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Two of his conclusions: 1) The Axis radio offensive is founded on Nazi "geopolitics," on the close, scientific study of each regional audience of the earth, its interests and susceptibilities. To counter this, the U.S. radio must make up for lost time. 2) "Propaganda," which is evil in the hands of a State monopoly under Goebbels, could be a force for good in the hands of independent U.S. broadcasters, employing not lies and terror but the true attractions of democracy.
Fighting Back. All six U.S. short-wave organizations (NBC, CBS, General Electric, Crosley, Westinghouse, World Wide) and their 13 transmitters were last week pursuing a common policy against the enemy, worked out in conference with the radio experts of the Coordinator of Information (Colonel William J. Donovan) and the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (Nelson Rockefeller). Details of that policy were not publicly discussed. Its vigor, and the wider array of "coordination" it envisioned against the Axis net, were perfectly clear.
COI's central office last week was in close touch with all stations. Even Boston's hitherto very independent World Wide Broadcasting Foundation (WRUL) took studio space in Manhattan. COI, which before the war left translation and programming up to individual stations (TIME, Nov. 3), is now "cutting platters" (making recordings) and has a big staff of translators to furnish its teletypes with program material in the principal European and Asiatic tongues. Notable exception: Russian. One reason given: beams to Russia would have to pass through distorting polar magnetic disturbances.
With BBC, U.S. short-wavers now work hand in glove. A striking example&$151;and by common consent of radiomen the greatest stroke yet delivered by the U.S. in the radio war—was the use of President Roosevelt's "60,000 planes" speech. Not only did U.S. short-wave stations send it out to the world with pounding reiteration; BBC rebroadcast it, or excerpts from it, 82 times in 24 hours in 32 languages.
For the Far East, most urgent theater of the radio war, the Australian radio at Sydney has been enlisted to pick up and rebroadcast U.S. programs. To supplement California's KGEI, two R.C.A. transmitters, withdrawn from point-to-point service, now broadcast the same programs; so it will not be so simple for the Jap to ball up news from the U.S. Nor will the Jap use Manila's four stations, as he is using Shanghai's and Saigon's; all four were dismantled before Manila fell.
†Radio Goes to War, by Charles J. Rolo; Putram; $2.75.