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The week ending May 4th in 1951 – a week with a lot of contrasts, most all of it captured through the new medium of tape recording and narrated by the legendary Edward R. Murrow for the weekly CBS Radio program Hear It Now.
Beginning with the war in Korea and the threatened escalation, coming perilously close to World War 3 with the increased presence of Chinese troops taking up ranks among the North Koreans.
China’s key role in the titanic struggle between the democratic world and Communism has been underscored by Gen. MacArthur in his appearance before the Senate committees investigating his ouster from the Far Eastern commands and American foreign policy in general. The former commander emphasized that the loss of China to Communism was “the greatest political mistake” in a hundred years in the Pacific. More than that. Gen MacArthur said the Chinese Communists, spurred on by the Russians, will not be content with what they already have.
They will never make peace without obtaining Formosa. And that, the 71-year-old soldier insisted, would endanger American control of the Pacific, open the way to Communist attacks on Alaska and even the West Coast of this country and possibly, too. Central and South America.
As an example of the fighting in Korea, the CBS microphones went to a battle zone in Korea to witness a series of firefights and skirmishes between Northern Korean and Chinese troops and UN troops as UN forces attempt to rescue a platoon under heavy Chinese fire.
The program then switches the a somewhat ironic story of the crew of a B-36 bomber on a training mission in the U.S. – ironic in the sense that, a week after the story was recorded, the Bomber crashed, killing all but two crew members aboard.
The program ends with a story about Divorce in America and the goings on in Reno, then the Divorce Capitol of the World.
An hours worth of documentary, done in the inimitable Edward R. Murrow fashion and broadcast on May 4, 1951.
