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Accustomed to years of news updates and
special reports, listeners were also used to the war ruling the airwaves,
and having reporters silence a favorite singer or diminish the drama of
their favorite soap opera. So when the news finally came, listeners weren't
surprised to have war's end dominate the airwaves, as with this original
flash announcement interrupting a musical program on August 14, 1945.
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Word of Japan's surrender came slowly
at first, as the world, fooled by false reports since the Munich Crisis,
waited and listened. When the previous evening's rumors became the next
morning's reality, the end of World War II was the story of the century,
and no shred of data was too insignificant for broadcast. As if to check
and double check the validity of Allied victory, Emperor Hirohito's message
of surrender to the Japanese people was read, reread, proclaimed, and
analyzed. In this broadcast from August 14, 1945, Hirohito's message is
being fed to the announcer as quickly as it is monitored on Tokyo radio,
translated, and sent to the world's news bureaus, with alternate translations
and additional paragraphs coming in up to the minute.
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With war officially over, the Allied
nations sought to form an international governing body to promote world
peace and security, much as the League of Nations had been chartered following
World War I. In April 1945, all nations that had been at war with Germany
or Japan by March 1, 1945, were invited to San Francisco to establish
the United Nations, a term originally coined by President Roosevelt. One
of the attendees of the San Francisco conference and an original Chair
of the Association of the United Nations was Clark N. Eichelberger, a
World War I veteran, onetime Chautauqua lecturer, and former American
director of the League of Nations Association. In this account from August
14, 1945, in the wake of Allied victory, Eichelberger's United Nations
report seems as apprehensive as it is optimistic.
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For the victorious nations, exhilaration
soon gave way to the stark reality of how
to rebuild a shattered world. Among the Allies' post-war questions
was what to do with Germany and how to deal the Axis leaders. Though the
full extent of the Holocaust was not known until after the war, Nazi atrocities
had been well documented since the 1930s, and the Allies had signed a
declaration to bring German leaders to trial in November 1943. At
Potsdam in May 1945, Churchill, Stalin,  Truman,
and De Gaulle agreed to try Nazi leaders on four counts: war crimes (responsibility
for crimes during war); crimes against peace (planning and making war);
crimes against humanity (racial persecution); and conspiracy to commit
other crimes. On November 20, 1945, at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg,
Germany, war crimes charges were filed against 21 Nazi defendants. Nearly
a year later, on October 15, 1946, the sentences, including 11 executions,
seven imprisonments, and three acquittals, were handed out. Two defendants,
Robert Ley and Hermann Goering, committed suicide during the trial. Martin
Bormann, the 22nd defendant, was believed dead and was tried and sentenced
to death in absentia. This message from August 18, 1945, announcing the
trial carried breaking-news status, and was one of the final news flashes
of World War II.
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We
Interrupt This Program
As
war gripped the world, events unfolding on distant shores seemed as unbelievable
as they were terrifying, and Americans relied more and more on radio to stay
informed. Newspapers gave way to radio as the preferred news source, and broadcasters
responded, patching together foreign news bureaus, enlisting an army of reporters
and technicians, and pushing the limits of technology. In the process, the
rules of reporting were rewritten. Providing context along with information,
and allowing time for in-depth commentary - enduring newsroom fundamentals
- slowly gave way to the on-the-spot coverage and hit-and-run reporting that
pass for journalism today. By war's end, the pace of news had subsided, but
the pace of information consumption was rising. As a result, news in the post-war
world became synonymous with information rather than understanding.
