacArthur on this subject.
Some may say to avoid spread of the conflict into an all out war with China.
Others to avoid Soviet intervention.
Neither explanation seems valid.
For China is already engaging with a maximum power it can commit and the Soviet will not
necessarily mesh its actions with our moves like a cobra.
Any new enemy will more likely strike whenever it feels that the relativity in military or
other potential is in its favor on a worldwide basis.
MacArthur was cheered 20 times during the 34 minutes that he spoke.
Both sides of the aisle and the gallery were substantially moved.
And when the cheering was done, there were the inevitable reactions.
Democratic Senator Gillette of Iowa thought, one cannot fail to think that the position
of the general would have been more tenable, holding as he says he does, the strong conviction
that he could not carry out the policies of the government.
If at that time he had of resigned and would have saved the sorrow and the grief that has
attended the occasion of his removal.
But Republican Representative Hinshaw of California called for a different sort of resignation.
The only thing I can see now is that the entire government should resign and a new election
should be held forthwith.
As inevitable as Republicans and Democrats, members of the two parties drew different
conclusions from the same speech.
Democratic Senator Lehman of New York.
The steps which General MacArthur has advocated would inevitably cause an all-out war on the
mainland of China, a war in which we would be at a hopeless disadvantage.
Any policy which would extend the present action in Korea would, I believe, lead to
a world war and threaten the security of our country and of the entire free world.
But Republican Senator Wherry saw it differently.
General MacArthur made the most superb speech to the Congress that's been made since I've
been in the United States Senate.
General MacArthur has made the issue in Korea indelibly clear.
He has shown the President's inept policy of drift as our boys fight and die in Korea
is intolerable.
The American people are demanding action by the commander-in-chief of the armed forces
to bring the war in Korea to a speedy and victorious end.
A number of congressmen drew their own special conclusions from the general's speech.
Democratic House Leader McCormick.
The very basic consideration that General MacArthur conveyed to the American people
is the fact that the situation is global.
There are many members of Congress who believe in giving up Europe to the communist.
General MacArthur certainly vigorously repudiated and denounced that.
And Republican Representative Halleck of Indiana was happy.
It ought to put to shame those who have said that MacArthur sought war or was a warmonger
or desired anything other than the cessation of hostilities in the way that all American
people would want them ended.
There were not a few among the many who sat in the House on Thursday who saw a greater
issue aside from policy and politics.
Where we've been and where we're going.
Here's what struck Democratic Representative Hebert of Louisiana.
I think that today we witnessed the greatest example of democracy at work in our lifetime.
What do you think would have happened to General MacArthur if he'd been a Russian general?
You couldn't have found the body.
But it is safe to say that most of the people who followed General MacArthur out of the House
chamber were questioning his reference to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
An administration supporter, Senator Sparkman of Alabama, was concerned.
There was only one point in it that really gave me concern, and that was his statement
that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had approved of his four-point program.
I am eager, as I know many other members of Congress must be, for the Joint Chiefs of
Staff to give us a clarification on that particular point.
Most Democrats and Republicans agreed that an investigation would be necessary to determine
when and how General MacArthur and the Joint Chiefs had been in agreement.
If in fact the Joint Chiefs had agreed with him completely, President Truman would be
in a difficult spot, Secretary of State Atchison in an equally difficult one.
If the Joint Chiefs disagreed with him, MacArthur would be in the position of having a major
premise of his doctrine discredited.
The apparent discrepancy needed definition.
The Senate investigation, calling the Joint Chiefs and General MacArthur, would begin
in about ten days.
Between now and then the debate would rage, and there would be close examination of recent
remarks made by men like the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Omar Bradley, who spoke
in Chicago two days before MacArthur.
Through our efforts in connection with the North Atlantic Treaty and our even more positive
action in Korea, we have drawn the line, giving unmistakable evidence that appeasement of
communism is not part of American policy.
Furthermore, because we seek peace and an end to this war in Korea, our government is
cautious in every decision that might prolong this conflict.
As long as we are able to confine the battles to Korea and continue to destroy the communist
aggressors, we are making progress toward our international objective of preventing
World War III.
The conduct of foreign affairs is a civilian responsibility, but a soldier can often see
strategic perils that the layman might overlook.
However, it is fundamental that our foreign policy must be based upon our military capabilities
to back it up.
A spokesman at the Pentagon said the Joint Chiefs had been part of the unanimous recommendation
that MacArthur be fired.
Before General MacArthur left Washington for today's big reception in New York, he had
a pleasant chore to carry out, one which he said he had longed to perform.
To the annual convention of the Daughters of the American Revolution, General MacArthur
said,
The complexities and confusion largely resulting from internal subversion and corruption and
detailed regimentation over our daily life now threaten the country no less than it was
threatened in Washington's day.
It behooves this distinguished society to assert a dynamic leadership in checking this
drift and regaining the ground which we have lost.
And then the happy President General, Mrs. Patton, introduced to the Daughters one of
their own, Mrs. Douglas MacArthur.
Thank you very much.
I've never made a speech in all my life.
I leave that up to the General.
But it's a great pleasure to be with you.
And I certainly am very proud of my membership in the D.A.R.
It's always meant so much to me.
Thank you.
Then one of the Daughters sang a hymn for the honored guest.
Wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee,
wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee,
Wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, warty,
Of our fathers who live thee still,
In spite of dungeon, fire, and sword,
Who how our hearts be thy with joy,
Whene'er we hear the glorious word.
Then the MacArthur's, Douglas, Gene, and Son Arthur,
were off to New York, where the receptions are bigger,
the ticker tape heavier, and the din of the crowds louder.
Following the age-old route pioneered by Grover Whelan,
MacArthur outgrew Gertrude Ederly, Ike Eisenhower,
and even Charles A. Lindow.
The greatest estimate of the crowd watching the General MacArthur parade today
is seven and one-half million people.
That is the official estimate, and that of course will be the greatest crowd
ever to cordon any returning hero anywhere.
Now, General MacArthur.
Mr. Mayor, Mr. Toastmaster, this is the greatest city in the world.
No conquering Roman hero had ever been accorded such a tribute by his fellow countrymen,
and there would be more to come in Chicago, Milwaukee, and other cities.
The MacArthur Ovation was almost a phenomenon.
If he had returned flushed with victory over Japan in 1945,
he would have shared the acclaim with our other heroes.
Now, to many millions, he was a symbol of a greatness
we had once achieved against a common enemy.
He was a symbol of a unity which we no longer had.
He was big and brilliant and spectacular, and right or wrong, he had stuck to his guns.
Even those who disagreed with him, and those who might eventually find him wrong,
would long remember his farewell on the floor of the Congress at 1.03 p.m.
on the afternoon of April 19, 1951.
I am closing my 52 years of military service.
When I joined the Army, even before the turn of the century,
it was the fulfillment of all my boyish hopes and dreams.
The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plane at West Point,
and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished.
But I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barrack ballads of that day,
which proclaimed most proudly that old soldiers never die.
They just fade away.
And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away.
An old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty.
Goodbye.
The New York Times
The New York Times
This is Program 19 on Hear It Now, a full hour review of the week's news
told in the actual recorded voices of the men and women who make the news.
And tonight, a special tribute to the late Senator Vandenberg.
Once again, here is the editor of Hear It Now, Edward R. Murrow.
In Korea, the UN line continued to inch slowly forward,
with all of its salients, except the extreme western one, slightly above the 38th parallel.
But talk of communist troop movements in the north continued,
with extremely large air potentials being massed in Manchuria.
These were the conditions under which Lieutenant General Ridgway,
who had arrived in Korea at its darkest hour,
left to take up the commands left vacant by General MacArthur.
Matt Ridgway as he left the front.
Secretary Pace and I heard of it together,
that we were up at a forward battalion command post about four o'clock yesterday afternoon.
Was that the first word you had had?
Yes, it was.
Secretary Pace had not given you any warning?
None, whatever.
I hadn't any plans for anything at present.
This thing just hit me yesterday afternoon.
I went over immediately to report to General MacArthur,
and I hope to get back here and keep my finger on the pulse of this situation that's now in progress up front.
But there were other sounds on the Korean battlefront.
Charge for cavalry!
Charge!
Woo!
In the States, Goodnight Irene is already a little passe.
In Korea, it's the hit of the week,
especially the slightly abridged and rewritten chorus as sung by the 1st Cavalry Division Band.
Irene, goodnight, Irene, goodnight, goodnight, Irene, goodnight, Irene, I'll see you in my dreams.
Sometimes she sleeps in pajamas, sometimes she sleeps in a gown, but when there's holes in the laundry, Irene is the toe goes the tongue.
The United Nations continued to strive for a ceasefire agreement in Korea,
but without press information and without much apparent success.
Although a transient peace-feeler from Beiping seemed genuine enough to interest that old veteran of the peace table, Winston Churchill.
Tonight we have good news from Korea.
It may be only a report, but I read it just before I came in here.
If it be true that the North Koreans have asked for peace terms, that would be a relief and satisfaction to every one of us.
Neither we nor the United States nor the United Nations have the slightest wish to become involved in Korea or in China.
If our graver danger looms in Europe, if the news be true, we must pay our tribute to the United States in the first instance.
They have borne nine-tenths of the burden and suffered 19th, 20th of the loss.
Mr. Churchill was over-eager. It was just more of the same communist peace propaganda, a gory document, the State Department called it.
There were other suggestions on swift ways of ending the Korean War.
Representative Albert Gore of Tennessee wanted to build a sort of atomic ditch across Korea.
How long can we continue swapping men with the Chinese communists?
I think something cataclysmic is called fire.
We have it. I think we should use it, and that is some of the immense weapons that have been developed by the Atomic Energy Commission as a result of $5 billion expenditure of American taxpayers.
I suggest, therefore, that first we remove all Koreans from a belt across the narrow Korean peninsula
and then dehumanize that belt by surface radiological contamination.
Just before this is accomplished, broadcast the fact to the enemy with ample and particular notice that entrance into the belt would mean certain death or slow deformity to all soldiers.
We asked Dr. Ralph Lapp, former director of the nuclear physics branch of the Office of Naval Research and one of the top scientists in the field, to comment on this atomic moat.
First, as to whether it's feasible, that depends upon how much land you want to contaminate, how radioactive you wish to make it, and how long you want the poison to last.
Certainly we have lots of radioactive material produced as a useless byproduct in our atomic energy plants.
So as a matter of fact, you might jump to the conclusion that it is feasible.
But in my opinion, the technical problems involved in packaging and delivering this material are very nasty.
Furthermore, you must define just what tactical use you wish to make of this weapon.
A square mile of land will take about a million curies, and that's a lot of radioactivity, to kill a man in one week if he stands in one place.
A soldier could run across a mile of land in about ten minutes, and he would not suffer any ill effect.
As to Congressman Gore's statement, I deplore such speculation because I can see no good resulting from it.
In fact, the radioactive weapon is to my mind chiefly of psychological value, and as such it boomerangs upon us, not upon the masses of Chinese communists in Korea.
This week, true to spring tradition, hundreds of grandmothers, apparently in the prime of health, conveniently died.
Hundreds of office boys piously asked for the afternoon off.
Hundreds of bosses who years ago had pulled the same act themselves found it hard to say no.
And in many of all parks this week, the boss and his office boy found themselves separated by only a few seats.
The 1951 baseball season was about to get underway.
Next year had become this year, and the pennant winner and eighth place club were again starting from scratch.
Diamond fever and hopes ran high. You could chart it by the sound of the turnstiles at Yankee Stadium as the clouds poured in.
You could hear by this familiar voice at the stadium.
And this sound our many recorders picked up at Wrigley Field in Chicago.
There were snow flurries at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, and the band caught the mood.
In Cincinnati, the bat boy Danny Boyle was interviewed before the game began.
Dan, this is your first year.
Yes, sir.
Is this pretty much of a thrill for you?
Yes, sir.
Aren't you sort of carrying on a tradition? You're from Elder High School here in Cincinnati, and they've had quite a few of the bat boys from Elder.
Yes, sir.
Danny, do you look forward to being a major league ball player like your dad someday?
Yes, sir.
And this is a real thrill for you. What's your favorite position?
Shortstop.
Shortstop, you're going to get some chances to work out, is that so?
Yes, sir.
Well, Dan, you root real hard and keep those bats in pretty good shape today and see if you can't make the Reds come through. Will you do that?
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir. In St. Louis, the Browns and White Sox warmed up to music, psychologically keyed to soothe opening day nerves.
And in Boston, the sports writers were already sending out stories for the first editions of the afternoon papers.
In Philadelphia, the athletics talked in the dugout. This is what our recorder heard.
Can't beat the hours, can you? Every afternoon, two to four.
Too bad you didn't play in Honus Wagner's day.
And in Pittsburgh, Honus Wagner, one of the great shortstops of all time, turned the clock back, too.
The whole time, rookie, though, we had a tough time breaking in.
The regulars wouldn't let them go up to the hit and take their turn, and they wouldn't even talk to the young fellows.
I know I played two years before anybody talked to me, and then one of the outfielders, a New York Giants, had hit two home runs.
As he passed me, I said, nice hitting there, Gore. He turned around and took a look at me. He said, how'd you like to go to it?
And another thing, the treatment towards the salaries concerned. My first contract called for $35 a month, and I asked for 40.
He said, either come for 35 or stay home.
For the successful rookie of today, times have changed.
May I welcome Joe Demaggio to Washington, DC.
He's paid well, travels in style and comfort, and you can't beat the hours.
This is an intimate moment we recorded at Penn Station. Joe Demaggio and Mickey Mantle, the game's outstanding star and most publicized rookie, both Yankees, about to leave for Washington and opening day.
Well, Mickey, this is another season for me. Of course, this is your first season here in the Major Leagues.
How do you feel about this first trip or the first game you're going to play?
Well, Joe, I'm pretty nervous about it all, and it's all really new to me, I'll tell you.
Well, I'll tell you, Mickey, you know, I felt pretty nervous the first game I played.
As a matter of fact, I can recall I missed 17 games the opening of the season.
And finally, when I got back in there, when I did play my first game, I swung at the first pitch and was very fortunate to get a base hit, and that took all the tension out.
Now, are you going to do the same thing for us?
I don't know. I'll probably swing at the first pitch no matter where they throw it, but I don't know whether I'll get a hit.
I hope it's a hit, Mickey, because believe me, from there on in, you'll go from there.
But behind the stands in Brooklyn, another rookie, Jim Romano, is surprised and stunned on opening day.
The club secretary breaks the news. Listen.
Jim, you know you've been optioned back to the St. Paul club, and you're going to have to pitch down there for a month or so.
You don't feel discouraged about being sent to St. Paul, do you?
Well, no, Hal, I'm not discouraged. I'm disappointed because I think I can do just as well, maybe better, than a lot of pitches you have on the staff.
The starting pitchers warm up on opening day, and in Brooklyn, manager Charlie Dressen talks to his Dodgers before the game as the band parades outside the clubhouse.
There's only one thing I demand of you this season, that's for 154 games starting today, and that's hustle.
And that means on the field and off the field.
Today is the day that we really start. Everything we do starting today counts.
If we can keep from making mistakes and make the other club make them, we're bound to win.
In Philadelphia, Connie Mack, after 50 years of baseball, sits in the stands for the first time. How does it feel, Mr. Mack?
Well, I'm very happy sitting in the stands. I'm going to play the game very hard, and I hope that Jimmy Dykes will do a good job.
In Chicago, the fans, waiting for the first pitch, get into the spirit of things.
And at Yankee Stadium, the groundskeepers get ready too.
I'll hold the flag and it'll go up for me. Make sure that everything is clear. The main thing is to keep the flag clear of the pole.
So I think it'll go all right. The only thing we have to worry about is the wind and how to spread out in front of the monuments.
We'll have to spread way out because the flag is so big, we have to steer clear of the pole.
At the stadium and elsewhere, the prelude to the start of the game.
Ladies and gentlemen, would you please rise?
Miss Lucy Monroe, accompanied by Major Francis W. Semple and 7th Regiment Band, will sing our national anthem.
After that, the umpires walk onto the field. In Chicago, we ask Art Passarelli if he minds the good-natured booing.
Well, of course, after all, they paid her money to get in the ballpark, and they got a right to holler when they want to.
It's almost game time, opening day. Brooklyn manager Charlie Dressen talks to his catcher, Roy Campanella, in the dugout.
You got all these signs straight now? Do you understand everything? Yes, we have, Skipper.
Well, now all you've got to do, Roy, remember what I told you about that finesse.
When they're looking for a curve, you throw them a fast one. When they're looking for the fast one, throw them the curve.
And if they're looking for either one of them, give them a change of pace, you know, maybe a high neck end. Will you do that?
In other words, let's push the right button at the right time. That's right, Roy.
Keep that thumb out of the way, and let's start today. Well, I'll do my best, Skipper.
The Dodgers take the field. In Detroit's Briggs Stadium, Patsy O'Toole has paid his money and wants some action.
Okay, Detroit Tigers, let's go! Everybody get a hit! Everybody stand still, let's get, let's get going!
Around the country, there's the same familiar cry. We happened to catch it in Chicago.
Play ball!
Millions of fans who didn't have grandmothers or sympathetic bosses caught snatches of the game on radio and TV.
And now we're ready to get going at Yankee Stadium. Vic Brashe looks in to get the sign.
Leans forward, starts the windup, around comes the arm. The first pitch is high inside for ball one.
And he's into the windup, and here's the pitch for Dixon. It's a curve and it's over for a call strike.
Bickford gets ready to throw that first one. And it's a strike call.
Miller has his sign, starts into the windup, here's the first pitch, and it's a ball a little bit high.
Ball one, the season's underway.
In Boston, as elsewhere, there's the inevitable grandstand manager.
Take this one, kid, take this one, take it, take it, take it. Three and one, take it, take it.
Take it easy. Don't hit.
You can take this one, what?
Nice.
Three and two now. Watch the runners this time. Manifest the second, huh? One out.
He might throw a curve ball at you this time, boy. Watch the runners. They're off. They're off!
It's hard to do!
Ah, no good.
Even the grandstand manager can be wrong at times.
But that's one of the great privileges we enjoy in this country, in Congress or the ballpark.
In Pittsburgh, Branch Rickey seemed to sense this same feeling.
I am happy that I live in a country where we can go, just go, when and where we please, say what we please to say.
Criticize if we wish and not be policed and not be spied upon.
It's our job to keep this game worthy of public support.
There are 96 seats in the Senate of the United States.
But for the past two years, the important seat and desk just off the right aisle had been noticeably vacant.
On Wednesday evening, it became officially vacant.
Arthur H. Vandenberg, senior senator from Michigan, was dead.
I shall be back in Michigan when the General Assembly of the United Nations finishes in New York.
I shall stick to this peace job to the end. It is my top priority.
That was the voice of Senator Vandenberg after the Paris conference in 1946.
Now he is back in Michigan for the last time and for all time.
His top priority is still the top priority of the nation that bred him.
It is our purpose for the remaining minutes of tonight's program to say a few words for Arthur Vandenberg.
And we propose to say them in his own voice as he planned and pronounced the bipartisan foreign policy of which he was a principal architect.
Arthur Vandenberg, a Michigan Republican who once worked for Warren Harding, was not always an internationalist.
In the 30s, he was a violent anti-Roosevelt man. And in 1936 said this.
These headlines certainly sound like more war in Europe.
I hope America has sense enough to mind her own business and stay out of these foreign troubles.
That is what our people want. And so far as I am concerned, that is what they are going to get.
Vandenberg was still an isolationist at the time of Pearl Harbor.
But as he watched World War II being fought, saw its new methods of destruction, watched the dawn of the atomic age, he changed.
On January 10, 1945, he stood in the Senate and made his most famous speech.
I remind you that prior to December 1941, we were conscientiously divided along lines of deep conviction regarding our proper world,
a role in a world at war, just as we were similarly divided 20 years before regarding our proper role in a world at peace.
Pearl Harbor ended that debate.
It brought a united country to far-flung battle lines where we swiftly mobilized the greatest fighting resources of all time.
It did more. It released an evolution which drove most of us to the irresistible conclusion that world peace is indivisible.
We learned that the oceans are no longer moats around our ramparts.
Then we contributed the crowning proof ourselves.
In the climax of this tragedy, we ourselves devised the atom bomb,
an appalling tribute to our illimitable genius, an equally appalling prophecy of civilization's suicide, unless World War III is stopped before it starts.
Vandenberg went to San Francisco to represent the Republicans in the writing of the United Nations Charter.
I return to you with the San Francisco Charter, and without an instant's hesitation, I recommend it as man's best chance for a better, happier, and safer world.
In the 1946 election, when the Republicans gained control of the Senate,
Arthur Vandenberg became chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Under his guidance, the Republican 80th Congress, working with the Democratic president, passed some of its most important foreign policy bills.
He hammered through the aid to Greece and Turkey, the Marshall Plan.
Even when Senator Tom Connolly replaced him as chairman, an already ailing Vandenberg helped make possible the now vital Atlantic Pact.
But Arthur Vandenberg was no rubber stamp.
We are signing no blank check, but I ask you also to understand that we are signing no mere scrap of paper.
This pact will mean what it says, or it is devoid of war-preventive authority.
It means that if another armed aggressor threatens any or all of us with World War III, God save the mark.
All of us will forthwith unite to stop the aggression before it becomes universal, and to defeat it before it becomes a universal conquest.
The senator worked with three secretaries of state, Stettinius at Dombarton Oaks, Burns, and the Marshall.
He strove endlessly to make the United Nations work.
We must not be impatient.
It took five years to take the world apart.
It would not be surprising if it took at least that long to put it together again.
Never holding himself up as a prophet, Arthur Vandenberg said this about what could cause a war.
In my opinion, if it happens, it will come from some tragically unfortunate incident,
which may well be the result of somebody's miscalculation as to how far we will tolerate some policy
which either threatens our own security or world peace, or which violates our conception of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Arthur Vandenberg never ceased being a Republican, leaned toward conservatism, but always wanted a liberal element in the GOP.
I want the Republican Party to be liberal enough to march with the times, to dare new answers to new problems,
and to use the power and strength and initiative of government to help citizens to help themselves
when they confront problems beyond their own resources and their own control.
I want the oak to stand, but I want the branches to grow.
Vandenberg called him as he saw him. He thought Yalta and Potsdam major errors.
Worked with Harry Truman, but always resented his slurs against the 80th Congress, whose international record was so much his record.
In his long illness, Vandenberg grieved deeply over the losing of the peace.
Occasionally, when he felt up to it, he was gracious enough to indulge in some informal correspondence with this reporter.
In the last letter we received from him, he said, the grave need is to find a meeting of the minds which will assure our own country
and the world that our democracy can function in time of crisis.
This common action does not mean that we cease to be Republicans or Democrats at home.
It does not mean that we mute our criticisms of mistakes.
It does not mean a fake unity devoid of popular consent.
It means that we strive by consultation to lift foreign policy above partisan issue.
It means that we attempt to hammer out the greatest possible measure of agreement
so we can speak to the world not as Republicans or Democrats, but as undivided Americans.
We are now divided, bitterly, hysterically.
As congressmen and ordinary citizens, are, in Senator Vandenberg's phrase, consulting partisan rather than national destiny.
Arthur Vandenberg, in the later years of his political life, was like George Patton.
He never bothered about his flanks, drove straight ahead.
Those on his right and left are now in confusion and contention, and he is silent.
But Vandenberg had much of Lincoln's faith in the people.
Had he lived, he would have gloried in this controversy and he would have steadied it.
And he would have been confident that in the end of the day, the little men of loud voice and small faith,
those who consult partisan rather than national destiny,
will yield to the collective changing judgment of the American people.
Arthur Vandenberg was a little more than life-size in the field of foreign policy.
His party and his nation are poorer for his passing.
It was our inclination and our duty to try to say so.
You have just heard Program 19 and the CBS series, Hear It Now,
a document for air based on the week's news.
Hear It Now is edited and produced by Edward R. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly,
and the CBS staff which includes John Aaron, Jesse Zalsma, Irving Gitlin, Joseph Werschper, and Edmund Scott.
Portions of the program originated at WTOP, Washington, WKRC, Cincinnati, WEI, Boston, WCAU, Philadelphia,
WJR, Detroit, KMOX, St. Louis, WBBM, Chicago, KSWM, Joplin, Missouri, KDAL, Duluth, WJEF, Grand Rapids, WJAS, Pittsburgh, KCBS, San Francisco,
the Voice of America, and United Nations Radio.
Special acknowledgment is made to the National League and the American League for their cooperation in making the baseball recordings possible,
and to John Deer of the CBS Sports Department.
Special acknowledgment is also made to George Cushing of WJR Detroit and Don Richardson of WJEF Grand Rapids
for their invaluable assistance in documenting the Vandenberg story.
Korean recordings were by CBS correspondents John Jefferson and George Herman, and by armed forces combat correspondence.
Edward R. Murrow can be heard over most of these same CBS stations Monday through Friday at 7.45 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
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This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.