There is a good-sized air war going on in Russia which the world has heard very little about. It's the day in, day out bombing of German communications—a Soviet practice which has become so common that the Russians have assumed everyone knows these bombings are continually going on.
These Russian bombing and strafing missions are similar to the fighter and fighter-bomber sweeps made over Western Europe every day by the American and British air forces. The big difference is that the Soviet air force has about ten times the amount of territory to cover.
As in France and the Low Countries, Hitler has found on the Eastern Front that his railroad and highway communications are too dangerous for daylight movement of troops and supplies. He has to operate at night.
As a result, the Soviet air force also shifted its bombing schedule to the hours of darkness. And now this Russian air war on German troops and equipment being moved to the Soviet front has turned almost entirely into a night battle.
The Germans have felt the damaging weight of the Russian bombs and have resorted to all kinds of trickery—it's an improved type of trickery which the Nazis started using during the early bombings of Germany by the Royal Air Force.
For example, the Germans have taken to trying to hide whole trains and evacuating entire railroad yards behind their lines. Soviet reconnaissance planes will report a crowded railroad yard or junction and the Soviet air command will order it to be bombed. On some occasions bombers have arrived at the target to find that the trains have disappeared. The bombers have found that the Germans sometimes run the trains out of towns onto sidings or into deep cuts in the hills. There they try to camouflage the trains to save them from harm.
On other occasions the Germans have set up false railroad stations near the real target. They group their searchlights and antiaircraft guns around this false target. Then, when the attack begins, the searchlights go on and the guns open up as if protecting this decoy. Nazi engineers have even devised explosions which look like bomb bursts on the false target. They also set dummy fires. This is designed to fool a bomber crew into thinking that the rest of his squadron has found the real target and is bombing it.
The Soviet command also has some tricks up its sleeve to combat these methods. "Pathfinder" planes are assigned to lead the bombers to the correct target. These planes also fly around the target during an attack and report the damage done.
But mainly the Soviet command depends on basic bombing tactics to hit their targets. This entails constant consecutive attacks, accuracy in bombing, and concentric assault from different directions.
The success of Soviet bombing strategy this spring at a time when Hitler is trying to regroup and reinforce his Eastern armies is of extreme importance in relation to the fighting that will be done in Russia this summer.
DOUG EDWARDS: CBS World News brings you another in this series by Columbia News analysts. Tonight from London, Edward R. Murrow.
EDWARD R. MURROW: This is London. Five o'clock in the morning.
People do a great deal of walking in London these days, but much of mine is done at night. Moonlit nights are best. There's less danger of walking into lampposts or stumbling over the curb. The weather stains on old buildings of gray Portland stone look like familiar, friendly faces. The city is absolutely quiet, like a ghost town in Nevada.
At dawn—that'll be about an hour from now—the mist goes floating upward from the water in Regent's Park, and the feet of the milkman's horse sound soft and muffled on the old wooden paving blocks. Occasionally the cart will lurch, and the milk bottles rattle, as one wheel dropped into a hole burnt by one of last winter's incendiary bombs. But it's pleasant walking in London, even when the night is black. The streetlights give off just a tiny pinpoint of light, enough so you can steer a course between them right down the middle of the street.
The nice part about walking in the dark is of course that you can't see anything. There's nothing to distract you. You just plod along between those little beacons. It's like being up in the bow of a ship that's (?) on a dark night. Occasionally you hear footsteps, and sometimes you may exchange a "good evening" to another unseen pedestrian.
Sometimes you can imagine, or at least think you can, just what people are like from the sounds made by their feet. There'll be a young officer on leave and his girl walking home at two in the morning. There'll be the uneven cadence from the feet of a man whose had one too many drinks. The reluctant footsteps from a bus conductor on his way to work. You can't see them, but you know who they are—or think you do.
For example, just a block from this studio there's a policeman. I've never seen him, but he's there when I walk home every night. Sometimes we speak; sometimes we don't. Last night I heard him shift his weight from one foot to the other as I walked past. Sometimes he's traveling in my direction, and we cruise along for a block or two together. He has big feet, and his shoes squeak. I think I'd recognize that squeak in Cairo or Chicago. Without ever having seen him I know he's a big, friendly, stable sort of person; the kind of London cop who can disperse a crowd by merely saying, "Here, here. Move along now." I know, too, that he likes the dark; likes being out there all alone.
He never seems to be about on bright moonlit nights. Some night maybe I'll see him in the bright moonlight, and discover that he's a short, sour-faced, reserved policeman in an ill-fitting uniform. But I don't think so.
An Interview with West German Ambassador Heinz Krekeler
On September 28, 1953, West German Ambassador Heinz Krekeler sat down for a televised interview with Bill Downs and Edward P. Morgan. He discusses his country's recent election results and the proposed European Defence Community.
September 28, 1953
FRANK KNIGHT: Good evening, this is Frank Knight. May I introduce our co-editors for this edition of the Longines Chronoscope: Edward P. Morgan and Bill Downs, both of the CBS television news staff. Our distinguished guest for this evening is Dr. Heinz Krekeler, chief of the German Diplomatic Mission to the United States. EDWARD P. MORGAN: Mr. Ambassador, we can get into the high-blown diplomatic questions soon enough. Let's try to start on a little bit more of a human level. What is the one thing, in your opinion, that is worrying the West German citizen most? Is it taxes? Is it food? Is it shelter? Is it the threat of the Russians? Or what is it, sir?
HEINZ KREKELER: Well, it's very difficult to describe this in one word. I think it's several things that they are longing for: desire for peace—that peace is preserved; desire that their unhappy brothers and sisters on the other side of the Iron Curtain are getting their human dignity and their freedom back again; and then of course to have a greater stability in Europe through European integration. I think that's what is foremost in their minds. BILL DOWNS: Well, Mr. Ambassador, we are proposing that twelve German divisions be formed. Now, in the event that this plan goes through, do you think there's any chance that West Germany would do a South Korea—a Syngman Rhee—and oppose us in major policy decisions?
KREKELER: I wouldn't like to compare to conditions in other countries, but I can say this. First of all, it's not the question of putting twelve German divisions into the field, but we will guard what we are asked to do as our contribution to the sharing the burden of common defense. That is what we are really ready to do—what the German people is prepared to do—though what we are asked to do and what we want to do is to have twelve divisions in a European army. Not twelve German divisions, but twelve European divisions in which Germans serve. And that's quite a difference.
MORGAN: Mr. Ambassador, perhaps we can focus on that a little bit more tightly.
KREKELER: Yes, gladly.
MORGAN: If we ask you to give your own assessment as to the significance of the recent elections in which Mr. Adenauer was reelected and the so-called "splinter groups" from the right and the left—both extremes—were routed. There's been a great deal of speculation on that from the so-called experts. It would probably be valuable to get your own. KREKELER: Gladly, Mr. Morgan. In my opinion, the greatest common denominator of the election results is this. It's an acceptance of partnership by the overwhelming majority of the German people. And by this I don't mean the advantages of partnership only, but also the burdens and the duties of partnership.
Being partners of the free world—and that I think is in what you can say in the boldest terms—then one issue that we are most happy about is the crushing defeat that the neo-Nazis suffered. They didn't get a single seat in our parliament, and they got not, I think, not more than half the votes even the Communists got. And the Communists didn't get a single seat either.
MORGAN: You feel that there's no real danger, then, of a rise again of Nazi elements in West Germany?
KREKELER: Well, I think, Mr. Morgan, after this election, all observers agree that this danger is not existent anymore. But you know that eternal vigilance is a price of liberty, and we know this.
MORGAN: Bill Downs has just come back from a trip to Germany, where he's been several times, and he's been back just a few days actually—
KREKELER: Yes, I know he's very well-informed, yes.
MORGAN: —and he's probably got some pointed questions to ask you on that respect.
DOWNS: Well, I didn't want to get into that yet, Ed, but the—I would like to know, and I didn't have the chance to find out, but you say that the German people are willing to put up twelve divisions into this European army? KREKELER: We are willing to share the burden of defense.
DOWNS: Yeah.
KREKELER: That is exactly what they mean because the (?) really didn't want to put up troops again, as you knew—only in the form of sharing the burden. Everybody shares.
DOWNS: How do the young men who are going to form these divisions feel about it?
KREKELER: I think we can answer this question also by the election's results. We think that the young people—not very cheerfully—but accept this; to share the burden as a duty and accept it as also by their participation in the elections.
MORGAN: Well, Mr. Ambassador, we must be very realistic about these things...
KREKELER: Oh, no doubt.
MORGAN: ...And we know that the French very understandably have been frightened—more than frightened—by some German policies before, and that probably conditions their reflexes as to the European Defence Community now. They seem to be in most recent weeks a little bit more encouraged toward getting into the European Defence Community with Germany. How do you think the situation looks at this moment?
KREKELER: Well, I agree with you. I think the French reaction towards our election results was pretty much similar to that in other countries; that they were also greatly encouraged by the crushing defeat of the neo-Nazis. And then, by the way, you know the European Defence Community was—is a French proposal. And we, I think, have every reason to believe that it will come into existence.
DOWNS: Well, it's been said, Mr. Ambassador, that the dilemma of Germany is that it must have an army strong enough to deter the Communists, but at the same time weak enough not to frighten the French. What do you think of that?
KREKELER: All I would say—I wouldn't put it in these words. I would say that when we are contributing to the European Defence Community, our contribution is fixed not by ourselves but by consent of the partners. And the other members of the NATO who are not members of the European Defence Community have a say in this respect in the planning also. So what—the size of the German contingent is not fixed by Germany, but is fixed by all the partners.
MORGAN: Dr. Krekeler, obviously one of the main questions as to Germany is to whether it can be unified, and that brings up the question of Soviet policy. They seem to have relaxed a tiny bit since the June 17th uprising one way or another. What do you really think are the realistic possibilities of such a union of West and East under the circumstances?
KREKELER: Well, I think we will have one day this reunification...
MORGAN: How can it come about? KREKELER: ...I've been always asked why I believe this is so. And one of the main reasons I am giving for this is the effect of world opinion.
I think the public opinion throughout the world plays a greater role in developments in the world as we all estimate or think, and after the events which you mentioned following the 17th of June when the population of the Soviet-occupied zone rose against their oppressors with bare hands against tanks, everybody in the world knows how these people feel. They made this uprising under the slogan of free elections.
And I at the very day, the 18th of June, happened to be in Honolulu. That's pretty far away from Berlin. It's nearly half around the world—well actually is—and I can tell you I was very deeply moved by the reaction people even there at this great distance had to this.
DOWNS: But Mr. Ambassador, does this not also mean that the Soviet government realizes the feeling against the Communist regimes or the Iron Curtain, and does that not also mean that their grasp will tighten rather than loosen?
KREKELER: No, in the long run I don't think so. I don't think so.
DOWNS: Well, supposing that in, from now til spring for example, there is no hope offered to those people behind the Iron Curtain, the East Germans; that there is no Four Power conference; there is no progress towards unification. Do you think there's any possibility of an uprising again?
KREKELER: Well, of course you can say this. But what I should like to point out is that we are constantly giving them proof how we are (?) that we are standing at their side.
First, there was this program of giving food passes. And now as you have learned, President Eisenhower, answering a letter by Chancellor Adenauer, said that the American people would be, by the private organizations, prepared to give clothing to those also.
And by these people know that we are at their side; that we haven't forgotten them. And this is much more a human problem than a political one. Much more. I think this has a great effect.
DOWNS: Well, the French also—and the Americans and the British—have embarked on a new policy it appears. That one of saying that we will offer security guarantees to the Russians. Do you think that's—
MORGAN: Do you think that's realistic? KREKELER: Oh yes, very much so. There is quite a story behind this. The first time such a plan was mentioned—when I remember correctly by President Eisenhower in his address before American newspaper editors. And then a second proposal along these lines was made by Sir Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister. And then Chancellor Adenauer made a proposal to use the European Defence Community as a starting point—if the other partners agreed to it—as the starting point for a security offer including also the Soviets. And now this has been taken also up by a French spokesman, and so I think we are quite agreed on the Western side that we should work along these lines.
MORGAN: Mr. Ambassador, as the last question, and I want you to answer in just a couple of words. You've been around the country a great deal. What do you think the people of America are most preoccupied with at this moment? Very briefly.
KREKELER: Well, as we all are with the question how can we preserve peace, I think that is the first political problem we have to solve in our time, and I think the American people realize very well that if we all work together, especially if Europe cooperates better than in the past, we will solve this crucial problem of mankind.
MORGAN: Thank you very much sir indeed.
KNIGHT: The opinions that you've heard our speakers express tonight have been entirely their own. The editorial board for this edition of the Longines Chronoscope was Edward P. Morgan and Bill Downs, both of the CBS television news staff. Our distinguished guest was Dr. Heinz Krekeler, chief of the German diplomatic mission to the United States.
An Interview with Val Peterson, Director of the Federal Civil Defense Administration
In 1953, CBS journalists Bill Downs and Edward P. Morgan sat down with Val Peterson, director of the Federal Civil Defense Administration. They discuss the growing possibility of nuclear war, the country's readiness, and the American civil defense program. Late in the interview Morgan learns live on air that the Soviet Union just announced its successful detonation of a hydrogen bomb.
August 19, 1953
FRANK KNIGHT: Good evening, this is Frank Knight. May I introduce our co-editors for this edition of the Longines Chronoscope: Edward P. Morgan and Bill Downs, both from the CBS television news staff. Our distinguished guest for this evening is the honorable Val Peterson, administrator of the Federal Civil Defense agency.
EDWARD P. MORGAN: Governor Peterson, on Chronoscope as a matter of fact a few months ago, you yourself made a very alarming statement. You said, as I remember it, that Russia was capable now of mounting an atomic attack which could cripple all of the important industrial centers of the United States in one blow. Since then, Mr. Malenkov says that the Russians have the H-bomb. Now, it would be helpful, I think, if you could sort of tell us what has transpired in your shop since then. Is the situation better or worse?
VAL PETERSON: Well, I think we're making progress in civil defense across the United States all of the time. So far as the announcement made by Mr. Malenkov, I personally have assumed—as have the people in my agency—that anything that we can do the Russians eventually would be able to do. You would not dare to make any other assumption in a matter that involves the safety of the United States.
I used to coach football years ago as a young fellow, and I found that whenever you underestimated the fellow or the opponent you were playing you were in trouble. And of course that's one of the first rules in military activity, too.
So I would say that nothing has changed. There's no positive evidence that the Russians have an H-bomb. You would not have positive evidence until they explode an H-bomb. On the other hand, there's every reason to believe that their scientists would be able to create some type of a thermonuclear device as time goes on.
BILL DOWNS: Well, Governor Peterson, isn't it true that, if they do have an H-bomb, which is they say twenty times more powerful than an A-bomb, that our problem is much more acute? In other words it would take twenty less airplanes, for example, to do the job you say that they are capable of doing.
PETERSON: Well, if it were only twenty times—any bomb of that type that they had were only twenty times more destructive than an H-bomb—our problem wouldn't be quite so bad as it probably is. The fact of the matter is that if and when the Russians have devices of that type, and have enough of them to mount an attack against the United States, certainly it makes our problem much more difficult.
As a matter of degree, however, that type of a bomb will destroy a greater area; damage a greater area; kill more people if they happen to be in the area. But the A-bomb is bad enough.
MORGAN: Governor, is it correct to assume that one of your biggest problems is a sort of a psychological one? I mean this: it's the problem of awakening people to the danger without crying wolf. Assuming that is true, how do you do it?
PETERSON: Well, I think the only way in the world to arouse the American people is to give the American people the facts just as closely as it's possible to do so. Now, no one would propose that you give military secrets away; certainly I wouldn't do that. But the people must know all that there is to be that they can know about enemy capabilities, about enemy weapons and the effects of those weapons. And knowing that truth I think you can believe that the people will take the action that's necessary to protect themselves.
DOWNS: Well, Governor, you said that between eight and twenty million people would be killed in event of an all out attack—atomic or nuclear attack on our country. Don't you believe that this concept is hard for the people to grasp? And isn't that one of your—
MORGAN: Overawes them, sort of thing.
DOWNS: Yeah, overawes them. I mean myself, for example. I have no feeling. What could I do about it? Maybe I'm one of those.
PETERSON: There are many things that they individual can do, and of course there are many things that we can do as a nation to protect—to minimize the effects of an atomic attack upon the United States.
Now, the fact of the matter is we are dealing with a new problem because the atomic weapon is only eight years old and the idea of intercontinental bombers that can fly from country to country dropping bombs has completely revolutionized military strategy, and the figures that are involved are stupendous.
However, the fact that the problem is tough does not mean that we do not have to meet it. And as far as I am able to figure in my own mind, as I understand Americans we'll be equal to the occasion when it arises.
MORGAN: Governor, I want to go back if I may to something you said just a moment ago, which was that you thought that the American people could arise to the situation given the information. President Eisenhower said not so very long ago, rather urgently, that he thought that "the people by all means should have more information about the atomic situation."
And I want to interrupt myself just a little to dig into my notes if you'll permit me, and read something that I jotted down from the New York Herald Tribune which says—this was printed a few weeks ago—"It is actually impossible to plan proper shelters against atomic attack in this country because the relevant information has not been released to the Civil Defense Administration by the Atomic Energy Commission or the military."
Now, the question is after that rather cumbersome buildup, has anything perceptibly been loosened up?
PETERSON: Well now, as a matter of fact, with due respects for that great newspaper for which I have a personal liking, the fact of the matter is that my agency is well-briefed by the Atomic Energy Commission all of the time and by the Department of Defense. We do have the information.
However, we haven't done as much research as we should do. As a matter of fact we've done very little research with respect to the effects of bombing upon civilian type of structures. The research that we have done has been largely in connection with the effects of atomic explosions upon military installations and military instruments; upon battleships and upon airplanes. And we need to do a great deal more research, as that editorial or article suggests.
DOWNS: Well, who's fallen on their face then, Governor? Because this is not a strictly military weapon. This is a weapon that strikes at the civilian population. That is the chief value. Why aren't you getting this information?
PETERSON: That's simply a shift in military strategy. The attacks now are made upon civilians and upon instruments of productivity rather than upon armies. We are getting that information. We have not done as much research as we should've done, primarily because we have not had the funds. Some of the information that the military has is valuable to us, and we're in the process of transcribing it. But bear in mind that becomes a very detailed and intricate engineering and technical procedure, and we haven't done as much of it as we should do.
However, I want to say this about shelters. It's entirely possible to build shelters that would protect people against any kind of an explosion, atomic or any other type of an explosion. If we wanted to take America into the ground, we could protect ourselves against these attacks. However, we would do it at a cost of billions of dollars—a fantastic amount of money—and so far there has been no (?) upon the part of the American people or upon its representatives in the American Congress to take Americans under the ground.
DOWNS: Well, don't you feel Governor that since we happen to be the major targets of this new weapon, H- and A-bomb, that we should have more information about it, and the reason some of the apathy is that we don't realize what's going on?
PETERSON: Well, I think—generally I believe that whatever is the public's business is best handled by the public and by the public directly based upon sound information. And my agency has attempted to give the public all of the information they possible could. And I know that the prevailing sentiment in Washington is to give the people all of the information that is possible—short always of course of giving the enemy the information, which nobody would want to do.
MORGAN: Governor, that brings up another point: the actual organization of Civil Defense on the part of volunteer workers. I have had the impression—in talking to some friends of mine who have done some volunteer work in Civil Defense here in New York City and other cities—that an awful lot of people, if you'll pardon the expression, go into it out of boredom. They're tired of bridge or Scrabble or whatever, and they go into it just to see what can be done. Now, what about this public apathy?
PETERSON: Well, I think that there is a failure on the part of the public to realize the danger in which America lives. And I think there are several reasons for that and if you permit me I will try to outline them very rapidly.
First, most of us do not like to do today what we should do in order to prepare for tomorrow. We procrastinate, we're a little bit lazy; that's true in our private lives.
Secondly, anyone of intelligence and information is hoping and praying that we won't have a third world war, because in this age of the atomic weapon a third world war would be a catastrophe for all mankind. And some people in that connection—and I offer this as another reason—are wishing that there will not be a third world war and they're wishing so hard that they have wished it into a reality.
And then in addition to that there are two other things that are quite important. Some people say, "Well, the destructiveness of modern atomic bombs and of these thermonuclear devices that may come into play will be so great that there isn't anything you can do about it."
And then finally—and this is quite significant—about sixty percent of the American people revealed in a study which we made through the University of Michigan a year ago that they believed that the military could stop the atomic bombs from falling upon the United States.
Well, I'm sorry to have to tell you that the military will tell you that as of today they cannot stop a successful Russian attack.
MORGAN: That can be corroborated rather dramatically. And we didn't plan it this way Governor, but the floor manager has just handed me a bulletin saying—quoting Pravda as saying that the Russians have just exploded a hydrogen bomb.
Now, as a final question—and this, we might say, a loaded one—very quickly, with that information could you tell us in about three words what we should do with that in mind?
PETERSON: I should say that we should step up our Civil Defense Program and we should of course step up our military defense program.
MORGAN: Thank you very much indeed, Governor Val Peterson.
KNIGHT: The opinions that you've heard our speakers express tonight have been entirely their own. The editorial board for this edition of the Longines Chronoscope was Edward P. Morgan and Bill Downs, both of the CBS television news staff. Our distinguished guest was the honorable Val Peterson, administrator of the Federal Civil Defense agency.
