December 27, 2022

1943. Foreign Correspondents Visit Kharkiv

The Destruction of Kharkiv
Civilians in Kharkiv, Ukraine during the German occupation in May 1943 (source)
Bill Downs was part of a group of American and British foreign correspondents that visited the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv shortly after it had been retaken temporarily by the Soviets in February 1943. The accounts featured in this Newsweek article were expanded upon in longer reports Downs did for CBS in February and March of that year. After the Germans retook Kharkiv in March, he wrote:
"[T]here is no better demonstration of just what Hitlerism stands for in this world than Kharkov. Usually, discussions about 'truth' have a nebulous quality that almost always end up in confused arguments about what is right and what is wrong. I don't want to preach any sermons. There is nothing nebulous about 'truth' in Kharkov today. The people who told the truth to us American and British reporters now stand under the thread of execution. Truth in that Ukrainian city today is a matter of life and death."

From Newsweek, March 8, 1943, pp. 22-23:

Kharkov's Story

Bill Downs, Newsweek's Moscow correspondent, sent the following cable on his return from a visit to Kharkov just eight days after the recapture of the city by the Red Army.

Fifteen months' occupation of Kharkov—what Hitler calls "Aryan Colonization"—has all but killed the Soviet capital of the Ukraine. Kharkov today looks like a city which has undergone earthquake, the Black Plague, and the Chicago Fire all at once. But the city's wounds are not so much on the surface as at its foundations—they are spiritual rather than material.

It is in the faces of the people of Kharkov that you read the city's real tragedy. They had been hungry for so long that they had got used to it. Their faces were dough white or pastry yellow. The children had deep circles under their eyes. Everybody's clothing needed washing, patching, and replacing.

These people who were lucky enough to survive lived for fifteen months on a maximum of 300 grams (10½ ounces) of bread a day—supplemented with what the family furniture and clothing would bring in the way of food through secret barter with the farmers in the surrounding district.

There are few young men anywhere in the Kharkov district today. Those caught in the city when the Germans marched in were either sent to Germany or were shot or hanged or escaped to unoccupied Russia. Even boys of 12 and 14 have the look of men about them. There are many women, some of them young. But one schoolteacher told me: "Most of our beautiful Ukrainian girls are gone now." The Germans also shipped beauty back to Germany as a Ukrainian commodity.

When the Germans entered the city a year ago last October, they immediately began hanging men. For a distance of 2 miles down Sumskaya Street, from the government center to the business center, Russians were hanged from every balcony. Thereafter, hangings were frequent, disappearances common, and beatings occurred every day.

The prewar population of the city was 900,000 which was swelled to 1,300,000 by refugees shortly before the occupation. The Soviets evacuated 250,000 before the occupation. The population today is estimated at 350,000. A number of people escaped to the unoccupied zone, but what happened to the rest no one will ever know. The Germans didn't bother to issue death decrees or keep records of their executions.

The Nazis organized their "colonization" schemes carefully. First, they used the extensive records of the Ukrainian Nationalist movement they had prepared in Berlin. Then they sent Nationalist leaders whom they found sympathetic into the Western Ukraine. They appointed Professor Alexeyev Kramerenko, an instructor of chemistry at the famous Kharkov university, as the town's first burgomaster. Kramerenko was an ardent Ukrainian Nationalist. The town was divided into six districts, and Kramerenko's friends were appointed district heads.

At the same time German "colonists"—businessmen, shopkeepers, carpetbaggers, and just plain adventurers—began to drift into town. The best buildings, shops, and houses were turned over to these colonists. The original Russian occupants were given worthless receipts or were told plainly to get out—or were hanged. Although the exact circumstances are unclear, Kramerenko finally realized he had been duped, and the Germans were forced to shoot him.

Meanwhile, the Germans succeeded in reestablishing part of Kharkov's factories but only for the repair of army equipment. While the population starved, parties of German soldiers searched homes of Russians suspected of hoarding sugar and other foods. Executions and internments continued. A man would be denounced to the Germans on one day and disappear the next. The Germans even tried pressing Ukrainian men into the German Army—mostly in the labor corps—but there were large numbers of desertions.

The rate of exchange for the German reichsmark was set at 1 mark for 10 rubles, giving the Germans a neat exchange profit. There was absolutely no civil law, and martial law did not include civil cases. There were many cases of rape where the parents of the offended girl were simply too terrorized to complain to the authorities.

When the Red Army drive reached the outskirts of Kharkov and two days before the Germans left, the Nazis began systematic demolition of the city's biggest and newest buildings, many of which were the pride of the Ukraine. The House of Projects, which looks like a small-sized Radio City, the House of Cooperation, which looks like a miniature Stevens Hotel, Kharkov International Hotel and others of the biggest and newest buildings were completely gutted by fire and by mining. Then the day after the Red Army's reoccupation the Germans sent over 25 bombers which systematically flew down street after street, dropping bombs on the smoldering buildings.

This is only part of the story. The rest would require a book. But Kharkov is only the first of the cities of Eastern Europe which must be retaken from the Germans. There are Kiev, Riga, Danzig, Warsaw, and a string of others where this same story is going to form one of the saddest chapters in the world's history.

December 5, 2022

1954. CBS Warns of Retaliation by Senator Joseph McCarthy

McCarthy to Appear on See It Now
CBS internal memo dated March 30, 1954 (click to enlarge)
On March 9, 1954, Edward R. Murrow devoted a full episode of See It Now to criticizing Senator Joseph McCarthy. Murrow offered him a chance to respond on air, stating: "If the Senator feels that we have done violence to his words or pictures and desires so to speak to answer himself, an opportunity will be afforded him on this program." McCarthy appeared a month later on April 6, 1954.

One week before McCarthy's appearance, CBS news director Wells "Ted" Church sent out a memo warning correspondents in Europe about possible backlash.
CONFIDENTIAL

March 30, 1954


Dear Bill:

I am sending this letter to everyone in Europe except Alex, and I leave him out only because I am sure the letter wouldn't get to him in time.

I had a short huddle with Ed this morning and something he said prompts me to write all of you. You all know how determined he has always been to keep each and every one of us out of trouble. Now he is very worried that McCarthy will have something to say about some of us that may hurt. I assured him vehemently that not a man on the staff would be really hurt regardless of what McCarthy said, and that, furthermore, being brought up to the firing line along side Ed would be an honor for any of us.

If McCarthy shows up (and there seems to be some doubt that he will) next Tuesday night, whatever he says will undoubtedly be carried where you are as well as here. I think it would be a good idea if each of you, after hearing what is said, sent Murrow some kind of appropriate cable to disabuse his mind of any worry about any harm he may have brought down on the heads of any of us. His action stems from this very fact—he thinks maybe his action in attacking McCarthy will be responsible for what McCarthy says about someone else.

I am sure you see what I mean.

Sincerely your[s],

Ted

December 2, 2022

1943. Eddie Rickenbacker Lands in Moscow

'Rick' in Russia
"Eddie Rickenbacker (left) shaking hands with Henry L. Stimson (right)," December 19, 1942 (source)
From Newsweek, July 5, 1943, pp. 28-29:

'Rick' in Russia

Eddie Rickenbacker arrived in Moscow last week on another leg of his worldwide mission investigating the performance of American planes for Secretary of War Stimson—a mission that was only temporarily interrupted by his brush with death in the Pacific. In Moscow his job will be to pry from the Russians some information on how United States Lend-Lease planes have turned out. In the following dispatch, Bill Downs, Newsweek correspondent in the Soviet capital, describes Rickenbacker's reception.

The arrival of Rickenbacker's Liberator plane caught the American military and embassy officials by surprise. The knowledge that he was even in this part of the world reached Moscow only a half hour before he landed. Ambassador William H. Standley picked up the military attaché, Brig. Gen. Joseph Michela, in his big Buick—the most luxurious car in Russia—and raced for the airport in Moscow. It was a dead heat. The Ambassador's Buick arrived just as Rickenbacker's Liberator came in.

Rickenbacker was grinning and apologized "for dropping in like this without warning." Then General Michela and Ambassador Standley got together to solve the housing problem. Admiral Standley's residence was reserved in preparation for Arthur Hays Sulzberger, publisher of The New York Times, and James Reston, assistant to the publisher, who arrived the next day on a Red Cross mission. The situation was solved by Michela who installed an extra bed in his apartment across the street from the Kremlin. The flier and his doctor, Alexander Dahl of Atlanta, who gives Rickenbacker osteopathic treatments at least once daily, were installed there.

Rickenbacker's mission had previously taken him to India and China. [This is the first report that Rickenbacker visited those countries.] He is going to Britain after he leaves the Soviet Union. The American flier also attended ceremonies at which United States medals were presented to Soviet soldiers and sailors. Rickenbacker met the foreign press in off-the-record conferences in which he talked with gracious charm—but gave no information about his mission.