1948-1950. The Berlin Blockade Reports

Bill Downs Reports from Blockaded Berlin

Bill Downs and Edward R. Murrow in East Berlin standing under a Free German Youth banner in 1948

Berlin, 1948 - 1950

Bill Downs served as the CBS correspondent in Berlin for nearly two years to cover the blockade and airlift. He stayed in the city from 1948 to 1950 with his wife, writer Rosalind "Roz" Downs (née Gerson). During that time he reported extensively on political developments in postwar Germany. In one letter home dated October 1948, he wrote:

You know just about as much as we do about what is going to come out of this mess. The decisions will not be made here. However the reflection of our policy shows here first and as far as I can make it out, we are preparing to continue this air lift for two years if necessary. There has been nothing that gives any hope for the lifting of the blockade in the near future. The Russians go as far as they dare without overtly precipitating war. I get the feeling that we do the same more or less. And the feeling is that there will not be any open, official conflict between the two major powers.

In another letter dated September 1948, Roz wrote about the devastation in Berlin:

We drove into the city the other day. [Edward R. Murrow] wanted to see what was left of it. The only opinion I have of the Germans after seeing Berlin and the other parts of Germany we've driven through is that they sure were damn fools. I think before the war Berlin must have been one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Now, there is no city. For miles on end there is nothing but rubble. You are startled when you see a building standing until you drive close to it and see it's only four walls with no insides. . . . It is very depressing to go into Berlin proper. As Ed said, it looks like the end of the world. It looks like something out of a fantastic story magazine; something that looks like a civilization of the past, now dead.

Below are some of Bill Downs' reports from 1948 to 1950. The text is adapted from his typewritten scripts.

1948

July 22, 1948 to September 22, 1948: Berlin's newspaper propaganda wars

July 30, 1948: Politics and the black market in West Berlin

September 12, 1948: Communists hold "Victims of Fascism" rally in Berlin

September 13, 1948: Rumors of an "X-Day" putsch

September 14 to September 16, 1948: Outcry over the sentencing of West German protesters

September 17, 1948: The East-West standoff rattles the city

September 18, 1948: US celebrates Air Force Day by ramping up the airlift

September 19, 1948: Uneasy quiet ahead of UN meeting

September 20 to September 23, 1948: Western Allied Commanders convene on the eve of UN meeting

September 24, 1948: US increases the airlift operation

September 25, 1948: Worried speculation of Soviet interference in the airlift

September 26 to September 28, 1948: The Western occupation powers appeal to the UN

September 30, 1948: The tenth anniversary of the Munich Agreement

September 30 to October 12, 1948: One hundred days of blockade

October 2, 1948: War of nerves behind the Iron Curtain

November 16, 1948: Moscow withdraws recognition of Ernst Reuter

November 18 to November 26, 1948: Elections near as the Anglo-American airlift continues

November 21, 1948: Downs' car vandalized

November 28 to November 30, 1948: Eastern sector Communists oppose West Berlin elections

November 30 to December 4, 1948: The East-West divide widens

December 4, 1948: West Berliners go to the polls

December 6, 1948: Berlin, the "island of anticommunist opposition"

December 7 to December 10, 1948: The deepening isolation of West Berlin

December 16 to December 20, 1948: The French destroy Soviet-controlled radio transmission towers

December 18, 1948: Signs of economic difficulty reported in the Soviet zone

December 19 to December 30, 1948: Christmas in Berlin

December 1948: Germans making the most of the holiday

A crowd of approximately 200,000 listens to Mayor Ernst Reuter speak in Berlin at a demonstration against the policies of the SED and the Soviet military government, September 9, 1948 (source)

1949

January 1949: Bill Downs on the "moral reconstruction" of Germany

January 4, 1949: The Kasernierte Volkspolizei

January 5, 1949: The Harnack House club

January 10 to January 24, 1949: The fascist remnants in Germany

January 12, 1949: Simmering tensions over the Ruhr

January 13, 1949: Dispute over missing German war prisoners in Russia

January 14, 1949: The West Berlin assembly prepares to meet in Schöneberg

January 14, 1949: The Communist-Socialist divide in East and West Berlin

January 17, 1949: Protests against the Ruhr occupation

January 24 to January 29, 1949: The Socialist Unity Party convenes in Berlin

January 26, 1949: The future of the two Germanies

January 28, 1949: West Germany's booming industry alarms Britain and France

January 30, 1949:  Reports of a shakeup for the US military government in Germany

January 31 to February 13, 1949: Stalin's conditions for lifting the blockade

February 7, 1949: Social Democrats accuse Soviets of espionage

February 9, 1949: Debate over Cardinal Mindszenty's sentencing in Budapest

February 16, 1949: Tensions grow as the Berlin blockade continues

February 17 to March 4, 1949: The eight Russians who refused to leave Frankfurt

February 19, 1949: Criminal trials in Munich

February 19 to February 20, 1949: Five men charged with espionage against the United States

February 23 to February 24, 1949: The Soviets opt to remain in Germany

March 2, 1949: Ultranationalism in West Germany

March 8, 1949: Fear dominates Leipzig

March 11, 1949: Soviets conduct defensive exercises along the Elbe

March 13, 1949: The West prepares for indefinite blockade

April 17, 1949: Easter in West Berlin

April 18, 1949: The US stages a major field exercise in Germany

April 19, 1949: New wave of blockade speculation in Berlin

April 20, 1949: The Kremlin reconsiders its blockade policy

April 23, 1949: The SPD and CDU work on drafting a constitution

April 23 to April 25, 1949: Western occupation powers urge statehood for West Germany

April 26 to April 27, 1949: The Kremlin calls for a Big Four conference

April 28, 1949: General Clay announces he will step down as military governor

April 29 to April 30, 1949: Berlin readies for May Day

May 5, 1949: The price to pay for lifting the blockade

May 7, 1949: Strategic failure as the Soviets plan to lift the Berlin blockade

May 8, 1949: Victory Day ceremony in Treptower Park

May 10 to May 13, 1949: Soviets dispute Western claims of ending the counter-blockade

May 11 to May 12, 1949: Celebrations as the blockade is lifted

May 14, 1949: Western powers grant West Berlin more autonomy

May 15 to May 17, 1949: Unexpected anti-Communist movement in East Berlin elections

May 21 to May 27, 1949: Massive worker uprising hits East Berlin

May 28, 1949: Council of Foreign Ministers meets in Paris to discuss Berlin crisis

June 3, 1949: Gerhart Eisler criticizes the United States

June 4 to June 10, 1949: No end in sight for the elevated rail workers' walkout

June 6, 1949: Pro-Soviet propaganda downplays D-Day's significance

June 11 to June 16, 1949: Rail workers vote to continue strike

June 18 to June 29: Occupation powers clash over rail strike

June 19 to June 23: Deal sought to end rail strike

June 25, 1949: Airlift marks its first anniversary

June 30 to July 1, 1949: Traffic snafu in Berlin

July 2 and July 8, 1949: The East awaits the economic collapse of the West

July 3 to July 6, 1949: American High Commissioner John McCloy in Berlin

July 4, 1949: American occupation troops celebrate the Fourth of July

July 10 to July 14, 1949: The "Little Blockade" of Berlin

July 16, 1949: Tragic accidents in Germany

July 17 to July 29, 1949: The Catholic Church's "open warfare" with communism

July 19 to July 22, 1949: East Germany seeks a united front

July 25 to July 27, 1949: "Little Blockade" finally ends

July 29, 1949: Western Allies pay tribute to lives lost during the airlift

July 31 to August 2, 1949: Allied occupation officials convene ahead of West German elections

August 7 to August 15, 1949: Factions vie for power in West Germany

August 15 to August 17, 1949: United States backs right-wing coalition government

August 19 to August 21, 1949: The Communists lose influence in the West

August 22, 1949: American officials promote the Marshall Plan

August 24, 1949: Adenauer set to form coalition

August 26, 1949: Intelligence reports of increased Volkspolizei activity

August 29 to September 10, 1949: US officials appeal to Soviets to release two American youths

September 3, 1949: Tensions rise with the Yugoslav-Soviet split

September 7, 1949 to September 9, 1949: The West German parliament meets in Bonn for the first time

September 11 to September 15, 1949: Konrad Adenauer becomes Chancellor of West Germany

September 18, 1949: Son of Communist leader Max Reimann escapes the Volkspolizei

September 22, 1949: Adenauer government begins work

September 26, 1949: The Soviets successfully develop nuclear weapons

October 11, 1949: Massive pro-Communist parade down Unter den Linden

November 14 to November 15, 1949: Secretary Acheson meets with Allied High Commissioners

November 16 to November 25, 1949: Adenauer signs the Petersberg Agreement

November 30, 1949: East Berlin marks anniversary of rump magistrate's founding

December 4, 1949: American labor leader Walter Reuther visits Germany

December 5, 1949: Threats of violence overshadow West Berlin elections

December 6, 1949: East Berlin criticizes West; Germans clean up World War II battlefields

December 9, 1949: Yugoslav diplomats detained in East Berlin

December 10, 1949: The question of rearming West Germany

December 11, 1949: More purges in East Germany as technicians flee to the West

December 14, 1949: Soviet Foreign Minister Vyshinsky visits Berlin

December 15, 1949: Occupation powers back German youth movements

December 17, 1949: US ramps up economic ties to West Germany

December 18, 1949: Far-right nationalist movement emerges in Bavaria

December 21, 1949: East Berlin celebrates Stalin's birthday

December 23, 1949: Downs reports for the American Forces Network

December 24, 1949: Berlin prepares for its first Christmas after the blockade

December 24, 1949: Positive news for West Germany on Christmas Eve

December 25, 1949: Downs celebrates another Christmas in West Berlin

The Free German Youth marches in East Berlin to protest the Marshall Plan and the Western Powers, with a banner reading "Yankee, go home," May 1950 (source)

1950

January 6, 1950: Downs returns to Berlin from New York

January 8, 1950: Germany reacts to British recognition of Communist China

January 13 to January 15, 1950: Adenauer meets with French Foreign Minister Schuman Meet in Bonn

January 18 to January 22, 1950: East Germany threatens to impose new traffic blockade on Berlin

January 25, 1950: Soviets shut down internment camps in East Germany

January 27 to January 28, 1950: East Berlin announces the creation of the Stasi

February 1, 1950: Traffic slowdown at Helmstedt-Marienborn checkpoint

February 6 to February 10, 1950: Klaus Fuchs arrested in Britain

March 1 to March 3, 1950: East criticizes Western preconditions for reunifying Germany

March 4, 1950: Soviet deportation plan for Germans stokes tensions with British

April 2, 1950: German Communists react to Senator Joseph McCarthy

April 28, 1950: East German lieutenant testifies Soviets building a German army

April 29 to May 2, 1950: East and West Berlin hold dueling May Day demonstrations

May 7, 1950: Political reshuffling on both sides of Germany

May 8, 1950: West Germans scoff at Communist declaration of "Liberation Day"

May 18, 1950: West Germany celebrates holiday as the East prepares for elections

May 20, 1950: US stages Armed Forces Day parade in Berlin

"Battle for Paris" by Ernest Hemingway

Battle for Paris

"Ernest Hemingway and an unidentified soldier look at a map in Europe during World War II, ca. July 1944 – January 1945," 1944 (source)

From Collier's magazine, September 30, 1944, pp. 11, 83-84, 86. (See Hemingway's other World War II essays here.)

BATTLE FOR PARIS

BY ERNEST HEMINGWAY

Here is the first dispatch by Collier's correspondent, long a resident of the City of Light, on one phase of the swift drive into the French capital—and how impatient guerrillas joined in the fight for liberation.

On August 19th, accompanied by Private Archie Pelkey of Canton, in upstate New York, I stopped at the command post of the infantry regiment of the division in a wood just outside of Maintenon to ask for information on the front this regiment was holding. The G2 and G3 of this regiment showed me where their battalions were placed and informed me that their most advanced outpost was at a point a short distance beyond Epemon on the road to Rambouillet (23 miles southwest of Paris), where the summer residence and hunting lodge of the president of France is located. At the regimental command post I was informed there was heavy fighting outside of Rambouillet. I knew the country and the roads around Epemon, Rambouillet, Trappes and Versailles well, as I had bicycled, walked and driven a car through this part of France for many years. It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and can coast down them.

Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motorcar only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle. At the outpost of the regiment we found some Frenchmen who had just come in from Rambouillet by bicycle. I was the only person at the outpost who spoke French, and they informed me that the last Germans had left Rambouillet at three o'clock that morning but that the roads into the town were mined.

I started to return to regimental headquarters with this information, but after driving a short way down the road back to Maintenon I decided it would be better to return and get the Frenchmen, so they themselves could be interrogated and give fuller information. When I reached the outpost again, I found two cars full of French guerrilla fighters, most of whom were naked to the waist. They were armed with pistols and two Sten guns they had received by parachute. They had just come from Rambouillet and their story of the German withdrawal tallied with the information other French had given.

Private Pelkey and I conducted them back to the regimental command post, driving ahead of the two cars in our jeep, where I translated their information on the town and the state of the road to the proper authorities.

We then returned to the outpost to wait for a mine-clearing detail and a reconnaissance troop that were to join us there. After waiting some time and none coming up. the French guerrilla fighters became very impatient. The obvious thing seemed to be to proceed to the first mine field and establish a guard to prevent any American vehicle which might advance from running into it.

The Discipline of Example

We were proceeding toward Rambouillet when we were joined by Lieutenant Irving Krieger of East Orange, New Jersey, from the antitank company of the infantry regiment. Lieutenant Krieger was short, stocky, exceedingly tough and very cheerful. I could see the guerrillas were very favorably impressed with him and, as soon as they saw him at work finding and clearing the mines, they had complete confidence in him. When working with irregular troops you have no real discipline except that of example. As long as they believe in you they will fight if they are good elements. The minute they cease to believe in you, or in the mission to be accomplished, they disappear.

War correspondents are forbidden to command troops, and I had simply conducted these guerrilla fighters to the infantry regiment command post in order that they might give information. Anyway, it was a beautiful day that day and when we came down the smooth black road toward Rambouillet with the big plane trees on either side and the wall of the park on our left, we saw the road block ahead.

First, there was a smashed jeep on our left. Then there were two German miniature tanks that they used as self-propelled antitank weapons. One was in the road pointing straight up the hill that we were coming down toward the felled trees of the road block. The other was on the right side of the shoulder of the road. Each one had two hundred pounds of TNT in it, and they were controlled by wires that ran back to behind the road block. If an armored column came down the road, one of these doodlebug tanks could be sent straight up the road at it. If the vehicles swerved to the right, as they would have to because of the wall on the left, the other miniature tank would be released to hit them on their flank. They looked like ugly toads squatting on the road. There was another smashed jeep just this side of the road block, and a big truck, also smashed.

Lieutenant Krieger dived into the minefield, which was laid in and around two big trees that had been felled across the road, like a boy looking for his name on the packages under a Christmas tree. Under his direction, Archie Pelkey and the guerrillas carried mines on the wall of a culvert. We learned from the French that the Germans had shot up an American reconnaissance patrol at this point. They had let the armored car, which was leading, pass the crossroads into Rambouillet, and then they opened on the truck and the two jeeps with antitank and machine-gun fire and killed seven men. The Germans then took the American mines out of the truck and laid this field.

The French had buried the Americans in the field beside the road where they had been ambushed, and while we were clearing the mine field, French women came out and put flowers on the graves and prayed over them. No reconnaissance outfit had come up yet, but Lieutenant Krieger's men had arrived and he was now in communication with the regiment by radio.

I went into the town with a patrol of French guerrillas, and we found out to what point the Germans had withdrawn and in what force they were. I gave this information to Lieutenant Krieger and, since we knew there was no screen of any kind between us and the Germans, who had, we found later, at least ten tanks beyond the town, it was decided to relay the mine field and establish a proper guard over it to bar the road in case the Germans should return. Fortunately, at this time, a reconnaissance troop, commanded by Lieutenant Peterson of Cleveland, Ohio, came up, and our worries were over for the moment.

That night our French guerrillas ran out patrols on the main roads out from Rambouillet to screen Lieutenant Peterson's reconnaissance force, which held the center of town. It rained very hard during the night, and the French guerrillas were wet and tired in the morning. The previous afternoon they had been clothed with fatigue uniforms abandoned in the truck in which the members of the recon outfit had been killed in the ambush.

The first time we had entered the town all but two were naked from the waist up, and the populace did not greet us with any degree of fervor. The second time I went in with them, everyone was uniformed and we were cheered considerably. The third time we went through the town the men were all helmeted and we were cheered wildly, kissed extensively and heavily champagned, and we made our headquarters in the Hotel du Grand Veneur, which had an excellent wine cellar.

On the morning of the second day I returned to the infantry regiment command post to give an account of the situation in Rambouillet and the nature of the German force which was operating between Rambouillet and Versailles. Members of the French gendarmerie and guerrillas in gendarme uniforms had been in and out of Versailles, and reports were coming in hourly from members of the French resistance groups. We had accurate information on German tank movements, gun positions, and antiaircraft emplacements, the strength of German troops and their disposition.

This information was continually kept up to date and made more complete. The colonel commanding the infantry regiment asked me to go to divisional headquarters, where I gave an account of what was happening in Rambouillet and beyond, and more arms were obtained for the French resistance forces from stocks of captured German materiel in Chartres.

Bulwark Against the Enemy

I returned to Rambouillet to find that Lieutenant Peterson had pushed his reconnaissance troop up the Versailles road a ways, and that an armored cavalry outfit had arrived in his support. It was very cheerful to see troops in town and to know that there was something between us and the Germans, since we now knew that there were three Tiger tanks among the fifteen tanks the Germans were operating in the area north of Rambouillet.

During the afternoon a great many people arrived in town. Intelligence officers, British and American, returned from missions or waiting to go on them, some newspaper correspondents, a colonel from New York who was the ranking U.S. officer present and Lieutenant Commander Lester Armor, U.S.N.R., were all in the town when the two armored reconnaissance units received orders that all missions were canceled, and told the point to which they should withdraw.

This withdrawal left the town with no troops of any kind between it and the Germans. By this time we knew the exact force of the Germans and their tactics. They were moving their tanks out in an area between Trappes and Neauphe le Vieux and blocking the road to Versailles from Houdon. They would run their tanks onto the main road between Rambouillet and Versailles, at various points, using side roads, and they patrolled the area to the east around Chevreuse and St. Remy les Chevreuses with light tanks and cyclists.

On that night, after the U.S. Army reconnaissance units were withdrawn, the force defending Rambouillet was composed of mixed patrols of regulars and guerrillas, armed with antitank grenades and small arms. It rained hard during the night and there was a part of the night, between 2 and 6 A.M., that was the loneliest I ever spent. I do not know if you understand what it means to have troops out ahead of you and then have them withdrawn and be left with a town, a large and beautiful town, completely undamaged and full of fine people, on your hands. There was nothing in the book issued to correspondents for their guidance through the intricacies of military affairs which dealt with this situation; so it was decided to screen the town as well as possible and, if the Germans, observing the withdrawal of the American force, advanced to make contact, to provide them with the necessary contact. This was done.

During the next days the German tanks roamed around the roads ahead of us. They took hostages in the various villages. They picked up men of the French resistance forces and shot them. They went where they pleased. But all of this time they were followed and kept track of by French guerrillas on bicycles, who came back with accurate information on their movements.

The same man could only work through the same country once unless he had a legitimate reason for moving back and forth. Otherwise the Germans would suspect him and shoot him. People who knew in what a small force we were, who had accomplished missions, were kept under arrest in order that, returning into German-held territory, they might not be forced to talk by the Germans if they were captured.

A very young Pole deserted from the German tank unit ahead of us. He buried his uniform and his submachine gun and filtered through the lines in his underwear and a pair of trousers he had found in a shelled house. He brought good information and was put to work in the kitchen of the hotel. Security was at that time in a very primitive state, since everyone who was armed was running patrols, but I can remember the colonel being considerably shocked when the cook came into the dining room which was serving as a command post and asked permission to send the prisoner out by himself to get bread from the baker. The colonel was obliged to refuse this request. Later the prisoner asked me to send him under guard to dig up his uniform and his gun so he could fight with the outfit. This request was also regretfully refused.

Nazis Fight by the Book

During this period of unorthodox warfare a German tank took a side road and came down to within three miles of town and killed a very nice policeman, who was out on patrol, and one of our local guerrillas. Everyone present at this episode dived into the ditch and commenced firing on the tank, which, having established contact, withdrew. The Germans at this period exhibited a lamentable tendency to fight entirely by the book. If they had thrown the book away they could have moved into town and been drinking the excellent wines of the Hotel du Grand Veneur and even gone so far as to take their Pole out of the kitchen and either shoot him or got him back into uniform.

It was quite a strange life in the Hotel du Grand Veneur in those days. An old man you had seen a week before during the taking of Chartres, and who had ridden in the jeep as far as Epernon, had come in the last time you had seen him and said he believed there was very interesting information to be discovered in the forest of Rambouillet. This, as a correspondent, was none of your damned business. Now you picked him upon a road six miles north of town and he had complete information on a mine field and antitank emplacement on the road just past Trappes. You sent out and verified the information. It was then necessary to hold the old man under guard since he wished to go out for more information and he knew too much about our present situation to risk his being captured by the Germans. So he joined the Polish child in protective custody.

All of this should have been handled by the Counter Intelligence Corps. But we did not have any, nor did we have any Civil Affairs. I remember the colonel saying, "'Ernie, if we just had some CIC or just a little Civil Affairs. Just refer all that to the French." Everything was referred to the French. Usually, though not always, it was promptly referred back to us.

During this epoch I was addressed by the guerrilla force as "Captain." This is a very low rank to have at the age of forty-five years, and so, in the presence of strangers, they would address me, usually, as "Colonel." But they were a little upset and worried by my very low rank, and one of them, whose trade for the past year had been receiving mines and blowing up German ammunition trucks and staff cars, asked confidentially, "My Captain, how is it that with your age and your undoubted long years of service and your obvious wounds (caused by hitting a static water tank in London) you are still a captain?"

"Young man," I told him, "I have not been able to advance in rank due to the fact that I cannot read or write."

Eventually another American Army reconnaissance outfit arrived and took up position on the road to Versailles. The town was then screened and we were able to devote all of our time to running patrols into German-held territory and checking exactly on the German defensive dispositions in order that, whenever an advance on Paris should be made, the force which would make it would have accurate information to operate on.

The main high lights of this period that I remember, outside of being scared a number of times, are not publishable at this time. Sometime I would like to be able to write an account of the actions of the colonel both by day and by night. But you cannot write it yet.

This is what the alleged front was like at that time: You come down a slope of highway to a village with a gas station and a cafe. Ahead is a small village with a church spire on the road opposite the cafe. From this point you can see a long slope of highway to your rear and a long stretch of highway ahead. Two men are standing in the road with field glasses. One watches the road to the north and the other to the south.

This is necessary since the Germans are both ahead of us and behind us. Two girls are walking down the road toward the town, which is held by the Germans. They are good-looking girls, wearing red-heeled shoes. A guerrilla comes up and says, "Those girls were sleeping with the Germans when they were here. Now they are going toward the German lines and can give them information."

"Hold them," someone says.

Just then comes a shout, "A car! A car!"

"Theirs or ours?"

"Theirs!"

At this everyone scatters with rifles or submachine guns behind the cafe and the filling station, and several prudent citizens take refuge in the fields.

Battle at the Filling Station

A tiny German jeep comes up the road opposite the filling station, commences firing a 20-millimeter gun. Everyone shoots at it and it wheels around and goes back up the road. It is shot at, as it disappears, by the more prudent citizens, who become very brave as it retreats. Total casualties: Two enthusiasts who have fallen with their wineglasses in their hands in the cafe and have slight cuts.

The two girls, who, it turns out, speak German as well as having allegedly been fond of the Germans, are picked up out of a ditch and put in a secure location to be returned to town. One of them says that all she did was go swimming with the Germans.

"In the nude?" asks a guerrilla.

"No, Monsieur," she answers. "They were always correct." They have in their handbags many German addresses and other articles which do not endear them to the local population, and they are sent back to Rambouillet. There is no hysteria and no beating or hair cutting by the local population. The Germans are much too close for that.

Two miles off to the left a German tank comes into a village where they find three guerrillas who have been checking on their movements and who are recognized by the tank men who have seen them too many times.

One of these is a man who, when I asked him if he had actually seen the tank himself, said, "Captain, I touched it." They are shot by the Germans and their bodies are left alongside the road. An hour later a guerrilla who was in the town brings us the news. This produces a certain amount of head-shaking and makes it more difficult to send the Germans, who are being continually picked up in the woods from the units which escaped from Chartres, back to be interrogated.

An old man appears and says that his wife is covering five Germans with a pistol. This pistol had been given him the night before, when, he said, Germans were coming into his place from the forest to eat. These are not the Germans who are organized and fighting ahead but are from scattered units which are dispersed through the forest. Some of them are trying to rejoin the main German body to continue fighting. Others are anxious to surrender if they know how they can do it without being killed.

A car is sent out to pick up the five Germans the old woman is holding. "Can we kill them?" one of the patrol asks.

"Only if they are SS," a guerrilla says.

"Bring them in here, so they can be questioned and passed on to Division," I say, and the car pulls out.

The Polish kid, who had the face of Jackie Cooper when Jackie Cooper was still young, is polishing glasses in the hotel dining room, and the old man is smoking his pipe and wondering when he can be released to go on another mission.

"My Captain," the old man says, "why cannot I be allowed to perform some useful function instead of resting here in the garden of this hotel while Paris is at stake?"

Guarding Our Information

"You know too much to let the Germans get hold of you," I tell him.

"The little Pole and I could make a useful mission, and I would kill him if he attempted to escape."

"He cannot make a useful mission," I said; "he can only be sent with troops."

"He says he will return in uniform and get any information that is needed."

"Let's stop the fairy stories," I said to the old man, "and since there is no one here to guard the little Pole you are responsible for him." At this point a large amount of information came in which had to be evaluated and typed out, and it was necessary for me to leave on a patrol to St. Remy les Chevreuses. There was a report that General Le Clerc's Second French Armored Division was approaching Rambouillet on the road to Paris, and we wanted to have ready all the information on the German dispositions.

(Mr. Hemingway will continue his story of the liberation of France in future dispatches from the battle front.)

1953. "The Armor of Cynicism" by Bill Downs

Bill Downs on "This I Believe"

 

Bill Downs contributed this essay to Edward R. Murrow's radio program "This I Believe" in 1953.

The Armor of Cynicism

EDWAR R. MURROW: "This I Believe." My friend and colleague Bill Downs is a veteran CBS foreign correspondent now assigned to Washington. His vivid, perceptive broadcasts of the world's big news events of the past decade have won him several important awards, and a place at the top of the reporting profession. Here are some of the things in which Bill Downs believes. 

BILL DOWNS: A news reporter, which I've been for half of my life, is required to be a cynic. The attitude is, in a sense, a scientific technique of our craft, since the job requires close observation of men in every conceivable position, disposition, and indisposition. Among other things, we are supposed to spot the toes of clay splaying out from under the pearl-gray spats, or the cloven hoof encased in the jackboot, before anyone else.

Cynicism also is the touchstone of a reporter's alchemy through which he hopes to discover that nonexistent load called "objectivity." For as a set of philosophers, the only true objective reporter is the dead one.

Also, cynicism is a form of armor in which a reporter wraps himself for protection. There is nothing more disillusioned than a disillusioned newsman, and the effect on his work can be disastrous. Not that there is anything special about the people who cover the news—they are as cantankerous, dishonest, noble, cowardly, mean, ridiculous, courageous, and truthful as the ordinary run of people. But they do have a special place in our society in that they are the day-to-day historians.

But in covering news over the period that stretches from our Great Depression to our Great Debate, a philosophy does develop. We're all pretty miserable and inadequate creatures who often get ourselves in impossible situations and positions. We never seem to quite fully succeed or completely fail, which is some comfort in this Atomic Age, but not much.

I believe that the only protection that man has against himself is the trust and confidence of his friends. For example, my cynicism tells me that the man who makes a career of "people-hunting" or "people-hating" is a man who desperately fears being chased or not loved. Knowing this does not make this man any less dangerous—witness the dedicated communist or the bigot—but against these people the individual has only the defense of the collective security of the friends who believe in him. I believe the same pattern applies in international relations.

My favorite story on this subject is the one that was being whispered in Moscow when I was assigned there for CBS back in 1943. It concerns a hapless individual, running down the street in a Russian village, his clothing flung over one arm and a loaf of bread tucked under the other. "Pavel," a friend calls, "where are you running to?" "Haven’t you heard?" Pavel replies. "Tomorrow they’re going to sterilize all kangaroos." "But there are no kangaroos in the Ukraine," the friend declares. "Yes," answers Pavel, "but can you prove that you're not one?"

I am personally ashamed that men have to prove that they are not "kangaroos." When bigots attack a colored man, I ashamed that my skin also is white. During the War, in Amsterdam, I felt shame because a starving mother wept over a can of beans for her child; I was ashamed of my fat. And on D-Day, and again later in Korea, I had a sense of shame at being alive when so many around me had to die. When this kind of shame is banished from the Earth, then perhaps we will have that civilization man has been striving for, for so many centuries.

I would like to speak one more word in defense of cynicism. The connotation of the word is that of contemptuousness, distrust, and currishness. But if you take out your dictionary, you'll find another and older definition of the cynic. You'll find that back in the golden days of Greece, he was the member of a school of philosophers who taught that virtue was the only good and that its essence lies in self-control and independence. I like that, but I make no pretensions that I'll ever be able to live up to it.

1943. War Correspondents and the Soviet Censors

The "Cell of Moscow"

Bill Downs' Soviet ID: "The People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs certifies that [Bill Downs] registered as a correspondent."

IN MOSCOW, 1941-1945

For several years, Western foreign correspondents based in Moscow lived in the Hotel Metropol along with their secretaries and translators. Their provisions were tight, but better than those allotted to the average citizen. The journalists had enough to get by, and sometimes even enjoy themselves, as Bill Downs described in April 1943: "Our entertainment here consists of vodka—which is liquid dynamite—and the ballet or opera—and the occasional poker game with a general or admiral—and an occasional date full of gestures and shouting with a Russian girl."

But they were there to do a job, and government officials did not make it easy. The Soviet People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs had absolute control over the press in Moscow, and party officials were a suffocating presence. Disputes arose over how and what content should be disseminated to Western audiences. Soviet officials knew that information coming out of Moscow could affect worldwide opinion of the country, and perhaps also the perceived viability of its own communist model. Such concern bred paranoia, and any report that they felt went against the government's carefully crafted image of a mighty and modern Russia—no matter how seemingly negligible the content—was killed long before broadcast.

According to Downs, "There was a fear that the correspondent could, by intonation, change the meaning of his report...When reading your dispatch on the air, there was always an English-speaking Communist broadcaster sitting alongside with his hand on the cut-out switch. If you unintentionally changed the grammar of the sentence, as sometimes happens, down would go the switch and you'd be off the air."

Reporters were thus forced to rely on Pravda, Red Star, Izvestia, and other government mouthpieces as their major primary sources for military updates on the Eastern Front. They paid careful attention to every word as they tried to piece together news. They had little choice, as anyone who went too far in challenging the censors risked being thrown out of the country.

War correspondent George Moorad summed it up in 1946:

"...I asked my friends, 'Just what does a Moscow correspondent write about?'

"A Moscow correspondent doesn't write, he rewrites, they explained patiently. All the material available has already been published in Russian newspapers, but some slight allowance is made for interpretation if the comment is considered favorable. The only loophole is that the Russian censors' knowledge of English is scanty and their judgment unpredictable. For instance, one worth-while story came from Pravda, eulogizing Russian inventive genius. Pravda told how the Russian inventor, Popov, had invented the radio six years before Marconi, and how other Russians were responsible for the first electric motor, incandescent lighting, the steam engine, the steamship, and a number of other outstanding gifts to mankind. This story had presumably been intended for domestic consumption, but the correspondents were able to cable it out, with a deadpan tribute to Soviet historical genius."

Even up-to-date maps of the Soviet Union were difficult to come by, and reporters struggled to determine Red Army military developments en route to targets like Oryol. It became a contest of sorts to see who could make the most accurate projection. No one was correct.

Over the years, Soviet officials took correspondents to places of interest both in and out of Moscow. However, unlike their counterparts elsewhere in Europe, these reporters were never taken to the front lines, and they were carefully monitored at all times.

Associated Press correspondent Eddy Gilmore recalled an incident from March 1942 in which his train ran out of fuel not far outside of Moscow. It ran on a wood-burning engine, and although it was capable of using other fuel, coal was scarce and reserved for the most essential trains. The train stopped to refuel at the nearest station, and an engineer and a fireman began loading the engine. It was more than a two-man job, however, and members of the foreign press party got out to assist. A frantic press department official ordered them to stop. When it was pointed out to him that the men seemed to appreciate the help, he relented, but warned that he would not approve any stories which mentioned the incident.

Things improved somewhat as the Soviets made military gains. Starting in early 1943, correspondents received guided tours closer to the front lines. They visited liberated cities such as Stalingrad, Kharkiv, and Leningrad.

In December 1943 officials took the press party to the Babyn Yar ravine. Reporters were allowed to interview survivors from the nearby Syrets concentration camp and evaluate what had taken place. It was a firsthand display of Nazi war crimes. However, based on Moscow's track record, some of the reporters felt that certain stories required a degree of skepticism. Just a month later, Soviet officials staged a duplicitous visit to Katyn, a Russian village near which over 21,000 Polish prisoners were executed by the NKVD in 1940. The officials made a show of it. They hoped to convince the Western Allies that this was another Nazi atrocity, in part because Joseph Goebbels had previously used the discovery of the mass graves as a propaganda boon against the Soviets.

A foreign press party in Rzhev in 1943. Bill Downs is in the center in the far back.

In 1951, Downs answered a questionnaire from the newly-formed International Press Institute about his experiences in Moscow:

December 26, 1951

Mr. John Desmond
c/o Lester Markel 

New York Times
Times Square
New York, N.Y.

Dear Mr. Desmond:

I am happy to reply to your questionnaire and offer whatever information I have for the IPI survey. I should like to explain that my year's assignment in the Soviet Union was in 1943 during the so-called period of good feeling, when the Red Army had just won its most important victory at Stalingrad, when American lend-lease aid was beginning to arrive in quantity, and when the Kremlin was looking forward to the Second Front. At this time the Soviet foreign office made an important change of policy toward the foreign correspondents. It was decided (presumably by the Politburo since all decisions on foreign relations are based there) that the Communist cause would be aided by allowing the correspondents to see and report on the tremendous victories then being won. The result was that, beginning in January 1943, the press section of the foreign office laid on a series of junkets, beginning with trips to the Stalingrad area and ending, I believe, in 1945 [sic] with the junket to the scene of the Katyn massacre. (I had left Russia by this time and my dates are open to question. Your non-atomic Bill Lawrence can fill you in on this.)

At any rate, this era of good feeling was something rare in Russian history, and it has never since been repeated. I might add that the policy at the time did pay off from the Kremlin viewpoint. For the first time we were able to write authoritatively of the tremendous achievements of the Red Army, and the Russians did build up a "bank account" of good will in the outside world. They also managed to create an atmosphere of trust, which was for a long time disappearing. I think the Teheran and Yalta conferences are proof of this.

However, it is my observation that the Soviet foreign office did not and does not understand the so-called "banking" of good will and has no interest in such a policy. The relaxation of restrictions on correspondents in 1943 was, I believe, ordered for two reasons: first, a natural pride in the achievements of their army and a desire to tell the world about it; second, to create pressure for a second front. There was and is no compromise with the basic thesis of Communist policy, which is to communize all nations of the world—either through direct conquest or through revolution.

Now I'll tackle your questionnaire.

1. Based on your experience, how accurate are reports the outside world gets of what goes on in Russia from resident correspondents?

Within the scope of Soviet censorship, the resident correspondent can report accurately on government policy as announced by the Kremlin. However, the resident correspondent is not allowed to report such details as the living standards of the people he sees or the state of the national economy, which he can judge by visiting shops and stores and such news. He is not allowed to report on conversations, say, overheard on the subway or on the buses and streetcars. His isolation from the Russian people is manifold—first by the language barrier, second by the fact that he is restricted for the most part to Moscow, thirdly by government orders against association with foreigners, and fourthly by the atmosphere of fear and suspicion, which is part of the daily life of the people.

Outside of a few officials, it is doubtful that even the Russians themselves know what transpires in their country. The citizen of Tashkent is just as ignorant of what goes on in the Urals as is the correspondent in Moscow. Just as the foreign correspondent can be said to exist in the cell of Moscow, it can be said that the ordinary Russian also exists in a cell bounded by the community in which he lives and works. Only occasionally does rumor or a leak in the press break through these barriers which the government has inflicted on the people.

2. What was your personal experience with censorship and its operations, commenting at the same time on your freedom of movement?

During my stay in the Soviet Union, the government had the excuse of military security to fall back on. However, it is my belief that fear and suspicion are as much a part of the Russian censorship policy as security. There is another quality that is embraced in censorship policy too. This is pride. For example, we had many long arguments with the censors concerning the reporting of military casualties. The government wanted absolutely no mention of them. Our argument was that the world—and particularly Russia's allies—should know the sacrifices the nation was making in fighting the war. But the attitude of the censor was that a Russian killed in battle somehow reflected on the national honor. There was a constant watch on copy to stop anything—be it a humorous story or what—that might possibly reflect on the Russian "honor."

As for the suspicion and fear, the best example I have of that concerns the Battle of Poltava near the end of 1943. I went with my secretary to the Lenin Library to look up the First Battle of Poltava in 1709 when Peter the Great defeated Charles of Sweden. I managed to dig up the number of men involved, the number of horses employed, and the number of guns in that first battle that ended the era of Swedish conquest. I thought it would make an interesting angle to supplement the 1943 battle story. However, the censor stopped all the statistics on that 240 year old battle because, he explained, it is "military information." It was obvious that he suspected some sort of a code.

3. How valuable is the contribution made by experts who analyze the Russian press, radio, and other sources to interpret what is going on in Russia? Should experts be used more widely than they are at present?

Analysis of the Russian press and radio is extremely valuable because there is such a scarcity of information coming out of that country that any contribution which leads to greater understanding of it is helpful. Also, the dynamic of Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism calls for a constant watch and reinterpretation of Soviet policy and Communist methods. The controversial nature of the Russian problem makes objectivity difficult to achieve. The more people who attempt to understand and interpret the better. As for using the so-called "experts" more widely, I'd have to know my expert, his background, and his expertise.

4. On the basis of your experience, and in the light of present circumstances, how valuable do you think it is to have a correspondent in Moscow? 

Most valuable. It keeps open a channel and maintains a precedent by maintaining bureaus in the second most important capital in the world. And while the correspondent on the scene may be allowed little freedom to report, there still are some things that even a dictatorship so complete as the Russian cannot hide from the reporter. He may not be able to report these things from Moscow, but he can report them when he leaves the country.

5. How would you proceed to give better coverage of Russia and the satellites, recognizing all the difficulties that lie in the way; e.g., do you feel that correspondents working in Stockholm, Vienna, Berlin, and Belgrade could improve our coverage because of their strategic location?

Considering the difficulties, it is hard to make any practical suggestions as to how to improve coverage of Russia beyond the present efforts being made. It is understandable that networks and newspapers have lost interest in maintaining bureaus in Moscow, but I believe it is most important that they do. The fact that there are so few correspondents in Moscow today would appear, in part at least, due to lack of interest by news distributing organizations to spend the money there. The pressure to get correspondents in has slackened.

Trying to report on Russia from the capitals of nations bordering the Iron Curtain is of doubtful value. In Berlin, for example, we were able to see Russian-directed policy for the German Communists. But there was very little to be collected about Russia itself. The only field which I can think of where there could be more comprehensive coverage is the field of foreign trade and economics. I have seen no roundup of what the Soviet Union is buying on the world market—say, machine tools from Belgium, ball bearings from Sweden, textiles from India. Such information would be a valuable addition to the sum total of our day-to-day knowledge of the country.

It was a censorship problem that eventually resulted in the Soviet government completely banning radio reporting from Moscow. Press correspondents would submit their copy to the foreign office censorship, where it would disappear. The correspondent could not find out what had been cut from his copy until he was advised by his home office. However, radio scripts were submitted and had to be returned to us for reading on the air. Thus we could see what the censors had cut, and we were able to assess the government's attitude on subjects of a sensitive nature. The government obviously felt that its censorship was not complete. There was a fear that the correspondent could, by intonation, change the meaning of his report. In broadcasting from Moscow, the radio directorate censored the broadcasts, although we protested constantly against double censorship. However, the radio people very seldom tried to improve on the foreign office censorship. When reading your dispatch on the air, there was always an English-speaking Communist broadcaster sitting alongside with his hand on the cut-out switch. If you unintentionally changed the grammar of the sentence, as sometimes happens, down would go the switch and you'd be off the air.

I end this letter with a great feeling of inadequacy and frustration. The basic problem, of course, is the two conflicting theories about the function of the press and radio. The Soviet government sees the press only as an arm of the government whose chief duty is to forward the Communist cause. They do not understand—or at least pretend not to understand—the role of the free press outside their country. The Soviet concept of news is that all information about Russia, no matter how trivial, comes under the heading of intelligence in the espionage meaning of the word. Consequently the foreign correspondent is tolerated as a kind of second-rate spy. The Tass agency forms the basis of all Soviet intelligence abroad, although most of the information that Tass gathers is regarded by us as legitimate news. It is not so regarded by the Soviet government. And since Tass correspondents are regarded by the Russian government as their agents, the government logically expects foreign correspondents in the capital to perform the same function.

In view of the restrictions and this official attitude, it's difficult to see how there can be any comprehensive coverage of the Soviet Union at all until the Communist policy, Communist aims, or Communist government of Russia changes or is changed.

I hope you find something useful in all of this.

Sincerely,

Bill Downs

Sources:

Downs, Bill (1943). From the William R. Downs papers at Georgetown University.

Gilmore, Eddy (1954). Me and My Russian Wife. Doubleday, pp. 82-84.

Lawrence, Bill (1972). Six Presidents, Too Many Wars. Saturday Review Press.

Moorad, George (1946). Behind the Iron Curtain. Fireside Press, Inc., pp. 15-16.

Reynolds, Quentin (1944). The Curtain Rises. Random House.