Europe on the Air

From Paris, Berlin, London, Rome and Moscow every week radiate into the U. S. some half a million words of news and feature talks via the short waves. Berlin's North American Service is on the air eleven hours a day with a self-advertised, "choice assortment of broadcasting viands, sparkling musical champagne and other tasty delicacies ... as well as the regular news features and commentaries." Two U. S. listening posts make it their business to hear almost the whole works.

Columbia Broadcasting System's four-man post has heard some 30,000,000 words, now puts a selection of them on a teletype circuit to publishers every day. Princeton University's Listening Centre transcribes the programs it picks up, analyzes them for propaganda content and technique.

Financed by the Rockefeller Foundation, Princeton's Centre does its listening over two short-wave receivers seven days a week from 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. Under favorable conditions it hears an average of 65 programs a day. Last week the centre transcribed its 1,000th program, issued its sixth report. Some of its findings:

> Most reliable foreign news service, until recently, came from Radio Roma, which has now gone haywire like the rest.

> Berlin issues special talks for women, even a few for children. In a recent sally ten-year-old "Little Margaret" happily pointed out that "the map of Germany is getting bigger every day."

> Berlin specializes in skits such as Schmidt & Smith, wherein Smith, a gouty Englishman, played by Lord Haw-Haw, who drops his baritone voice to basso range for the part, is forever getting bested by calm, confident German Schmidt.

> A new German stunt is a series of features based on previous English-American troubles (Revolutionary War, War of 1812).

> BBC plays up British power and determination. Berlin pictures not so much German strength as English perfidy and weakness, makes a great point of moral issues of war guilt and war aims. One of the tabulations of the Princeton Centre suggests that an uncritical American listener, accepting all British and German statements at their face values, might easily decide Britain was morally wrong, but would win the war anyway.

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