By the Ears

The tall short-wave antennae of Zeesen, Tokyo and Rome are beamed not only at certain areas of the earth. They are beamed at the delicately balanced human mind. To the bewilderment, corruption, terrorization of that target, crews of cold theorists and insulting riffraff have devoted themselves for years. In their war, as in the braver war waged by fighting men, the U.S. is now a formidable opponent--and is being attacked with every trick in the book.

The general pattern of attack had emerged by last week. As ever, the Axis radio searched for the chinks between friendly peoples, insinuated between them its calculated lies, its bacilli of rumor. The British were told that U.S. admirals secretly rejoiced at the sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse. The Americans were told to resent the British command of Far Eastern land forces. Disappointment was encouraged among the Chinese.

The Japanese radio, devious by habit and well coached by the Nazis, could boast several propaganda exploits. It cut in on the Far Eastern beam of California's KGEI to give phony "flashes" on the "bombing" of San Francisco. It presented an American "Lady Haw-Haw" to inform America of the "annihilation" of the U.S. fleet. Last week it fished for U.S. listeners by promising to announce the names of prisoners "as soon as they are available" --i.e., in driblets, to keep the audience tuned in.

The tactics of radio warfare are becoming familiar to the U.S. A lucid account of the subject appeared last week,/- written by a 25-year-old analyst who had been in the radio melee with earphones on as a staff member of the Princeton Listening Center. He explained why the Axis radio has spent so much money and effort broadcasting by short wave to a country where "nobody" listens (best estimate of U.S. short-wave audience on any given day: 150,000). Biggest reason: to feed slogans and rumors to Axis agents, who spread them.

He told of the world's great short-wave stations now in Nazi hands: of the powerful Amsterdam radio, well heard in the Netherlands East Indies, which had been pumping out tales of U.S. weakness, Jap might for months before war broke in the Pacific; of Radio Falange in Madrid and Radio Vichy, whose assignment is to revile Yankee culture and Yankee "imperialism" for Latin American ears; of Radio Saigon, now an instrument of Jap propaganda in Southern Asia.

On Axis technique he had interesting observations; how the innocent press of the world plays the Axis game by employing "terror symbols" systematically used by the Axis radio: words like "annihilated," "total," "paralyzing," etc. How "the use of absurd exaggerations and fantastic assertions is an essential part of the German strategy. It removes to a large extent the stigma attached to propaganda by giving to it an appearance of ballyhoo"--i.e., something which the U.S. radio audience has long been conditioned to accept good-humoredly.

Two of his conclusions: 1) The Axis radio offensive is founded on Nazi "geopolitics," on the close, scientific study of each regional audience of the earth, its interests and susceptibilities. To counter this, the U.S. radio must make up for lost time. 2) "Propaganda," which is evil in the hands of a State monopoly under Goebbels, could be a force for good in the hands of independent U.S. broadcasters, employing not lies and terror but the true attractions of democracy.

Fighting Back. All six U.S. short-wave organizations (NBC, CBS, General Electric, Crosley, Westinghouse, World Wide) and their 13 transmitters were last week pursuing a common policy against the enemy, worked out in conference with the radio experts of the Coordinator of Information (Colonel William J. Donovan) and the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (Nelson Rockefeller). Details of that policy were not publicly discussed. Its vigor, and the wider array of "coordination" it envisioned against the Axis net, were perfectly clear.

COI's central office last week was in close touch with all stations. Even Boston's hitherto very independent World Wide Broadcasting Foundation (WRUL) took studio space in Manhattan. COI, which before the war left translation and programming up to individual stations (TIME, Nov. 3), is now "cutting platters" (making recordings) and has a big staff of translators to furnish its teletypes with program material in the principal European and Asiatic tongues. Notable exception: Russian. One reason given: beams to Russia would have to pass through distorting polar magnetic disturbances.

With BBC, U.S. short-wavers now work hand in glove. A striking example&$151;and by common consent of radiomen the greatest stroke yet delivered by the U.S. in the radio war--was the use of President Roosevelt's "60,000 planes" speech. Not only did U.S. short-wave stations send it out to the world with pounding reiteration; BBC rebroadcast it, or excerpts from it, 82 times in 24 hours in 32 languages.

For the Far East, most urgent theater of the radio war, the Australian radio at Sydney has been enlisted to pick up and rebroadcast U.S. programs. To supplement California's KGEI, two R.C.A. transmitters, withdrawn from point-to-point service, now broadcast the same programs; so it will not be so simple for the Jap to ball up news from the U.S. Nor will the Jap use Manila's four stations, as he is using Shanghai's and Saigon's; all four were dismantled before Manila fell.

/-Radio Goes to War, by Charles J. Rolo; Putram; $2.75.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.