1950. German Communists React to McCarthy's Attacks on State Department

"Total Dementia in Washington"

Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1950 (source)

Bill Downs

CBS Berlin

April 2, 1950

This morning we have the first German Communist reaction to the sensational charges in Washington against State Department leaders who Senator McCarthy says are pursuing pro-Kremlin policies.

The official Communist party newspaper in Berlin prints a long commentary under the headline "Total Dementia in Washington." With unconcealed glee, the newspaper describes the charges against Secretary of State Acheson, Ambassador Jessup, and Owen Lattimore.

The paper says it has its own reports from Washington that General George Marshall soon will be accused of pro-Communist sympathies and that even President Truman will be charged with being in the service of the Kremlin.

Then, making a reference to the recent tragic death of Defense Secretary James Forrestal, the Neues Deutschland cynically declares that Truman, Acheson, and Marshall already have made reservations in Washington's Bethesda hospital for luxury padded cells.

The Communist propaganda, in quoting our own Senate to discredit the American government, says that the massive attack on the State Department really is propaganda for the coming Congressional elections in which an imperialistic clique hopes to bring war to the world.

There is no doubt but that propaganda chief Gerhart Eisler is very happy about the whole situation.

Army engineers continue to probe into the secret treasure trove of Hermann Göring today. Authorities are keeping very close-mouthed about their findings, but the loot already is estimated to be more than a million dollars in art objects, gold plate, rare wines and liqueurs, as well as a silver bathtub. The treasure was brought to Göring's Veldenstein Castle near Nuremberg and hidden in underground concrete vaults shortly before the war ended.

There was another small riot on the border of the French-Soviet sector in Berlin last night. Several arrests were made and a policeman was knifed.

Otherwise, the East-West Cold War today is being fought by railroad officials. Western rail authorities charge that German sleeper trains are picking up bedbugs going through the Soviet zone. The argument is about who will delouse the trains.

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

1937. "L'Affaire Mickey Mouse" by Herbert Russell

L'Affaire Mickey Mouse

Top: "Mickey Mouse is amazed at the misconceptions about himself such as shown below." Bottom: "Mickey Mouse can be all things to all men. While Yugoslavia suspects him of revolutionary designs, Russia thinks he represents the meekness of the masses under capitalism." (Illustrations by Al Hirschfeld in The New York Times, December 26, 1937)

This article is part of a series of posts on how The New York Times covered the rise and fall of fascism in the years leading up to World War II.

From The New York Times Magazine, December 26, 1937, pp. 4, 17:

L'AFFAIRE MICKEY MOUSE

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

An Inquiry Into a Plot of World-Wide Scope: Mickey and Company As Arch Conspirators

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

By HERBERT RUSSELL

Now that that unreconstructed international rebel, Mickey Mouse, has been thrown out of Yugoslavia for conspiring against the throne—he together with the newspaper correspondent who rashly reported the plot—the expulsions from foreign countries of this arch-enemy of nations have risen to two. Hitler once barred him from Germany because Mickey was accompanied by a brigade of animals wearing Uhlan helmets, which was a reflection on the honor of the German Army and too serious to be passed over. Of course, Mickey was eventually pardoned, because not even dictators are completely immune to his spell; Mussolini loves him.

The incident in Yugoslavia serves to emphasize the international character of Mickey's activities, the boring from within by means of which he is winning the populations of a good part of the world to his cause. He is apparently without principles and can be all things to all men. While Yugoslavia suspects him of communistic and revolutionary designs, the Soviet thinks he represents the meekness and mildness of the masses under capitalism, and has countered by creating a Russian Mickey, known as Yozh, or the Porcupine, an animal favorite of Russian children. But Yozh will probably turn out to be the old Mickey in disguise.

•      •      •

Mickey does not care what he does so long as he gains his ends—he is completely unscrupulous—and while his victims laugh as he conspires. Or so one might think. Walt Disney, his father and Prime Minister, slyly deprecates the subtleties of Mickey's character. He says that all he wants is laughter, that he has no ulterior thoughts, no philosophy of life, no hidden political, social, or psychological motivations, none of the Eastern mysticism of which he is sometimes suspected, with reason, as will be seen. Those who read anything else into his life are all wrong, says Mr. Disney—but look at the record, as Al Smith used to remark.

In the first place there is no doubt that Mickey is an internationalist, and to be an internationalist these days is unorthodox to every one except Leon Trotsky. Mickey has been in thirty-eight countries in the world, and he is looking for others. In all these countries he has been popular and has captivated the masses; and that, to say the least, is suspicious. He promises them release for the time from worry and unhappiness, and speaks of a promised land where anything can, and does, happen.

That the great and near-great laugh at him merely proves his universality. He draws no distinctions, race, color or previous condition; he is kind even to jailbirds. President Roosevelt is his friend, and Queen Mother Mary sends for him regularly. He is the idol of savages, as Douglas Fairbanks found in Africa, and the Zulus refuse cakes of soap unless they bear his picture, just as natives used to refuse coins which did not have Queen Victoria's picture on them.

Reports from abroad continually show his increasing influence, an influence as mysterious as it is real. England, in self-defense, is creating a rival to him. In France his black-shirted pictures are everywhere. The shortness of his trousers has caused him to be looked upon as almost a Sans Culotte, or revolutionary, and his creatures, similarly dressed, may be found serving as ushers in theatres. A traveler in the East found Mickey peeking from a store window in Manchuli, which is a transfer point from the Chinese Eastern Railway to the Transsiberian. His being there at that time, just before the outbreak in China, was looked upon as highly suspicious, although it could not be determined whether he was coming from or going to Moscow. And paradoxically, he is the most popular figure in Japan, next to the Emperor.

•      •      •

Every country Mickey visits calls him by some variant of his name—for his real name is unknown; once it was said to be Hilarity Jones. Under that variant as a flag it is apparent his purpose is to rally his followers. The complete record of his aliases has never been compiled, but the following list of countries and the names they give him will show his international character:

Germany – Michael Maus
France – Michel Souris
Japan – Miki Kuchi
Spain – Miguel Ratoncito
Italy – Topolino
Greece – Mikel Mus
Sweden – Musse Pigg
Brazil – Camondongo Mickey
Argentina – El Raton Mickey
Central America – El Raton Miguelito

Mickey is not only appealing to the grown-up mob in the countries of the world; he has taken a leaf from the dictators and is organizing youth movements. These exist almost everywhere, from east to west, and from Singapore to Juneau, Alaska. Nearly every nationality is represented in the Singapore Mickey Mouse Club, but this cell of agitation has apparently not yet aroused the British Government to take action against it as protection for the Singapore naval base. Low, the British cartoonist, has pointed out that Mickey must appeal to the sophisticated before he can be completely successful. Mr. Low thinks Mickey lacks subtlety, and that his antics merely titillate the lower nervous system; but Low may have underestimated Mickey.

The Singapore club happens to be composed of adults, but it is one of the few exceptions. Most of the organizations take in only children, who carry a Mickey Mouse emblem and take a Mickey Mouse oath, which on its face is an innocuous pledge of good-will and patriotism. But they have a Mickey song, and a grip and a password. There are 1,500 of these clubs in the United States alone.

•      •      •

Whether Mickey is secretly building up cells in all these countries is not known, although the OGPU and the secret police of Germany might investigate. None of these nations, so far, has been able to agree upon interpretation of either Mickey or his activities. They see in him merely a reflection of their own ideologies or those of their enemies, according to their national psychology. His apparent simplicity, the fact that he is on the surface a gay creature who dashes madly into impossible situations, and escapes, giving the tail-waving, nose-thumbing Mickey salute—these things completely evade somber analysis.

There are continual attempts by the intelligentsia to interpret him, but he escapes them as easily as he avoided Mr. Low. Searching inquiry into Mickey has been made by a writer in The London Spectator, with the resulting judgment that he is an ebullient little rat, without an ounce of brains, half mug and half gallant, who by turns is meek and brave, and who represents the fantasy world in which adults, as well as children, may wander in a kind of Nirvana.

That there are no limits to his kingdom is also one of the allurements of Mickey which appeal to all the world. The air armadas of Europe, the plunging submarines, the skittering destroyers and dignified battleships cannot compete with the creatures which Mickey can call forth to battle if he chooses. He can scuttle a pirate with the aid of a sawfish and turn tortoises into tanks.

The capacity of such a Mouse for trouble is enormous, and those who pry into his motives cannot believe that he does everything for fun. He has appeared in international cartoons as a figure of importance. Newspapers in France and Italy and Russia speculate on his future and ineffectually try to link him with Br'er Rabbit and Krazy Kat as one who will have his day and then be forgotten. But Mickey shrugs his shoulders and bides his time, while his comic strips are in twenty-seven languages, and he speaks fluently four languages to hundreds of millions of people.

Now for his Eastern mysticism. The simplicity of Mickey is denied by one simple fact which has been overlooked by all the sage commentators and interpreters. Mickey can and does appear in thirty-eight countries at once. He is the most omniscient mouse in the world. Whether he is an Eastern Yogi, or Mahatma, or a Lama from Tibet, in the abbreviated raiment of a mouse, some odd victim of transmigration, has never been revealed since he was discovered seven years ago. But his Eastern origin may be assumed from the fact that he has such an affinity for Asiatic peoples—the Chinese seem to recognize in him much of their own guileful humor. Perhaps only as Mouse could he have won such world-wide fame, and if so, it rather confutes Mr. Low's theory of his lack of subtlety.

•      •      •

There is one other significant point to be made in any review of Mickey's international career. It is nothing that he is in Who's Who, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and has been decorated many times. But it is something that he has found a niche among the world's great in Mme. Tussaud's Wax Works in London. Somebody has recognized him for what he is to be; somebody knows his future.

Can it be possible that Mickey is waiting patiently for the collapse of civilization, waiting until the nations have pulled down their house of cards and destroyed all their own pretensions? Does he believe that the broken and oppressed people, wallowing in despond, will then turn to the one person whom they can depend upon for that happiness, and demand that Mickey shall become Emperor of the World? Perhaps Mickey isn't so dumb as he looks. Maybe that is why he is winning the ordinary folk and the great, building his youth movement through clubs, boring from within in Europe, Asia, Africa, India and the Americas.

And what a Cabinet he would have! Prime Minister, Walt Disney; Empress and Minister of Education, the ubiquitous Minnie; Minister of International Police, Pluto the Pup; Minister of Propaganda and Enlightenment, that notoriously bad egg, Donald Duck; and last, but not least, Minister of Nutrition, Clarabelle the Cow.

The only trouble with the idea of this world conspiracy of Mickey's is that its headquarters are in Hollywood.

1949. The Question of Rearming West Germany

Europe's Newest Dilemma

Chancellor Konrad Adenauer addresses the first volunteers of the newly established Bundeswehr in Andernach, West Germany, on January 20, 1956 (source)

Passages in parentheses were crossed out on the script before broadcast.

Bill Downs

CBS Berlin

December 10, 1949

The Army's American Forces Network here in Berlin has a program called "Hillbilly Gasthaus," a daily session of American folk music. One of the most popular numbers on this program, believe it or not, is called "I'm Biting My Fingernails and Thinking of You."

It struck me that this hillbilly lament has certain international implications. It could be the theme song of Western diplomats, military men, and defense secretaries when they sit down these days to discuss Germany.

The German question which is gripping the conscience of Europe today—and which has finally come out into the open—is whether or not to allow the West German republic some form of military power with which to participate in Western Europe's military defense plans. In other words, should the dreaded word "Wehrmacht" again become part of Europe's postwar vocabulary?

Perhaps you felt the shudder that emanated from this continent when this discussion finally came into the open—a kind of ideological earth tremor that shook this part of the world. After all, it was only some fifty months ago that a German army was regarded as the scourge of modern civilization.

But in the four and a half years of uncertain peace, things have changed. The struggle between East and West has reached a stage where East Germany already is being incorporated into the military organization of the Soviet Union.

The bald fact is that by admitting West Germany into the European community of nations, America and the Western Powers have automatically entered the Bonn republic into the defense program of Western Europe.

Now, whether we like it or not, it becomes necessary to consider the possibility of using Germans to defend democracy. A possibility, let us admit, not of choice but of necessity.

I am not talking about the moral aspect of this situation. Anyone can detail the atrocity of power that has made Germany the source of two wars in a generation—and generations before that. The war which ended in 1945 was the most horrible of all.

Morally—after the world's most recent experience—there is no human excuse or justification for rearming a nation that in its attempted conquest of Europe brought death to more than twenty million; which pursued the most dastardly pogrom of race extermination in the painful history of civilizations.

But the fact remains that no nation—the United States, Russia, or any other—has given up that bit of sovereignty which gives the state the right to make war. Attempts in the United Nations have failed, and treaties already are becoming reminiscent of pieces of paper.

So, lacking popular support or education for some sort of world government or world diplomacy to prevent war, it is perhaps incongruous to bleed deeply when preparations for yet another war go on before our eyes.

This incongruity also is civilization's dilemma.

Every international agreement concerning Germany since Hitler's armies first marched in 1939 has been based on the concept that when final victory was won, never again would this nation be allowed the forces to inflict upon the world.

Yet as the differences between the Communist and Democratic world widened, it was revealed that widespread training and arming of Germans was underway under the auspices of Russia.

The popular impression persisted in the West that we would never stoop to such tactics. However, in the past six months, the reports reaching correspondents became too persistent to be ignored. It is an accepted fact that although the Western Powers have made no decision on the rearming of Germany, our military men find it necessary to make plans against the day when it may become necessary.

It is the course of current history, however, and not the military that is the villain in this situation.

This is how it came about.

As far back as 1946 it was becoming apparent that Russia, America, Britain, and France were failing in the four-power rule of their late mutual enemy. As the schism became wider, the three Western Powers finally decided they would consolidate their occupation zones of Germany into a political and economic unit to be ruled by a democratic government of the Germans' own choosing.

The real motive behind the Marshall Plan and European recovery is that a prosperous and working Europe with a healthy and expanding economy is the only peaceful defense against the totalitarian revolution called Communism.

By placing the German republic as a participating nation in the Marshall Plan, West Germany automatically entered into Western European defense.

The Soviet Union, meanwhile, matched these moves by sponsoring a Communist coup in her zone of East Germany, creating another satellite government and speeding up organization of a so-called People's Police to maintain the puppet Communists in power.

The Western Powers then ended military government in West Germany. The armies retired to the job of policing their occupation zones. And the American, British, and French governments began worrying about the defense of Western Europe against the encroachments of Soviet power and Communism.

It was at this point that the rumors started flowing about the possible militarization of the German republic. There was MAP, America's Mutual Assistance Program of arms aid to our allies. There was the conference of the Allied chiefs of staff in Washington and the trip to Europe of the chiefs of the US Army, Navy, and Air Force. Significant meetings were held in Heidelberg, headquarters of American military forces in Europe. And finally last month there was the Paris meeting of the European defense ministers, including America's Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson.

The word "Germany" began to leak out of all these meetings. We began asking: "What part has Germany in these discussions?" Just about everyone replied "absolutely nothing."

Secretary Johnson declared: "The United States has absolutely no plans for the rearming of Germany," but he added, significantly, "for the present."

I believe that no one was lying. There were and are no Western plans for German rearmament, because no one could agree on them, or even wanted to. Even in the minds of the French, British, Belgian, and Dutch generals, the memory of German power is fresh, and even more fresh and abhorrent in the memories of the people of their nations.

(It was denied for diplomatic and political reasons. But word of the discussions leaked even as far as Berlin, one hundred miles inside the Soviet zone.)

(Information received here is that the Paris defense conferences considered the establishment of five German infantry divisions to be used, if necessary, under overall Allied control, but that any German force would be denied its own air power or other arms which could be interpreted as large-scale offensive weapons.)

(Apparently no decision was reached as to what kind of West German military force to be established in the event of an emergency, if any at all. It is a question here in Europe that can cause governments to fall.)

During the past year America, Britain, and France have been promoting the West German republic, increasing its sovereignty, and projecting it into the Western European community. This is healthy progress toward European recovery, but the events behind the Iron Curtain have forced European defense into the number one priority.

The question of whether or not any West German armed force could be established was propounded not on the initiative of the West, but by the actions and events occurring in the East.

The best example of the new situation is the case of East Germany, the newest Russian satellite.

Even before the Soviet Union created the East German government they began organization of what they called the People's Police. At first this Communist-led police force looked no different than the Western police, which we created to preserve civil order. But as time went by it became clear that the People's Police is more than a German security force. It is, in fact, the nucleus of an army supplied with weapons ranging from small arms and automatic weapons to armored cars and tanks.

Last month came a report that in the spring we will see a conscription of German youth in the Russian zone—young men between the ages of eighteen and thirty who are not employed in vital jobs on factory or farm. These men, according to the report, will receive training in the People's Police. Whether this is true or not is unconfirmed, but the result of the report has been that large numbers of young men from East Germany have been making their way westward for fear of being conscripted.

The point is that, in the view of the military preparations of East Germany, the increasing crisis in the Balkans, and the worsening relations all down the line between East and West, it is not surprising that the men in charge of Western European defense should be considering the place of Germany in their plans.

Most certainly the Russian generals are not neglecting this point. They have moved to consolidate East German military manpower into their sphere. The West is only considering it.

But what does Germany think of all this talk and preparation by both East and West to make her a divided partner in their military schemes?

The Germans don't like it very much. That is, they don't like the idea of creation of another Wehrmacht at the present time.

Certainly there is a nucleus of unregenerated Nazis who dream of marching again. There are unemployed Germans who would like the resume their jobs. There are reactionary political and economic leaders who see the solution of unemployment and the reconstruction of industry only through rearmament. And generally there is a submerged ambition in all Germans to raise their nation from the disgrace of defeat by again fighting her back to the top.

But as of today the great mass of the German people are shocked by any suggestions that her youth, just now growing to military age after the bleeding of the Nazis, should again go into uniform—with their fathers hardly cold in their graves.

Senator Elmer Thomas recently wound up a Congressional junket to Europe with the statement that, since the Germans are such good fighters and like to fight, another German army should be armed to fight for the West.

I was sitting with a former Luftwaffe pilot listening to the radio when this news hit Berlin. The young German looked up in surprise. He had flown seaplanes in the North Sea during the war until there were no more planes. He then was put in an antiaircraft battery and finally captured by American troops at the Brenner Pass.

His reaction to Senator Thomas' proposal was simply: "Not me."

This "not me" attitude at the moment is the mood of the great mass of German people. In Germany and Frankfurt today housewives have organized a campaign against the sale of military toys to their children this Christmas. Such sales serve to inculcate a military and warlike attitude in their kids, they say, and German mothers have had enough of that.

I have talked with Chancellor Konrad Adenauer about the future military position of Germany. His views are definite. He says that Germany has had enough of armies in the past fifty years; the country had been bled to its lowest point in history by them. As a matter of fact, he criticized certain United States military officials who he said were talking with certain former Nazi generals about military matters.

We pressed Adenauer as to his ideas about future German international cooperation. He advocated a kind of United States of Europe based on German-French friendship. Then he said that if ever again there was to be a German armed force, it would have to be under the control of and only a part of an international European military force; that never again should there be a Wehrmacht as such.

However, it must be pointed out that America and her allies are creating the new German state in their own image, and this image implies a future German sovereignty. Included in this sovereignty is the right to make war.

Consequently as Germany gains independence and strength and as she becomes a sovereign participating power in the Western European community, the present mood of pacifism is bound to change. Already in Bonn there are politicians who will argue that Western Germany needs a security force to match the militarized People's Police of East Germany.

The day before yesterday the upper chamber of the French government voted against a resolution against any remilitarization of Germany, an action taken only because of the prevalent discussions by the military that have leaked to the press and radio.

British statesmen also are on record against reconstituting any military power here. And our own statesmen have disavowed any such plans—for the present, that is.

The bald truth is that we are not going to make the decision on the question of rearming Germany.

The decision will be made east of the Iron Curtain. For if pressure on that curtain increases, then Western defense will become more vital. And as the days become more critical, you can bet that a formula will evolve—and don't be surprised if that formula includes plans for German military aid in the defense of Western Europe.

Cold wars, like politics, make strange bedfellows. Only diplomacy on the highest level can prevent cold wars from becoming hot wars.

Sitting here in Berlin and looking at the situation, the diplomats had better get busy.

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

1945. Bill Downs on the Postwar World

Bill Downs on "Report to the Nation"

Bill Downs in Normandy, June 14, 1944

This text is from a transcript for the radio broadcast Report to the Nation in 1945.

JOHN DALY: This is a report to Report to the Nation. With victory in Europe, now can be told the stories behind the news. Here in our Report to the Nation studio is one of CBS' top-drawer war correspondents. You've heard him describe the Surrender of the German High Command, an appropriate wind-up to his war coverage, because like the troops he stayed with to the end, he went in on the Normandy beaches on D-Day, and fought across France and Germany with them.  His name is Bill Downs.

Speaking as a correspondent myself, Bill, I'd like to know how you got your stuff out of the beachhead.

BILL DOWNS: I tell you, John, it wasn't until ten days after D-Day that we found there were fourteen Army radio transmitters which we could have used. The news didn't get out of Normandy by radio as fast as it should have. Army officials at that time were uncertain of the form of news reporting of this campaign would take. However, eight days after the D-Day landing, when we got the first broadcast out, they were most cooperative. Without boasting, I think the radio, press, and photographic reporters have done an adequate job.

DALY: What about stories behind the news? You were on the British front, Bill. What about this fantastic character, Montgomery?

DOWNS: Field Marshal Montgomery already is a legend in the European campaign. He's a mixture of Roman god, Episcopalian minister, and a fine fighting man. He also has an ego that's become famous throughout the world.

A good example is the time he met Russian Field Marshal Rokossovsky south of Wismar on the Baltic. Both Rokossovsky and Monty had speeches prepared for the historic joining of forces, but Rokossovsky beat Monty to the draw. He grabbed Montgomery's hand and shook it for over ninety seconds, meanwhile spouting a stream of Russian.

Montgomery was overcome for the first time in this war. He turned to his interpreter and asked, "What's this chap saying?"

The interpreter said, "Field Marshal Rokossovsky says he is proud and happy to greet one of the war's great soldiers."

Montgomery replied, "Is that so? Let me shake that man's hand again."

DALY: How about it, Bill—is Montgomery really good?

DOWNS: As good as he thinks he is, John.

DALY: You got the story on V-E Day from the British front?

DOWNS: Yes. I suppose it was the first time in radio history that a whole enemy town turned out for the Columbia Broadcasting System.

DALY: How'd that come about?

DOWNS: Well, we knew V-E Day was coming up, and the terms of surrender about forty-eight hours before it happened.

DALY: You went in with the troops on D-Day and stayed with them all the way until V-E Day. What did it add up to for you?

DOWNS: I don't know how it looked to you from over here, John, but to me D-Day in Normandy and Victory Day in Germany were different as black and white. On D-Day every dogface who went up those beaches was riding a white horse. He was a crusader fighting for the freedom of Europe and the world.

That spirit lasted until we reached Germany. Then, when victory was in sight, came a more deadly artillery than we found on the battlefields. The shells of suspicion, the gas of selfishness, and international undermining. By the time the war ended all our idealism was gone. Our crusade had been won, but our white horses had been shot out from under us.

I remember sitting in London back in 1940, when the world's most powerful air force was bombing us, when the most powerful army in the world was spreading over Europe. I knew that sooner or later America would have to come into the war. And I remember shuddering, watching these professional German soldiers—and they were professional. I thought that, when we did come in, what a meat-grinding process it would probably be.

I was wrong. Our drugstore clerks and college kids and farm boys have developed into the best fighting men in any army today.

As a nation we are now just feeling our strength. Now, then, how will we use this strength? For the cause of hate or race discrimination, or territory or money?

The crusade that inspired men to give their lives selflessly must not turn into a precinct political battle on the world scale, with all of its ramifications, power politics, diplomatic double-dealing, and cutthroat economic competition. No American's life is worth spending on these things. We have started a purchasing program, buying freedom and dignity and democracy with the lives of Americans. It is an investment given as security the trust and confidence of future generations. We must make our investment pay dividends, in human freedom.