Enemy Voices

The weirdest listening point in all the world of radio is probably Chungking.

Propaganda ranging from the slick to the grotesquely inept pours in there virtually 24 hours a day. This mad ethereal menu was described last week by George ("Smiley") Grim, Mutual Network and XGOY (Chungking) broadcaster, on loan from the U.S. Department of State to the Chinese Ministry of Information. Items : Items:

P: Japan seldom lets 15 short-wave minutes go by without a trumpet fanfare and the announcement: "This is the Broadcasting Corporation of Japan."

P: A brassy-voiced girl Japcaster called "Little Orphan Annie" goes on every after noon at four to taunt homesick sergeants with what they are missing at home. She describes herself as "your best enemy" and plays U.S. semi-classical recordings.

P: Annie gives way to a "too-smooth" English-speaking announcer who gives News From the American Home Front -- a conglomeration of strikes, floods, crimes, as sorted disasters.

P: A fine musical feature from Tokyo is the playing of Yoichi Hiraoka, famed Japanese xylophonist, who used to perform in U.S. concert halls and over a U.S. network. Says Grim : "He still plays classical music superbly, and without any commercials about his boss from Japan."

P:Japanese commentators on the News From Japan program "sink our ships one day and have them turn up a week later to be bombed from the air by daring Japanese pilots." The broadcasters do not give their names, but some of them sound amazingly American, with hardly a trace of the common Oriental difficulty over l's and r's.

P: Herbert Moy, a U.S.-born Chinese, is the voice of the German station in Shanghai. His news is delivered with a steady sneer. The station puts on an afternoon-full of classical recordings, principally by the Boston, Minneapolis and Philadelphia orchestras.

P: "The most dangerous corn I've ever listened to" emanates from Mrs. Henry Topping (TIME, April 10), who speaks over Radio Hsinking. Apparently an elderly U.S. widow, she tells of visits to Americans in Japanese prison camps, of their belief that there is no sense fighting the "delightful" Japanese. Grim: "She sounds like somebody making fun of your mother, and you resent it."

P: Radio Saigon is the most puzzling station heard in Chungking. Its puppet personnel seem unable to decide what side they are on--especially since the Second Front in Normandy. The voice of one announcer, Jacques Chateau, "reminds you of an accordion . . . full of mashed potatoes." Another specialty is a comedy team called Jack and Jane, who "are forever knocking themselves out laughing at their own material."

P: A station called The Free Voice of India has an announcer who sounds like "Donald Duck with a Hindustani accent."

P: Radio Berlin, which occasionally reaches Chungking, recently stopped its boasting and has settled for nostalgic U.S. dance records and innocuous chit-chat by a pleasant female voice.

Grim's conclusion: "Radio here is a link with home, but it's also an unwanted link with our enemy. . . . But you folks in the States don't have to worry about us. ... Orphan Annie from Tokyo, Jacques Chateau from Saigon, and Mrs. Henry Topping from Hsinking are just foolish voices crying in the wilderness."

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