So Smelly the Rose

One of the world's most timely radio programs last week got one of the world's most enterprising sponsors.

The program: transcriptions of Tokyo's English-speaking propagandists, starring famed Tokyo Rose, who for months has beamed her Boston accent, her nostalgic Americanese, and her U.S. dance records all over the Pacific (TIME, April 10).

The sponsor: San Francisco's Roos Bros, clothing store, over the city's KYA (nightly, 7:10-7:30 p.m., P.W.T.).

Original credit for thinking that the U.S. public would like to hear the famed Japcaster goes to KYA's 6-ft., 31-year-old, South Dakota-born president, Don Fedderson. He got the idea one morning at 4 o'clock. It stood the test of daylight. It pleased both the FCC and the Office of Censorship. It delighted Roos Bros, who, in a trial poll on the propriety of the program, got 97% approval. The poll's heavy mailbag indicated that the program would collect a sizable audience.

In order to forestall panic effects of an Orson Welles-Martian nature, the Rose recordings are carefully introduced and Japanese tamperings with the facts of the news are spotted for listeners by KYA's news staff.

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