Short-wave Paul Revere

Just before Yugoslavia squirmed out of the Nazi net, a series of short-wave broadcasts out of Boston took that country by the ears. In cafes, hotels, libraries and homes, Yugoslavs rallied round loudspeakers several times daily to listen to a call to arms that rocketed from a mike 4,500 miles away. Highly effective, these war cries from abroad were credited in official circles with having played no small part in keeping Yugoslavia out of Hitler's hands. Said a dispatch to the U.S. State Department from the American Legation in Belgrade: "Everybody has been listening to the broadcasts, which whipped up the hatred against Germany." They also promised the British were coming, with the Yankees not far behind.

Ironically, the programs which inspired Yugoslavs to battle had their origin in the WRUL studios of the World Wide Broadcasting Foundation, which has been supported by Rockefeller, Sloan and Carnegie cash and listeners' contributions since 1935, on the basis of its original purpose to promote international amity. Among those who have needled the Fuhrer over its facilities have been Dorothy Thompson, Hendrik Willem van Loon, Norway's Carl J. Hambro. But none has packed the wallop of cultured, greying, 46-year-old Dr. Svetislav-Sveta Petrovitch, author of last fortnight's appeals to the Yugoslavs.

A veteran journalist with a captain's commission in the Yugoslav Army, Dr. Petrovitch has been haranguing his countrymen from across their borders ever since 1939. Before then he was Paris correspondent for the Belgrade Pravda and so bitter about the Nazis that Berlin put on the screws to have him silenced. Unable to send dispatches, he suggested that the French permit him to short-wave his stuff twice a day. When the Nazis moved into France, Dr. Petrovitch fled to Vichy, making talks from towns along the line of retreat. Finally Petain ordered him to shut up, whereupon he headed for the U.S.

Through his great & good friend Hamilton Fish Armstrong, onetime U.S. military attache in Belgrade, now editor of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Petrovitch got a berth on WRUL, a 50,000-watt powerhouse, last fall. Conditions under which he agreed to operate were simple: a two-month trial at broadcasting three times a week, with no interference from anyone. Within three weeks, the State Department was advised by Arthur Bliss Lane, its Minister in Belgrade, that Dr. Petrovitch was becoming a potent force in Yugoslavia, that he ought to be aired every day.

Pleased that what he calls his "mission" has been successful, Dr. Petrovitch is back on his daily routine, from Manhattan. He wants no one to mistake his motives. "I am not," he points out, "a revolutionist. I am a nationalist."

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