How Much Hitler


December 15, 2001



BOB GARFIELD: We are back with On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. When to see the enemy's face or hear his voice is something America's broadcast media have always grappled with. After the United States entered the Second World War, government and radio chiefs carefully determined how much Hitler to air. But archivist and emeritus history professor J. Fred McDonald says there were no such qualms about showcasing Hitler before America joined the fray.

J. FRED McDONALD: Well, it's amazing, but several of his speeches were actually aired in long, long segments. NBC could go on for an hour and a half sometimes putting Hitler on. [TAPE OF ADOLF HITLER GIVING A SPEECH] [UNISON RESPONSE FROM THRONG]

TRANSLATOR: I ask from no German citizen anything else but what I have offered voluntarily myself.

J. FRED McDONALD: Granted, they put him on about 4:30 in the morning, and even if he was still talking he would go off when the soap operas came on, but the idea of Hitler speaking to the Reichstag in German with periodic interpretations by an American or by a network official seems kind of mindboggling now, but that's what radio was about. In the years before World War II you have to remember this country was officially neutral.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: When did the Hitler broadcasts stop?

J. FRED McDONALD: I don't think there are many more after 1939, once World War II actually began.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:So before the war was declared we heard lots of Hitler. After war was declared, we heard less. Now what happened after Japanese planes dropped bombs on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941?

J. FRED McDONALD: You would hear nothing. Certainly we didn't have American network representatives or newsmen in Germany -- they were not allowed in the country by the Germans. And they might pick up through short wave some summaries, but you would never actually hear his actual voice delivering the speech. The American government at the time worried, as it does today, that there might be codes; there might be certain communications that are slipping by, so the idea was not to give any kind of-- direct exposure to the enemy.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:So when you look at the historical record and at the way the Bush administration reacted to the Bin Laden tapes produced by Al Qaeda, do you see a pattern?

J. FRED McDONALD: Oh, I think it's very congruent with historical precedent. We saw lots of Osama bin Laden on the, on American television over the years before September 11th. There are certain journalists that consider it a, a coup in their career that they interviewed him. But once the Americans entered in this informal declaration of war against the Al Qaeda and Bin Laden, this is much more like the state of war in December 1941.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:This week we are allowed a glimpse of Osama bin Laden. There is a tape that incriminates him, and the government places no barriers in front of broadcasting it; in fact seems to approve of it. Are there parallels to World War II in this?

J. FRED McDONALD: Of course. Part of the government's effort was to have incorporated into broadcasting and other mass media the war aims of the United States, and if something that the enemy leader said could be used to further explain the war aims of this country, then it was fair game.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Now during the Cold War we had to contend with Nikita Kruschev. He came to represent all that was evil in the Communist Soviet Union. How did the American media handle the coverage of Kruschev?

J. FRED McDONALD: Well, that's very interesting because for the most part whenever you saw Kruschev on newsreels, it was silent, and the announcer in English would paraphrase what they said he was saying and you just saw him in these sort of staid pictures standing in front of a Russian governing institution. But in 1957, a real furor was raised by CBS television when on their Face the Nation program they actually went to Moscow and interviewed Khrushchev and brought the film back and presented it as an hour program on a Sunday afternoon in June.

CBS INTERVIEWER: Mr. Khrushchev, I've heard experts say that no nation in the world has ever been able to increase its meat supply 3 and a half times in 4 years. Do you Communists have some way of seeing that every cow gives twins? [TRANSLATION]

TRANSLATOR OF KHRUSHCHEV: That is also possible in nature. [LAUGHTER] [TRANSLATION]

TRANSLATOR OF KHRUSHCHEV: Not only twins but triplets are possible in nature.

J. FRED McDONALD: Although we were not in a state of war with the Soviet Union, the tensions between the East and the West were so great that it had the effect of being traitorous! In fact CBS took a lot of flak. Even President Eisenhower at his next press conference called it basically a cheap commercial trick by CBS to get ratings!

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Do you think it's useful for Americans to know their enemy?

J. FRED McDONALD:I think in times of war you've already committed through your government to a state of bellicosity, a state of war, and you let them run it! It is not run on every street corner; it is not run as a democracy. Wartime often means a suspension of certain kinds of peacetime initiatives and responsibilities.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Well Fred McDonald, thank you very much.

J. FRED McDONALD: You're welcome.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Fred McDonald is a retired history professor and president of the McDonald Film Archives. [MUSIC]