1943. The Great Orel Sweepstakes

Reporters Compete for Scoops on the Eastern Front

Moscow-based foreign correspondents in 1943. Bill Downs is seated in front, second from the left.

From Newsweek, August 2, 1943, p. 82, 85:

The Orel Sweepstakes

In the event you've had trouble following the day-to-day stories on the current Russian offensive, read this account by Bill Downs, Newsweek and CBS correspondent in Moscow, about the trouble the correspondents have been having:

Correspondents covering the Battle of the Orel Bulge from the Metropole Hotel and the Foreign Office press department look more like form players than war reporters as they try to make head or tail of the Red Army's moves on Orel.

Already there had developed the "Great Orel Sweepstakes" of July 19, running this way:

Reuters: Harold King, leading, placed the Soviet forces 10 miles east of Orel. (Earlier, King had "advance forces of the Red Army only 5 miles north of the Orel-Bryansk railroad," but he promptly forgot about it.)

NBC and Exchange Telegraph: Robert Madigoff, running second in the Orel Derby, put the Soviet forces 12 miles from Orel.

Associated Press: William McGaffin pounding away for third. His Red Army troops were 15 miles from the town.

CBS and Newsweek: Bill Downs, lost in the back stretch after placing the Red Army "less than 20 miles from Orel."

Henry Shapiro of the United Press was practically left at the post, and David Nichol of The Chicago Daily News never had a chance.

The Orel sweepstakes is typical of the difficulties under which American and British reporters must compete for headlines and at the same time keep within reason in trying to interpret the progress of military movements in Russia. There is not one who had not been screaming at the press department for trips to the front or, second best, for conferences with reliable political and military authorities for guidance in covering this and other stories.

Lacking either, here is the way the foreign press corps has been covering the battle of Orel:

When the communiqué broke on July 16, about twenty villages were named. Then came a frantic searching over maps, the correspondent having the best map writing the story. Detailed maps of the Soviet Union are virtually impossible to obtain; thus old-timers who have been collecting them for the longest are the best off. After the search of the maps there was a search of the latest railroad timetables to check place names. Meanwhile copy was pouring out in takes with messengers rushing the hilly six blocks to the telegraph office where, it was hoped, transmissions were not jammed "by the weather."

Daily thereafter, the reporters have risen early to collect their Red Stars, Izvestias, and Pravdas and immediately begin a word-by-word search for clues to the battle. By combining facts from official communiqués and reports from the front east of Orel you may locate the big tank battle of the previous day or tell where the Germans are throwing their greatest reserves. From these facts you get a somewhat clearer picture of what is going on.

However, winning the Orel sweepstakes is going to depend on some revealing communiqué to tell who was right. Based on total Red Army advances, the Soviet forces should be in Orel now (July 20) if the movement were straight eastward. Meanwhile no one knows where the Soviet forces are located in the Orel bulge—except the Red Army and the Germans.

1943. How Soon Can We Expect the End of the Second World War?

The Global Tide of War

"The Combat." Editorial cartoon by Leslie Illingworth in Punch magazine, 1940

This column by William V. Pratt appeared in Newsweek, August 2, 1943, p. 25:

Concerning the Length of the War

by Admiral William V. Pratt, U.S.N. Retired

The move into Sicily is the first step in the invasion of Europe, and as such it is only part of a larger and grander strategic plan. Such strategy must be determined far in advance and necessarily unfolds rather slowly. Sicily is interesting as an indication of the form the entire invasion plan is taking.

The invasion course from North Africa to Sicily runs, generally speaking, in a northeast direction. Once Sicily is occupied, we will have built up a great base for the next forward effort. Once Sicily is occupied, we will have built up a great base for the next forward effort. This northeast invasion course took the line of least resistance and struck Sicily at its southeast corner.

From Sicily on, the line of least resistance still runs northeast to the shores of the Adriatic. The Apennines, backbone of Italy, trend, except in isolated instances, toward lower altitudes as they stretch south. The sea distances from Sicily to the lower half of Italy are less than the distance from North Africa to Sicily, and a swing of 180 miles from air bases in Sicily cover the land and sea from Naples on the west coast to Brindisi on the Adriatic.

Thus when strategy sets its course for Sicily, it struck in the center, by-passing Sardinia and Crete, knowing that if Italy fell, Sardinia would fall and the Axis position in Crete be worsened.

Turning now to the Pacific, the Navy Department struck a very sane note when it stated that the Navy was planning for a Pacific war lasting until 1949. It is to be hoped that this global war may end sooner, but wishful thinking gets nowhere. The war in Europe must be finished first, and it would take an optimist to see its conclusion before 1944. Even when the war is cleaned up, it will take time before the Allies can marshal their full strength in the Pacific. And even then, it should be a long hard pull before the Japs accept terms of unconditional surrender. Their record is against it. Their military men fight until the last man is exterminated, and their seamen refuse to be saved when their ships are sunk under them. They send their airplanes and naval ships out to be destroyed but still come on, and the men in the jungles and foxholes fight on without support or reinforcement.

Recently we have had many successes. Paramushiru, a key Jap air and naval base, has been bombed. It is almost a question now whether it might not be better to concentrate on Paramushiru and let Kiska die of attrition. For Kiska would be hurt worse if its supply line from Paramushiru were cut, than probably all the bombing and shellfire has done yet. But any expeditionary force operating in the waters of the Aleutians or Kuriles has to content with weather as a tough enemy.

We are creeping in on Munda and Salamaua, but even when these positions fall we are still working away on the fringes of the Pacific war. We haven't struck the heart of it yet. Even if Rabaul, a tough nut to crack, falls, it only gives our fleet more elbow room. Even if we drive the Jap fleet out of Truk, I don't expect a surrender or its obliteration.

Their fleet only moves north and west, nearer to the center or the ultimate struggle. There are hundreds of islands an spots now held by Jap termites, some worth taking, others better by-passed, but we won't strike a really vital blow and be on our way to ultimate victory until the Allies in force can get a foothold in China, and this means men, aircraft, naval ships, a great military, naval, and air base to work from with thousands of miles of sea to cover from source to base, and thousands of ships to bring the reinforcements where they can be used. Even with Europe out of the war, and with all the forces we can muster on Pacific waters, unconditional surrender still looks some distance away, if the Japs fight on, as they have in the past. Perhaps Tojo was right when he predicted a great future for Japan or utter obliteration for a thousand years.

1952. Murrow Boys at the Republican Convention

The 1952 Republican National Convention

Walter Cronkite in the anchor chair on July 1, 1952 (source)

From The Billboard, July 19, 1952, p. 16:

Roving Walkie-Talkie is Key to Thorough Job

by Gene Plotnick

The Columbia Broadcasting System radio network turned in a solid reportorial job on the Republican National Convention, and the key to its success was undoubtedly the walkie-talkie. CBS' corps of correspondents down on the floor of Convention Hall and in and out of the caucus rooms beamed up the latest developments in the trend of events that no camera could catch. During Monday's (7) fight on the rules, for instance, Dave Schoenbrun sent up word of the compromise embodied in the Brown amendment almost an hour before Rep. Clarence Brown went to the platform to put it before the delegates. At the moment the measure was not only not yet known as the Brown amendment, but its intent and significance were not clear. So the other CBS men on the floor interviewed key personalities on the proposal.

Also CBS brought in a rather early beat on the fact that Maryland's Governor McKeldin was releasing his delegation to vote as it chose.

CBS Radio kicked off its convention coverage Sunday (6) night at 10:05, the night before the convention itself began. Boothman Bob Trout started that show describing the empty arena. With the help of Griffing Bancroft he gave some background, and forecast the situation that would face the delegates the next day. Bill Downs on the stage of the amphitheater, Schoenbrun at Ike headquarters and Ed Morgan in Taft headquarters were piped in. The latter two, aside from describing the scenes they saw before them, also gave the background of Ike and Taft respectively.

An exchange of views between Ed Murrow and Eric Sevareid then took place from the Conrad Hilton Hotel. Murrow noted that the winning nominee could not get it on the first ballot. The pair stumbled over their own conversation in a few spots but generally contributed interesting observations.

The show, which wound up with interviews of Rep. Joseph Martin and John Foster Dulles, effectively set the overall scene of the convention city the day before the convention itself. It also enabled CBS to check through its entire coverage machinery.

Each day's proceedings were wrapped up by CBS Radio in a 30-minute show at 7 p.m. entitled "Convention Digest." The show, which for the most part embodied tapes of the major statements and sounds and noises of the day, was emceed and filled in by Charles Collingwood. In 30 minutes, "Convention Digest" did manage to give listeners a thorough summary of the day's developments so that those listeners who work during the day could have the benefits of virtually complete coverage with nothing or little lost.

Following Collingwood's show, CBS brought in Alistair Cooke for a 15 minute personal view of that day's proceedings. Cooke, U.S. correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, is author of the recently published book, "One Man's America," and his show was referred to as "One Man's Convention." On his show Cooke sounded like the calm voice midst the tumult. He described the zany, maniacal behavior of the crowds around the hotel lobbies and in the streets. And one day he spent several minutes discussing the travail of a newspaperman covering the convention in a television age. He did not concede that the newspaperman, being somewhat more maneuverable than a TV camera, can give his paper copy that its readers could not have already picked up via television. This was striking, since the CBS Radio correspondents, with their walkie-talkies, had already demonstrated that quite clearly.

The CBS pipe of the pooled feed was moderated by Bob Trout, who did a calm, clear and alert job, frequently in his inimitable singsong.

Westinghouse was the sponsor on CBS, and it must be said that for the most part their plugs were kept out of the way of important developments on the convention floor, but they were by no means perfect about this. For instance on Wednesday night, on the 4th floor debate over the seating of the Texas delegation, CBS listeners missed the entire presentation of the minority report from the Credentials Committee, except for the reading of the names of the delegates subscribing to it. They got a pitch from Westinghouse instead—if they stayed with it instead of anxiously switching stations in search of the facts.

1968. George Kennan on American Principles

Bill Downs Weighs in on George F. Kennan's Controversial Views

"Kennan at Tempelhof airport, in Berlin, in 1952, en route to Moscow" (source)

Bill Downs

ABC Washington

June 10, 1968

This is Bill Downs in Washington sitting in for Joseph C. Harsch.

A former U.S. ambassador to Moscow is so shocked at developments in American society that he suggests some Russians solutions to the problem . . . or does he?

Let's consider that question . . . right after this.

Former Ambassador George Kennan is undisputed as an expert on U.S.-Russian relations and one of the foremost analysts of Communist power and policy around the globe. But the week before last—the weekend before the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy—Mr. Kennan spoke in Williamsburg, Virginia, as an ordinary and highly concerned American citizen.

Discussing the roots of American independence put forth by such men as Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry in the Virginia Assembly, Mr. Kennan raised some self-styled "painful questions" about the U.S. national heritage and its application to present day life.

In effect, the ex-ambassador asked: When the Founding Fathers spoke of "all men being created equal" with a God-given right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," were they really putting forth principles of universal validity? Or, asks Mr. Kennan, were there precepts really meant only for those—and I quote—"of birth and breeding . . . by the spirit and discipline of the home?"

Kennan admits that the nation has proceeded on the proposition that the "self-evident truths" mentioned by Virginians like Jefferson were workable among the great masses of immigrants who initially came to the United States, but now he says the pattern of population movements in the past decades of the twentieth century should give the nation pause.

"Without a qualm," he says, "we have permitted our great cities . . . to be blighted and drained of people of education, influence, and responsibility . . . and to be colonized by huge masses of the impoverished and poorly educated . . ."

"Never . . . does it seem to have occurred to us that there might be limits to the absorbent capacity of our cities."

Then, Mr. Kennan makes a most peculiar suggestion:

"Perhaps," he said, "it was the business of governmental authority to see that these limits were not overstepped."

And later he suggests that the Negroes might have their own local political communities where they can express themselves collectively and "find identity and dignity."

We are just as disturbed as Mr. Kennan about the racial explosions in the urban ghettos. But we part company with the ambassador when he suggests that the government should somehow select who should liver where in our cities—or anywhere else in the country. Surely the former envoy to Moscow is not suggesting the propusk system used by the Communists be imported into this country. This would mean every American would carry a personal passport—a propusk—requiring him to register with the police every time he moved from town to town.

If Mr. Kennan has twentieth century doubts about the universality of the eighteenth century American Revolution, then perhaps he is guilty of misreading U.S. history.

If American democracy is imperfect, it is not because of its revolutionary principles. It is the fault of the men who failed to apply those principles and make them work.

It was history which made the United States a pluralistic society. To suggest that it can be "de-pluralized" by government ukase repudiates the American Revolution.