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Show U. S. Plans Broadcasts In German for Aliens Prepare 'Counter -Propaganda Campaign'.; Russo-Japanese Meutrality Pact Cools U. S. 'Friendship.' ) By BAUKIIAGE National Farm and Home Hour Commentator. WVU Service, 1343 II Street N. W.( Washington, I). C. WASHINGTON. You hear more and more talk in Washington these days about total defense with the accent on the total. Another way to say it would be "all-out" since that is the popular phrase of the day borrowed from the English who usually borrow their slang from us. A better way to say what ofllcials are now calling for is "everybody out." If there is to be a final test between this democracy democ-racy and totalitarianism it will be "everybody out" with a vengeance. Already the ramifications of the defense effort are reaching into all corners of national activity. While our factories are filling the air with bombers and fighters for England, the government is planning a little peaceful air-offensive of our own against Germany. When you feel around on the dial of your radio set some day you may suddenly pick up a voice in German' broadcasting from Washirtgton. Do not worry. That will not mean that the fifth columnists have arrived ar-rived on the Potomac. The voice will be coming forth not in spite of, but because of, the department of justice. The words may be as persuasive per-suasive as those of Propagandist Goebbels or as pleasing as those of the Poet Goethe but they will be boosting democracy. If you can ' understand what the broadcaster is saying, you can learn some good things about your country coun-try and its customs that you may have forgotten even if the message is not meant for you. It is meant, as a matter of fact, for the German-speaking German-speaking foreign-born of this country coun-try and - the broadcast has been planned for two purposes. The first is to remind these more recent arrivals on our shores who may have been listening to the short wave broadcasts from Berlin that there are a lot of good points about the country of their adoption which they may have overlooked. The second is to try to unite the newcomers and their offspring in an effort to use their influence, if they have any, to pass on some of these points to the people in the old country coun-try with whom they may still be in touch, directly or indirectly. The idea has the support of Attorney At-torney General Jackson but he would carry it still further. He believes in fighting fire with fire and shooting counter-propaganda right at the Germans Ger-mans in Germany. Of course, news reports from the United States are being beamed at Germany and France and other European countries, as well as South America right now. We know how difficult it is for the Germans and people in the occupied countries to listen to foreign broadcasts. It may mean a life sentence. But we have ample evidence that the American Amer-ican stations have listeners a great many more than would be expected under the circumstances. The people peo-ple in those countries are starved for the news. They know that the newspapers they get are simply rubber rub-ber stamps from the censor's office. They know our news is authentic, unbiased, accurate. But some people think that we ought to go much further in this battle of the ether than merely broadcasting news. They think that, in addition to the newscasts, there should be interesting feature broadcasts which would contain material planned to counteract the propaganda which the Germans are sending out to their own people and to o'-hers abroad. There are those, of course, outside out-side the government who are openly open-ly demanding that we go even further fur-ther than this. They say that we should not limit our efforts to defeating de-feating German propaganda by a counter attack on the air waves, but that we must take over some of the Goebbels methods in foreign countries coun-tries where his fifth-columnists are busy now that we should match dollars against marks where they will do the most good, organize secret se-cret agents of our own, especially in South America. Right now American business men in South America on their own initiative have bought time on the air for programs of news and other material concerning the United States. What further steps the department of justice, or whatever government agency might undertake the work, may do or may be doing now for that matter, is not officially revealed. re-vealed. But this we do know: the stations of the National Broadcasting Broadcast-ing company, Columbia, Westing-house, Westing-house, General Electric and the privately pri-vately owned station WRUL in Boston Bos-ton expect greatly to increase the number of newscasts they are sending send-ing out to foreign countries in foreign for-eign languages. Soviet Diplomats Hold an "At Home" Many a Washington official who speaks of Russia's dictator with a curl of the lip has a secret admiration admira-tion for the wiley Comrade Stalin. Some call him the "Volga Goat-man" Goat-man" because -he gets so many diplomatic goats. Recently it was the policy of the state department (following the British Brit-ish lead) to make up to the czar of the Soviets. Russia wanted machines ma-chines and tools. We wanted Russia to growl at the Japanese. And so the anything-but-proletarian Sumner Welles, our undersecretary of state, was forced to let his chin down at least one hitch and converse pleasantly pleas-antly with the anything-but. aristocratic Tovarisch Oumanski; charge d'affaires of the Soviets. Then came the sudden announcement announce-ment of the Russo-Japanese neutrality neu-trality pact. It broke upon the dignified dig-nified diplomatic world with all the indignity of an over-age egg exploding explod-ing on an immaculate shirt front About that time of the month there occurred an "at-home" at one of the Sixteenth street's most prominent promi-nent residences (to quote the official guide book). This mansion, built originally by the widow of the Pullman Pull-man palace car millions and later palace of the perfumed and be-monocled be-monocled emissaries of the Romanoffs, Roman-offs, is now the Soviet embassy. The "at home" was a great success. suc-cess. The great and the near-great from belligerent and peaceful nations, na-tions, were there. In fact, it was quite a job keeping the Canadian diplomats out of one salon while swastika and hammer and sickle tete-a-teted over the tall tea-glasses. Earlier that day the state department depart-ment had minimized to inquiring reporters re-porters the importance of the Russo-Japanese Russo-Japanese pact. But diplomats, as you know, use words to conceal their thoughts. Their actions speak much louder than their official statements. state-ments. At the Soviet "at home" state department officials were exceedingly ex-ceedingly conspicuous by their absence. ab-sence. Germans Prepare To Invade England Will the Nazis try to invade the British Isles? Most experts say, yes. The question is when? Recently some information has come to my ears which touches on this point. It comes from two sources which are sound and reliable. reli-able. One is a story which was told to me by a French newspaper woman wom-an who is Hitler's Private Enemy Number One. She is Madame Genevieve Gene-vieve Tabouis, and she escaped France ahead of the hungry Gestapo and is here in the United States. She told me that the Germans had held a practice maneuver in France which consisted of pouring oil on a certain river. They then ignited the oil and hundreds of German soldiers, sol-diers, dressed in specially prepared fireproof clothing jumped in. The next day the river was full of corpses and the hospitals full of frightfully burned soldiers. The experiment did not work. Spreading burning oil at invasion points is said to be one of the methods meth-ods of defense the British are planning plan-ning against invasion. Now the second story comes from a man whom I cannot name but who has recently been in Germany. He says that the Germans have been working a long time on perfecting amphibian tanks tanks which will actually float. He believes that there will be no invasion until these tanks are ready. He also says that a psychological moment will be chosen. One when British morale is at a low point. For instance, if both the Suez and Gibraltar were captured the Germans Ger-mans might feel that this was the moment. |