1962. John Glenn's Voice Heard Around the World

John Glenn Successfully Returns

"Astronaut John Glenn relaxes aboard the USS Noa after being recovered from the Atlantic near Grand Turk Island after his historic Mercury flight. Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth on February, 20, 1962 in his 'Friendship 7' capsule" (source)

Article by Jack Gould in The New York Times, February 22, 1962:

TV: Astronaut Protected

N.A.S.A. Relayed the Conversation With Glenn to Spare Him Hazard of Slips

By JACK GOULD

Protection of the personal privacy of Lieut. Col. John H. Glenn Jr. while he circled the earth was one of the factors that dictated a review of his conversation before it was rebroadcast to a world-wide audience.

Although Colonel Glenn's exchanges with ground stations were transmitted on a frequency that fell within the range of conventional shortwave receivers, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration expressly sought to limit advance knowledge of the wave length in use.

The N.A.S.A. goal was to spare the astronaut any unnecessary psychological hazard of knowing that every word he spoke would be instantly overheard around the world. Both personal and scientific considerations made it desirable for Colonel Glenn to be free to be himself at all times.

•

To that end the agency worked out the taping arrangement whereby Colonel Glenn knew that he would be under the protection of his colleagues and at the same time that the drama of his conversations still could be conveyed to the public with a delay of not more than a few minutes.

Colonel Glenn, as a matter of fact, was disturbed when he learned that the precise frequency of one of his transmitters was anything but a secret in the world of communications. He reportedly shuddered at the thought that, in the event of some emergency, he might make a slip of the tongue.

The possibility of an emergency, of course, also was an argument in favor of the taping procedure. Instantaneous relaying of an astronaut's voice in the event of imminent disaster could have profound repercussions that no one even wanted to contemplate.

Yet, with the flight turning out so successfully, there were advantages in the use of a frequency that required no particular expertise or special equipment to tune in. For scientists the world around, the ultimate in proof of the fine accomplishment was to hear the raw signals of either the ground stations or Colonel Glenn's transmitter or both, as each orbit was made.

In fact, during the earlier stages of the space competition between the United States and Russia, one of the incidental Soviet propaganda advantages was to employ a frequency, which short-wave listeners or amateur radio operators could receive.

In New York area the voice of Comdr. Alan B. Shepard Jr., the capsule communicator at Cape Canaveral, could be heard with perfect living room volume each time Colonel Glenn passed over. Colonel Glenn could not be heard in orbit, but after the landing, apparently through a relay station on the Noa, the destroyer that plucked the man from the ocean his voice was heard very distinctly. Closer to Cape Canaveral, of course, both sides of the conversations were picked up independently of the agency.

Commander Shepard's salutations to his returned associate reflected what can only be described as the matter-of-fact elation so typical of attractive astronaut demeanor. It seemed a pity that the perfect climax had to be omitted from the account heard by the public.

There was another behind-the-scenes technical event that proved both hilarious and illustrative of the frustrations of the TV journalistic life. As part of a network pool there was an elaborate short-wave voice circuit between the Downrange Control Center in New York and network correspondents stationed on naval vessels in the recovery area.

•

Bill Downs, of the Columbia Broadcasting System, was stationed on the Randolph and as Colonel Glenn headed his way one could feel his excitement. After the astronaut's splash Mr. Downs doggedly pursued what he believed would be the climactic broadcast of the whole day.

Finally, Mr. Downs got in touch with a witness to the landing and pleaded for the New York control center to give him airtime on the networks. As gently as possible under the circumstances, New York replied that the landing story already had come out of the agency at Cape Canaveral. In the anguish of his understandable disappointment, Mr. Downs made his own contribution—an orbiting vocabulary.

1943. Renewed Heavy Air Fighting on the Eastern Front

The Air War Expands as Spring Approaches

"Soviet Ilyushin Il-2 ground-attack aircraft during the Battle of Kursk in the southern side of the salient," July 1, 1943 (source)

The parentheses indicate portions that did not pass Soviet censors for military or propaganda reasons.

(For more, see the complete 1943 Moscow reports.)

Bill Downs

CBS Moscow

March 23, 1943

One of the best ways to keep up on what's happening or about to happen on this tremendous Russian front is to keep close tabs on the Soviet air activity.

This is especially true at this time of year, when spring thaws tend to lessen ground activity and when clear weather allows large-scale air fighting.

As you know, the Soviet communiqués do not put the same emphasis on the air offensive as do the American and British communiqués from Britain, or General MacArthur's announcements in the South West Pacific. This is mainly because the Red Army, and not the Red Air Force, has been "carrying the ball" here in Russia.

However, I believe that from now on you will get more news of Russia's air war than has been given throughout the winter offensive. And this news will be highly significant in following the course of the fighting in Russia.

For example, this morning's communiqué mentions heavy air fighting in the Kuban for the second successive day. A total of eighteen German planes were shot out of the air in this sector yesterday, fifteen of these in air battles. The day before, Soviet pilots bagged another fifteen enemy planes while ack-ack got another six. This makes a total of thirty-nine German planes downed in forty-eight hours on this one sector alone.

The spring thaw should be just about over in the Kuban. This battle for air superiority on this sector is a fairly definite indication that the Soviet command is resuming the initiative aimed at throwing the trapped German forces across the Kerch Strait.

We have had very little news of the situation around Leningrad since the Red Army broke the ring around the city last January 18th. However, we know that there is fighting going on in this sector every day, and occasionally the Russian communiqués give a hint of it. Yesterday, for example, it was announced that in recent air activity the Red Air Force destroyed twenty-two German planes while antiaircraft downed another twelve Nazi planes.

These facts, of course, are sidelights to the main fighting now proceeding in the direction of Smolensk and the German counteroffensive along the Donets and the Bryansk sectors. However, they are sidelights well worth keeping an eye on.

American aircraft are going to play an increasing part in Russia's air war this spring and summer. We already know that large numbers of American fighters and medium bombers are participating in the Soviet offensive in the Kuban. Other American warplanes are also fighting in the battles west of Moscow as well as in the Bryansk sector.

A lot of Lend-Lease aircraft from the United States this winter and more are coming every day. Hitler's aircraft industry already is overstrained by the Allied air offensive in Western Europe. It's going to be even heavier taxed this spring and summer as the Red Air Force increases its offensive in the East.

___________________________________

Bill Downs

CBS Moscow

March 25, 1943

Major Red Army activity this morning is occurring at points one thousand miles apart on the extreme ends of the Russian front.

Down in the Kuban, Russian forces are again on the move through the swamps and rice fields near the mouth of the Kuban River. The spring thaws have turned small streams into flooding rivers, and fighting in this sector is a series of amphibious attacks. Boats have replaced horses for the transport of supplies and artillery. (Not even horses can be used very much in the Kuban, and in many instances the infantry has been forced to roll its artillery pieces into position by hand.)

West and north of Moscow, two important developments are underway. The Red Army thrust across country toward Smolensk is now threatening the main defensive point northwest of that city. In a drive on the inhabited point of Dukhovshina, another arm made more progress westward last night along the railroad line toward Smolensk.

The other development in the north is the air over the Leningrad Front. Some of the heaviest air fighting on this sector in recent months was reported in this morning's communiqué. Thirty-two German planes were shot down on the Leningrad Front yesterday. There have been no details of just exactly what is going on there, but neither the Germans nor the Russians have ever conducted separate air actions on this front since the war began. Air fighting in virtually every case has been accompanied by some sort of land activity.

___________________________________

Bill Downs

CBS Moscow

April 12, 1943

First details of the Russian bombing of Königsberg Saturday night give a satisfying picture of fires and explosions throughout the East Prussian city. The Soviet air force seldom releases details of its bombing missions with the completeness given in the reports from the United States air corps or the RAF.

However, the Russian part in the double-barreled bombing of Germany Saturday night is marked up as a success. The Russian bombers were led by the Guards squadron headed by Major Alexander Molodchy. Molodchy has been over Könisberg five times before. He is one of the few men in the Red Army to be twice decorated with the gold star of the Hero of the Soviet Union.

The weather was bad on the flight to the target, but all planes found their way and dropped their bombs. Despite the bad visibility, the fires and explosions could be seen from 15,000 feet. All of the planes returned to their bases.

In general, the Russian front was again quiet last night. Scouting parties and patrol clashes are keeping the 1,200 mile battle line alive. The German command has failed to develop its pressure on the Donets front. And in the Kuban, an uneasy lull prevails as both sides gather their strength in this critical sector.

For the past several weeks, you probably have noticed that the Russian communiqués have talked a lot about the large number of German self-propelling guns that have been knocked out on the various fronts. This is one of the best weapons developed by German engineers, although neither America nor Russia is behind the Germans in construction of these guns.

The other day, the Russians gave some details of this mobile artillery which the Germans used so successfully in Poland and France.

The German self-propelling gun is similar to a 22-ton tank armed with a 75-millimeter gun. (The four-man crew is protected in the front and on the sides by heavy armor. The top and rear of the gun has no covering.)

The German gun has a cruising speed of thirty miles an hour but it can go as fast as sixty to seventy miles an hour if it has to.

The Germans have been using the gun in surprise attacks against stationary lines of artillery. However, the Red Army has found out that ordinary antitank defenses easily knock out this "nomad artillery."

And lately the German command has been a little reticent in putting their self-propelling artillery under the strong fire of the Russian antitank weapons.

Although no details have been released, the Russians also have self-propelling guns. The Germans found out about them in the winter offensive.

1937. The Contrasting Personalities of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler

"The Two Dictators of Central Europe View Themselves Very Differently"

Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler watch military exercises in Mecklenburg during a state visit on September 26, 1937 (Photo by Heinrich Hoffman)

This article is part of a series of posts on how newspapers covered the rise of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler in Italy and Germany prior to World War II.

From The New York Times, September 26, 1937, pp. 4-5, 20:

MYSTIC AND REALIST — A FATEFUL MEETING

Conference of Hitler and Mussolini Brings Together Strongly Contrasting Characters

By ANNE O'HARE McCORMICK

The visit of Benito Mussolini to Adolf Hitler highlights the big question mark written on the international sky. The meeting was carefully timed by the best showmen in Europe to focus attention on that question, create dramatic suspense—and leave it hanging in the air, bolder, cleaner, but still unanswered—Will the Rome-Berlin axis hold?

There is no doubt about the interest, drama and suspense attending the meeting of the two most extraordinary figures thrown up by the backwash of the last war. They meet not only as men but as Governments, personified nations, in the most strictly private conference nations have ever achieved, and a curious hush and pause marks the conjunction, as if eyes and ears everywhere were strained to watch and listen.

For the encounter is even better timed than when it was first arranged. The Nyon accord, followed by a patrol very like Franco-British control of the Mediterranean, lends unexpected reality to what was meant to be a spectacular gesture.

The Rome-Berlin axis cannot be said to link two nations, or even two men who perform as nations. When Hitler and Mussolini met in Venice three years ago last June, nothing came of it but the tragic anti-climax of the Vienna putsch. The dictators failed to click, and any one acquainted with the two men would say that they must always fail to click. This is not only because one supreme being is not at ease with another supreme being. Nor because the shade of the murdered Dolfuss stalks in the background. Both the unsocial Roman and the gregarious German are direct and simple creatures who can be very agreeable when they wish. But they live on different planes, with different outlooks, different conceptions of themselves and their roles.

Mussolini is not Machiavelli. He is too downright, forthright and close to the ground. Hitler is not Joan of Arc. His kingdom is too much of this earth, too uncatholic. But if you can imagine the author of "The Prince" in conference with the Maid of Orleans, you get an idea of the points of contact in the current dialogues in Munich and Berlin.

If you searched the world you could hardly find two men more divergent in tastes, temperament, appearance, manner, mentality, habits, methods, range of interests. If Hitler and Mussolini have anything in common besides a lowly origin, a desperate early struggle and a meteoric rise to power, it does not appear either in private conversation or public performance. Both, to be sure, were corporals in the trenches—in opposite trenches—and twenty years ago neither had been heard of outside his native village. They are as much products of war as the mass despair and disillusion which they expressed, organized and put in the saddle.

•   •   •

As portents, freaks in the freakish tides of history, the two corporals are oddly alike. As persons they are very different. Mussolini is a writer. He started his career as a hack journalist and producer of pot-boiling serial stories in one of the Alpine towns he passed through on the way to Munich. But although he wrote his way to power and today dictates as many leaders for his paper as any working editor, and although Hitler began as art student and architectural draftsman in the city wherein he welcomes his guest, it is characteristic that it was the painter who wrote a book and the writer who built up his movement without any written program whatever.

The greater part of "Mein Kampf" was composed in prison, yet if Hitler had not been incarcerated he would have secluded himself anyway to pour forth his thoughts on paper. He is not by nature a man of action, physical or mental. He takes no part in active sports. He has never bothered to learn a foreign language. From his youth he has alternated between spurts of violent energy and periods of withdrawal, passivity and self-communion. He hates regular work, administrative detail, the daily decisions of the executive, the "political atmosphere" of Berlin.

Less and less as time goes on does the ruler of Germany appear in his capital. The periods of withdrawal grow longer each year. More and more does he become the Voice on the Mountain, prophet and symbol. Yet even in seclusion he cannot bear to be alone. He needs to be surrounded by his early disciples. He likes accustomed things, his old table in a Munich cafe, familiar faces, the profile of the Bavarian hills, classic music, working at architectural plans.

He needs, above all, periodic immersion in the crowd. Trailing him in his electoral campaign in the Rhineland last year, watching him night after night in huge meetings, I saw how he drew force, fire, emotion from his audiences. He starts as if he were in conversation, on a dead level, quiet, didactic, rather dull. As he proceeds he works himself up, comes alive. Finally he seems to plumb down and siphon into himself all the inarticulate feeling of the mass before him.

It is a strange manifestation, and helps to explain the power of a leader who by himself produces no impression of power. Face to face, in an interview or in a small group, he seems remote, wrapped in his own thoughts. Always, despite his passionate Germanism, he seems the leader of a party. A full-length portrait of the Fuehrer is the portrait of the National Socialist. One cannot imagine him at home in any other company, thinking in other terms or interested in extraneous ideas.

•   •   •

If the two dictators run true to form in the present exchanges, Mussolini will be asking Hitler questions, pumping him in reporter fashion, and Hitler will be expounding doctrines and theories. If the conversation takes a positive turn, Hitler will explain and elaborate at length and Mussolini will assert himself seldom and in few words. Contrary to the general impression, the Duce is not a talker. He reserves his speechmaking for public occasions. He can stand for hours at a stretch, reviewing a parade or at a reception, and usually he stands silent. He can sit silent for hours while the Grand Council or some industrial corporation debates. As a dictator he is a "natural," in the sense that he works alone, plays alone if possible, depends on nobody, is a born administrator, always on the job, and embodies the dictatorial qualities of force, energy and decision.

One striking difference between the two men is in their approach to the outer world. All dictators are prisoners of their own power, cut off from normal intercourse, their information as carefully filtered as that of their subjects. But Mussolini reads voraciously, while Hitler meditates, waiting for the spirit to move him. Mussolini sees more people in a day than the Fuehrer sees in a week, or a month, and he interrogates them all. I recall interviewing him once after I had seen Hitler. He was full of curiosity about the German leader, how the people regarded him, what he was interested in, what manner of man he was. As always, he asked endless questions.

"Is he a mystic?" he inquired at last.

"I think mediumistic would describe him better," was the reply.

"Ah, that is what nobody has told me!" he exclaimed, indicating how often he puts the same question. "And it explains. He is an instrument, a vessel through which emotion flows. Yes, that is it!"

•   •   •

Hitler, on the contrary, evinced not the slightest curiosity about Mussolini, Roosevelt, or any one else. He asked no questions. He was intent solely on explaining himself, his policies, his plans. No one listening to him for ten minutes, in public or private, could doubt that he is possessed by the idea of his mission.

The Italian is a different order of being, living on another level. He is pure pragmatist. He wrote no bible of fascism because he had no doctrine, and if he had, he would not have put it in a book for fear the printed program would belie the actual record and prove how flexible, after all, is the "inflexible will." Italian fascism developed its theory in practice. If the inventor had a theory fifteen years ago, it was only to create a Government strong enough to put an end to class conflict. This is the purpose of the Corporative State, which has evolved so gradually, by progressive transfers of power not from one class to another but from all classes to the State, that only now does it reveal that its inevitable end is to destroy free capitalism as well as free trade unionism.

Mussolini admits that capitalism is the economic form of democracy. He agrees that dictatorship means State socialism, or what Hitler calls National Socialism. The difference between them is a difference of degree—the "coverage" of Italian fascism after fifteen years is not so complete as that of National Socialism after four—a difference of national character. The Teutonic passion for "race" seems juvenile to the Latin, too old and blasé to cherish the illusion that any blood is "pure," and the equivalent emotion for "our sea" among a people Mussolini has made Mediterranean-conscious is as incomprehensible to the German.

The full-length portrait of Mussolini is not the Fascist but the Italian. To him fascism is not a religion, as National Socialism is to Hitler, but a method for the aggrandizement of Italy. Proof of this is seen in the care with which he has preserved pre-Fascist forms and institutions. The monarchy is intact. The church is strengthened by the settlement of the Roman question. Even the Parliament continues its regular sessions, remaining in abeyance, so to speak, if for no other reason than to dissolve itself and legalize the transition into the Council of Corporations. The framework of the Constitution and the general code of law are retained. Mussolini has at least provided for the possibility of an orderly end to the dictatorship.

Hitler, on the contrary, seems possessed to smash the whole governmental pattern, monarchy and republic to clear the ground for a design distinctively and exclusively National Socialist. It is believed that he is preparing to perpetuate the office of Reichsfuehrer as supreme head of the State and make Göring Chancellor or Premier of the Reich, charged with the administrative functions. Parliament he has practically abolished, even as a debating society. The courts function to apply the new code of the party rather than the old body of law. The campaign against the churches and in favor of a new party religion, like the dissolution of international organizations, indicates an intention to make a clean sweep of every old allegiance. Hitler aims to leave no alternative to a dictatorship. He sees himself succeeded by a line of Fuehrers a thousand years long.

•   •   •

Both dictators are gamblers. Neither would stop at anything to reach his objectives. The Italian undoubtedly considers himself a man of destiny, but not, like the German, a man inspired—a messiah. So far Hitler has won his victories more neatly and cheaply than Mussolini. Few leaders have gained so much without moving beyond their own borders. Up to now he has taken few risks in foreign policy. In a dangerous game Mussolini plays a poor hand recklessly but calculatingly—ready, if the odds go against him, to play to the end. This is what he did in East Africa; it is what he may be expected to do in Spain. The one taste they share points to the same sharp contrast. Both are lovers of music, but Mussolini performs and Hitler absorbs. He never tires of listening to music, and as a patron of this and all arts he bears an odd kinship to the Ludwigs of Bavaria. In the early years of his regime the Duce used to play his violin late at night in the little flat on a narrow street where he lived alone. Now he says he has no time to play. "The world is too much with us," he complains. But he has time for everything else. In middle age he has learned to pilot a plane, drive a racing car and a speed boat, ski, swim, ride, fence. Part of this display of athleticism is by way of example; he wants to set the pace and model to quicken an easy-going people. Part of it is sheer vitality, curiosity and vanity. Hitler does not have to make this effort. Germans love sports, and while he exhorts them to be strong, to marry and have children, he is not driven, like the Duce, to practice everything he preaches.

Both have a limited acquaintance with the world. Mussolini studied and starved in Switzerland, traveled in France and Germany, but except for a conference at Lausanne and visits to the African colonies, this trip to Germany is his first journey outside Italy since he came to power. Hitler campaigned up and down the land for ten years and knows Germany thoroughly, but he has never stepped beyond the German world except to visit Mussolini at Venice. His native Austria he yearns to see incorporated in Germany, and as the movement he heads is subjective, the outgrowth of personal experience, he imagines all Austrians share his feeling. This explains an obsession that will never wholly yield to reason or diplomacy.

The two, in short, are almost complete opposites, but the success of the present meeting hinges not on personal attraction. The political picture has changed drastically in three years, largely through the separate operations of these two men. Since Venice Mussolini has conquered Ethiopia, widened his orbit in the Mediterranean, become the chief backer of Insurgent Spain, and by these extensions of power alarmed and alienated Italy's former allies. Hitler has smashed the Versailles system, destroyed France's protective zone on the Rhine, recreated an armed Germany, and by this aggressive comeback has upset the balance of Europe and still further isolated the Reich.

So far the two dictators have not acted together except in Spain. They have not pursued common policies. They were divided by Austria, by antagonistic interests in the Balkans, by dissatisfied German minority in the Italian Tyrol, by Italian fears of German intrusion in the Middle Sea, by rooted German resentment of Italy's switch to the enemy in the World War, by the Stresa front, by memories of the past, rivalries in the present, dread of the future—by everything, in fact, that separates one people from another.

As late as last year Mussolini could agree that "the worst thing that ever happened to fascism was Hitler." Until the end of the Ethiopian war the National Socialist Government could refer to the Italian adventure in scathing and contemptuous terms. The Germans would not join the League in sanctions, but the Nazis were too bitter over Austria at the time to lift a finger to help Italy. One of the paradoxes of sanctions was that the Italians could get more supplies from Russia and England than from Germany.

•   •   •

The archaeological and sentimental love of Germans for Italy, its monuments, its climate and its mellow beauty does not extend to the living Italians cluttering up the classic landscape. The liking of Italians to Germans is almost wholly commercial; they welcome the "Tedeschi" as tourists and traders. Even the two systems of government admire one another with large reservations. Italy and Germany are two fundamentally unsympathetic nations whose fate is always to be drawn together until some crucial emergency as invariably tears them apart.

Today they are drawn together by a common isolation. Mussolini and Hitler are at once more powerful and more isolated than when they quarreled over Austria. Otherwise the purely strategic line they have drawn from Rome to Berlin would revolve in a vacuum. Unless one or the other finds another friend, this is one of the moments when the immediate advantages of hanging together far outweigh considerations based on a permanent conflict of interest.

The journey over the Brenner is meant to emphasize that fact. But Mussolini must have smiled as he passed from the Italian guard lined up on one side of the little intervening strip of Austria and was met by the stalwarts of Hitler's guard on the other. In the speech in Sicily last month he reaffirmed the strength of the Rome-Berlin axis and gave a most conciliatory response to Mr. Chamberlain's proffer of friendship. Also, he made another statement, perhaps more significant. He said that there were 100,000 Alpine troops on the Brenner and that if necessary the entire Italian infantry would be mobilized on that frontier. This reference to Nazi agitation among the 250,000 Germans of the Upper Adige, as persistent as in Austria, Denmark or Czechoslovakia, was not reported in the American press. It was headlined in Paris, however, and could not have been lost on Berlin.

•   •   •

Austria is bound to loom large in the background if not in the foreground of the conversations in Berlin. Austria is the touchstone of the reality of the Rome-Berlin axis. If the dependence of the two powers on one another at this moment is such that they can agree on a formula for Austria, then a new European platform is in the making. And that implies easing the tension between Berlin and another Rome, as powerful and persistent in its fashion as Mussolini's—the Rome of the Vatican. It is significant that on the eve of the Duce's visit the Pope has issued a thunderous prophecy of violent persecution of the church in Germany. It reads almost like a warning to Italy against entering an anti-Bolshevist alliance with a Government that encourages a Bolshevist attitude toward religion.

The dialogue is bound to reveal how tenuous is the natural affinity between the dictators as men and the nations as nations. The inherent weakness of the partnership is that it does not develop from within but as the result of pressure from without. It is essentially artificial. It depends largely on the attitude of Paris and London. And on forces more real than ideological bonds or political considerations. As the two corporals of the last war review the new German Army they may look back as well as ahead. If they do they will remember that alliances of convenience usually end in divorce.

1949. Anticipating the Economic Collapse of the West

The East-West Economic Cold War

Propaganda at Potsdamer Platz in East Berlin around 1950 reads "Wir wollen keine neuen Trümmer! Darum: Ami go home," translated as "We do not want any new ruins! Therefore: Ami go home" (source)

Bill Downs

CBS Berlin

July 2, 1949

The biggest story currently running in the Berlin Communist press is not the lifting of the blockade effected this week; it is not the modus vivendi agreement which is current Russian policy.

Today the entire Soviet-licensed press is quoting its archenemy, The Wall Street Journal, as proof of what it calls the poverty of United States economic and foreign policy.

The Wall Street Journal has caused a dialectical sensation in the Communist press, and they are giving it the kind of headlines that our newspapers reserve for a juicy murder or a spy trial.

The Journal's former Berlin correspondent, Joseph Evans, wrote a story advocating the resumption of East-West trade in Europe and attacking the current State Department policy as negative.

The Communist attention given to this article from the bastions of Wall Street capitalism is interesting, important, and revealing.

The historical position of Marxism is that the Capitalist nations, by the very nature of their competitive economies, must undergo a spiral of ever-increasing violent economic upheavals which eventually bring about their downfall. The Communists say that, in order to perpetuate themselves, the Capitalists must turn their nations toward economic regimentation in the hands of the few—which is fascism—and in order to make profits they must make war.

For the past month the Communist propaganda has been stressing the significance of the decline of the American stock market, and this past week they have been reporting with unconcealed glee the financial difficulties being experienced by nations in the European Recovery Plan.

In other words, the Communists east of the Iron Curtain are waiting for their predictions of imminent economic crisis to hit with full force.

An article from Wall Street which calls for renewed East-West trade, in the European viewpoint, thus becomes big news as a sign of Capitalist desperation—an admission that the only way to prevent a major depression in the Democratic Capitalistic nations of the West is to do business with the Communist-controlled East.

In view of this attitude, the question then is: "If the Soviet Union expects Western Capitalism to enter into another nation-shaking depression, why the softening of its international attitude? Why the modus vivendi agreement on Berlin and East-West trade?"

Economists and diplomats here in Berlin have been asking themselves the same questions. They give two possible answers:

First, that the Iron Curtain countries may be in much more difficult economic straits than anyone knows. We have had no solid production figures from the East since the end of the war. That when the so-called "soft" Russian policy calls for resumption of East-West trade, it means that Eastern Europe needs it as much or more than the West.

The other reasoning by authorities here in weighing the cause of the new Soviet policy goes like this: "If the West is headed for extreme difficulty, the Russians want to do nothing which might provoke the Western nations toward unity, or toward a coalition which, under conditions of crisis, might precipitate an anti-Russian bloc even more solidly anti-Communist than now exists." In other words, according to some observers here, the Russians would like to see each individual Western nation go into its individual economic depression in its own individual handbasket.

There is genuine concern among American authorities here that the interdependent postwar economic complex of America and Western Europe might be heading toward a depression, thus provoking the initial premise of the Communists. If such an economic upheaval strikes in the Democracies, then the nightmare of unemployment, social unrest, and poverty faces the Western World.

The hard fact is that the interdependence of the modern nations now is so close that a stock market failure in Wall Street may mean the fall of pro-American foreign governments. A depression in America can result in the failure of democracy in Europe.

The social and economic forces now at play in Europe will have a profound effect in the United States—in our economy, our government, and our everyday life.

The record of history shows that when a free nation fails to live up to its responsibility to its people and its neighbors the result is chaos, revolution, or war—or all three.

___________________________________

Bill Downs

CBS Berlin

July 8, 1949

It is clear this morning that the struggle between East and West has shifted its ground. The Cold War, which for the past year in Germany has been predominately political in its objectives, today is concentrating on the economic.

Indicative of this new direction in the party line are the headlines of Communist press describing the British pound crisis and today's conference between American and British finance ministers. "Panic in the camp of the Cold War," the headlines say. "Marshall Plan intensifies Western depression—America's extortions."

In Germany itself, the first major test of the two economic systems is in the making. The East German Economic Commission, representing the Russian-sponsored controlled economy, is now negotiating with the Western-backed Free Enterprise Commission from Frankfurt in an attempt to revive East-West trade.

The test will come when this trade begins. The Communists are betting that capitalism cannot find a way out of its economic difficulties without East-West trade—that, by providing this trade, the Socialist states in the Russian orbit will be able to control the economic destinies of capitalism, and thus eventually control the political course of these nations.

I have further information from private sources today that the Communists in the Soviet zone are having their troubles too.

More and more evidence is coming in that a major purge is underway among key German leaders in responsible position of the East German administration. This cleanup also has affected a number of Russian occupation officials, particularly those charged with supervising the cultural side of the occupation. Three Soviet officers in the administration of the Russian-licensed Soviet news bureau have disappeared from their jobs. There is a major shakeup in the Red Army newspaper Tägliche Rundschau. Those Soviet officials who have contact with the Western occupation powers are under surveillance for signs of what they call "infection from the West."

In the Communist-controlled Socialist Unity Party, more than three thousand members have been ousted in the Dresden and Leipzig areas in a major clean-out of suspected cardholders.

The objective of this purge is to create a cadre part of Communist functionaries in Eastern Germany by this fall. The action was under direct order from Moscow.

This is Bill Downs in Berlin. Now back to CBS in New York.