Our Secret Weapon 1942-08-30 The Truth

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Our Secret Weapon 1942-08-30 The Truth"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Harold's Old Time Radio
• Host/Author: Harold's Old Time Radio
• Description: Showcasing radio programs from the Golden Age of Radio, featuring classics like The Shadow, Abbott & Costello, Amos & Andy, Dragnet, and more.
• Episode: Our Secret Weapon 1942-08-30 The Truth
• Release Date: January 21, 2025

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Introduction

In the episode titled "Our Secret Weapon 1942-08-30 The Truth," host Rex Stout, renowned author and chairman of the Writers War Board, serves as the program's lie detective. Representing Freedom House, an organization committed to advocating for rights and freedoms globally, Stout embarks on a mission to unveil the deceptive propaganda disseminated by Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—during World War II.

The Power of Truth as a Weapon

Rex Stout emphasizes the unparalleled strength of truth in countering enemy propaganda. He asserts, “[...] the truth is a weapon that isn't secret in our country, but it's a big secret to the people who live in Germany, Japan, and Italy” (00:02). Stout highlights that while the Allies openly wield truth, the Axis powers perpetuate continuous lies to obscure reality from both their populations and the world.

Exposing Axis Propaganda Techniques

Stout delves into the methods employed by Axis broadcasters to manipulate information. He points out the consistency and deceit inherent in their messages, explaining, “Our enemies don't have this weapon. They don't dare let their people know the truth. Instead, they lie and lie and keep on lying” (00:02). The program's objective is to dissect and expose these falsehoods, providing listeners with clarity amidst wartime misinformation.

Case Studies of German Propaganda

Churchill's Visit to Moscow

One of the primary examples Stout examines is the German portrayal of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's visit to Moscow. Through a series of broadcasts, the German media spun a narrative fraught with contradictions and falsehoods.

• Initial Misrepresentation:

  • August 2 Broadcast: “The meeting between Churchill and Stalin was very excited and hysterical. It assumed a dramatic climax when Stalin accused Churchill of betraying the Soviet Union” (02:15).

• Contradictory Follow-ups:

  • August 4 Broadcast: “Churchill is in Moscow at this moment where the establishment of a second front is being discussed” (02:28).
  • August 8 Broadcast: “Churchill shook hands with Stalin at the Kremlin” (02:34).

Stout reveals the truth: Churchill only arrived in Moscow on August 12, making earlier broadcasts grossly inaccurate. He critiques the German broadcasters for their "greatness on detail" but underscores the blatant lies, noting, “Churchill actually arrived in Moscow on August 12. You can't beat that for a scoop” (02:34).

• Further Fabrications:
  • August 16 Broadcast: Germany claimed Churchill’s visit aimed to assess the Soviet regime’s stability and search for alternative forces to continue the war against Germany should the Stalin government falter (02:58).

Stout uses vivid imagery to mock the absurdity of these claims, imagining Churchill "sneaking" through Moscow streets in haste, a clear exaggeration meant to ridicule German propaganda techniques.

Depiction of the American Military

Another segment focuses on German broadcasts aimed at discrediting the American military's image:

• August 18 Broadcasts:

  • Beamed at Brazil: Accused England of desperation, stating, “England is now in such a bad spot, there's nothing left for her to do but to make a desperate appeal to the Russians” (03:56).
  • Beamed at U.S.: Warned of Churchill’s supposed betrayal and insinuated weakness in his leadership (04:14).

• August 17 Broadcasts:

  • To the U.S.: Ridiculed American soldiers as "softies," criticizing their attire and behavior, claiming they would "drop everything and run" when confronted by German soldiers (10:07).
  • To Europe: Mocked the notion of recruiting soldiers from "jailbirds," suggesting absurd appointments like "Al Capone Chief of the General Staff" (11:28).

Notable Quote:

"Our soldiers seem to be a bunch of softies and a gang of jailbirds at the same time. Quite a trick."
— Rex Stout (11:47)

Stout methodically deconstructs these derogatory portrayals, highlighting the intent to undermine American morale and sow distrust within Allied ranks.

Exposing Italian Propaganda

Italy's contributions to Axis propaganda are also scrutinized. Stout presents a broadcast from Rome (August 21) that lambastes President Roosevelt's policies towards African Americans:

• Italian Broadcast: Condemned Roosevelt for forming "Negro regiments" and depicted African American soldiers as "cannon fodder," unworthy of intellectual pursuits (05:31).

Stout draws parallels to Mussolini's atrocities, referencing Mussolini's son's gleeful accounts of violence against Ethiopian villagers. He further cites Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, underscoring the ideological foundations of such demeaning propaganda:

Hitler's Quote:

"As for the Negro, it does not dawn upon the depraved bourgeois world of America that it is a criminal absurdity to train a born half ape [...]"
— Adolf Hitler (06:35)

Stout vehemently counters these narratives, emphasizing America's commitment to addressing racial issues through constructive societal experiments, rather than the destructive ideologies propagated by the Axis leaders.

Japanese Propaganda and Tojo's Statements

Japanese propaganda, represented by statements from Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, is examined to reveal the Axis' perception of the United States:

Tojo's Declaration:

"It should be obvious that the United States cannot win the war. It is time for thinking Americans to realize the real issues of this war..."
— Hideki Tojo (12:52)

Stout juxtaposes Tojo’s bold claims with America's unwavering resolve, noting the parallel determination of both nations to see the war through to its conclusion, despite differing justifications and motivations.

Concluding Insights and Call to Action

Rex Stout concludes the episode by reiterating the critical importance of recognizing and combating enemy propaganda. He underscores that understanding the deceptive tactics of the Axis powers is essential to maintaining public morale and support for the war effort.

Closing Statement:

"...the first step now is to wipe the Nazis and fascists off the face of the earth."
— Rex Stout (07:07)

Stout encourages listeners to actively seek the truth and disseminate accurate information to counteract the lies spread by enemy broadcasters. He invites the audience to request copies of the program's script and supplementary materials by contacting Freedom House or their local broadcasting stations.

Final Note: The episode wraps up with acknowledgments to the production team, highlighting the collaborative effort behind the program's mission to serve as “armor for defense and bullets for attack” against Axis misinformation.

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Key Takeaways:

• Truth as a Weapon: Emphasizing transparency and honesty to counter enemy lies.
• Propaganda Analysis: Detailed examination of Axis broadcasts reveals patterns of deception and misinformation aimed at destabilizing Allied morale.
• Defense of Allies: Robust defense of American and Allied values against malign portrayals by Axis nations.
• Call to Vigilance: Encouraging active participation in recognizing and dispelling enemy propaganda to support the war effort.

By dissecting and exposing the multifaceted propaganda strategies of Germany, Italy, and Japan, Rex Stout's "Our Secret Weapon" serves as a crucial tool for maintaining informed and resilient public sentiment during one of history's most tumultuous periods.

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Notable Quotes:

• “Do you know we have one? You Americans, do you know what it is? Well, it's simply the truth."
  — Rex Stout (00:02)

• “He was absolutely determined to tell some kind of a lie about our operations in the Solomon Islands.”
  — Rex Stout (01:19)

• “What a man.”
  — Rex Stout, referring to Churchill (03:17)

• “Oh, beat it, Tojo. Tell it to the honorable marines on the Solomon Islands.”
  — Rex Stout (09:18)

• “Our soldiers seem to be a bunch of softies and a gang of jailbirds at the same time. Quite a trick.”
  — Rex Stout (11:47)

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This summary aims to provide a comprehensive and engaging overview of the "Our Secret Weapon" episode, capturing the essence of Rex Stout's efforts to unveil and counteract Axis propaganda during World War II.

Transcript

[Rex Stout]

Our secret weapon.

[Narrator]

Do you know we have one? You Americans, do you know what it is? Well, it's simply the truth. The truth is a weapon that isn't secret in our country, but it's a big secret to the people who live in Germany, Japan and Italy. Our enemies don't have this weapon. They don't dare let their people know the truth. Instead, they lie and lie and keep on lying. So in this program every week, we're going to expose some of these Axis lies. Our lie detective is Rex Stout, the celebrated author and chairman of the Writers War Board and a representative of Freedom House, an organization dedicated to the rights and freedom of all men. Here is Rex Stout.

[Hideki Tojo]

It should be obvious that the United States beat it.

[Rex Stout]

Tojo, I start this program, you don't. The purpose of this program is not to prove that Nazis and Japs are liars. Everybody knows that. But it is instructive and highly important to understand their technique. Recently they seem to have got the idea that half a lie is better than none. Take, for example, these two consecutive sentences broadcast from Berlin on August 24th. Beamed at Ireland.

[Unnamed German Broadcaster]

The American operations on the Solomon Islands have come to a standstill. On the islands of Tulagi and Guadalcanal, better battles are still being fought.

[Rex Stout]

No, I don't believe he thought he was putting over an Irish bull. No German would appreciate the debonair nonsense of an Irish bull. I've got a theory. He was absolutely determined to tell some kind of a lie about our operations in the Solomon Islands. But on account of conflicting Japanese reports, he didn't know what the truth was. So he made those two contradictory statements, one right after the other sure of one of them being a lie. So he would at least be batting.500. That may sound far fetched, but if anyone has a better theory, send it along. I'm not being flippant. Whatever else we do or don't do about the Germans, we had darn well better understand them what it is that makes them tick or we'll make as big fools of ourselves as we did last time. Consider this. Here's the way the Germans handled the visit of Winston Churchill to Moscow. First, a broadcast to the official German news agency on August 2.

[Unnamed German Broadcaster]

The meeting between Churchill and Stalin was very excited and hysterical. It assumed a dramatic climax when Stalin accused Churchill of betraying the Soviet Union.

[Rex Stout]

And this went out from Berlin two days later, on August 4, beamed at the Middle East.

[Unnamed German Broadcaster]

Churchill is in Moscow at this moment where the establishment of a second front is being discussed.

[Rex Stout]

And this on August 8, beamed at.

[Unnamed German Broadcaster]

England this morning, Churchill shook hands with Stalin at the Kremlin.

[Rex Stout]

The Germans sure are great on detail. But those items were broadcast on August 2nd, 4th and 8th. And as we now know, Churchill actually arrived in Moscow on August 12. You can't beat that for a scoop. And they kept right on. This came from Berlin at 9pm on August 16th. Beamed at the United States.

[Unnamed German Broadcaster]

The true reason for Churchill's trip to Moscow is now known. He wanted to see with his own eyes just how stable the Soviet regime is and at the same time to look around for other forces in Russia to would be willing to continue the war against Germany if the Stalin government should suddenly fall.

[Rex Stout]

I like that one particularly. It is so vivid. I can just see Churchill sneaking up one street of Moscow and down another, his collar turned up and his hat pulled over his eyes looking around for the next Russian government. And he had to get a move on because he had promised Stalin he would be back at the Kremlin in time for dinner. What a man. Well, that was August 16th. On the 18th, the British made the official announcement of Churchill's trip. And then Berlin really went to it. They sent dozens of different broadcasts in a dozen different languages in all directions, and no two of them agreed. Here's one. Beamed at Brazil at 9.15pm on August 18.

[Unnamed German Broadcaster]

How deeply must England have fallen when her highest minister travels clear to Moscow to crawl before the Bolsheviks. England is now in such a bad spot, there's nothing left for her to do but to make a desperate appeal to the Russians to plead with them to sacrifice themselves in order to save England.

[Rex Stout]

Another on the same date at 5pm.

[Unnamed German Broadcaster]

The Russian partner is seriously ill, if not already dead. That is why Churchill had to hurry to Moscow to shake hands with the man he hates most. The meeting, we are told, was dramatic. Strong words echoed in the Kremlin. Stalin refused to continue the fight. Churchill warned him that he must carry on.

[Rex Stout]

And so it went. Churchill pleading, crawling, warning, threatening Churchill whining, Churchill, thundering demands. All broadcast from Berlin in English, French, Italian, Hungarian, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Bulgarian, Afrikaans, Arabic. But the funny thing is, not a single word about it in Germany. Not a word to the German people. Apparently, Churchill's visit to Moscow was not as tasty a bit of news for the German palate as Berlin tried to make it out. Finally, when the British had themselves broadcasted in German directed where it would do the most good, casual and sliding references were made to it at the tail end of German broadcasts for home consumption.

[Hideki Tojo]

It should be obvious that the United.

[Rex Stout]

States beat It, Tojo. I'm working on Germany. Or say we hear one from Italy for a change. It's all the same. This was broadcast from Rome at 5pm on August 21st.

[Unnamed Italian Broadcaster]

Beamed at England, Mr. Roosevelt has got himself and his country into such a mess that he is now compelled to turn for help to the despised and ostracized Negro population. Mr. Roosevelt is encouraging the formation of the Negro regiments and Mr. Knox is pushing Negroes into the navy. Now they are putting Negro pilots on warplanes wherever there is any danger. The way Americans look at it, Negroes make excellent cannon fodder and they should be proud to die in American uniforms because that is all they are fit for.

[Rex Stout]

That broadcast went on like that for 10 minutes or more, denouncing us for the way we mistreat the Negroes. Reading it, I was reminded of the time Mussolini's son came over here on a visit and told with glee what great sport it was to dive in his airplane at a crowd of Ethiopian villagers, men, women and children, and let them have it with the machine guns. I was also reminded of a passage in Mein Kampf, the German's holy writ writ by Adolf Hitler, in which Hitler.

[Adolf Hitler]

Said, as for the Negro, it does not dawn upon the depraved bourgeois world of America that it is a criminal absurdity to train a born half ape until it is supposed a lawyer or doctor has been made of him. And it is a sin to let hundreds of thousands of talented men degenerate in the proletarian swamp while Hudson, Tuts and Zulus are trained for intellectual vocations.

[Rex Stout]

And so on and so forth. According to Hitler, we are treating the Negro with a depression, tenderness and sentimentality. According to his Roman lickspittle, we are abusing him abominably and regarding him as fit only for cannon fodder. Both of them would wonder what on earth I was talking about if I told them that one of the things we are fighting this war to preserve is our Negro problem. We're quite aware of all its difficult and ugly aspects. But we also know that in this close association of the black and white races here on our own soil, we're carrying on one of the most interesting and valuable experiments in the development of human society. There are certainly extremists among us. At one end, those who regard Negroes as subhuman beings, and at the other end, those who demand that all of the Negro's handicap, social, political and economic, must be abolished by tomorrow noon. But the great majority of us, both Negro and white, accept the problem for what it is. We face it realistically and we're determined that whatever changes time and patience and intelligence will bring shall be for the common welfare steps forward in our march toward a better and a happier world for everybody. That's what I mean when I say that one of the things we are fighting this war to preserve is our Negro problem. It's up to us to work it out and we're going to do it. And the first step now is to wipe the Nazis and fascists off the face of the earth. Listen to this statement by Dr. Goebbels broadcast on August 21st.

[Unnamed German Broadcaster]

The Division of the earth among people was not made by God, but depends on man alone and can be altered at any time. All political and economic questions are merely questions of power and not of morality.

[Rex Stout]

You can imagine what would happen to our Negro problem if its solution were left to Dr. Goebbels. In fact, you don't have to imagine it. Read the testimony of any report recently smuggled out of Norway or Poland or Yugoslavia. For to Germans, everyone who is not German is subhuman. And they do not merely talk like that, they act like that.

[Hideki Tojo]

It should be obvious that the United States.

[Rex Stout]

Oh, beat it, Tojo. Tell it to the honorable marines on the Solomon Islands. I have some more German gems here if I can squeeze them in. Here's one beamed from Berlin at Ireland on August 14th.

[Unnamed German Broadcaster]

The most significant of the recent developments in the United States is the re election of the renowned member of the House of Representatives, Hamilton Fish, who received twice as many votes as all his opponents put together.

[Rex Stout]

He's counting his chickens before they're hatched. Mr. Fish was renominated, not re elected in November. He may or may not cackle. Here's another gem. On August 19, Berlin broadcast to England.

[Unnamed German Broadcaster]

I recently came across a copy of the American weekly Life, the front page of which proudly spotted a photo of an American cavalryman standing by his horse in all the magnificence of his war kit.

[Rex Stout]

Well, he went on for 15 minutes, sneering not only at the cavalryman, but at the whole darned army and its equipment. It was a terrific indictment. Our soldiers, he said, are a bunch of softies. They wear doe skin gloves, they chew gum, they insist on eating three times a day. They manicure their nails. Their planes and tanks and guns are a joke. If they ever come face to face with a hard bitten German soldier, they'll drop everything and run. Then he came to his climax.

[Unnamed German Broadcaster]

But whatever sense of admiration could have been aroused in our envious breasts by the picture of the American cavalryman. It was unfortunately qualified by the fact that the hand held the reins of a bit and one branch of the bit was noticeably bent. Now, wouldn't it have been better for the trooper to be gloveless and that his lily white hand should run all the risks of exposure, but that the bit should be of stronger quality?

[Rex Stout]

No comments are needed, but I'll make three. First, don't look at recent copies of Life magazine for it. It was back in April 1941. Second, not the branch of the bit, the shank. Third, the shank was not bent at all. It was merely made with the regulation curve of all cavalry bits. There, I nailed that dastardly lie. Here's another remark about our army. More of it coming From Berlin on August 17, beamed at us.

[Unnamed German Broadcaster]

And now that it is becoming fashionable in America to disgrace the military uniform by recruiting soldiers from among the jailbirds, the logical step seems to be first to make Al Capone Chief of the General Staff of the United States army and then to place him in command of all the armed forces of the United Nations.

[Rex Stout]

Our soldiers seem to be a bunch of softies and a gang of jailbirds at the same time. Quite a trick. Still, more about our army beamed at us the same day, August 17, an hour earlier than the one you just heard.

[Unnamed German Broadcaster]

The English people are relying on Americans to set up that second front in Europe. I can't see any purpose in American soldiers loafing about their camps and wanting to be entertained in English homes and dashing around chasing English girls. One has to think of the English fathers and mothers who are worried about their daughter's virtue.

[Rex Stout]

So there emerges the authentic and fascinating picture of the typical American soldier. A jailbird, panty waist with doe skin gloves on, his lily white manicured hands chewing an enormous wad of gum, pursuing English girls all over the countryside. When he catches one, I suppose he puts a bridle on her with a bent bit. Well, if that is what the German army has been led to expect, somebody is going to be surprised someday and it won't be me.

[Hideki Tojo]

It should be obvious that the United States.

[Rex Stout]

All right, Tojo, spell it.

[Hideki Tojo]

It should be obvious that the United States cannot win the war. It is time for thinking Americans to realize the real issues of this war. Japan is sitting on top of the world, controlling the seas from the Aleutians to the Indian Oceans. She controls half the natural wealth of the world and it is being developed and utilized to strengthen her Japan. She is prepared to carry on the war until her enemies are crushed.

[Rex Stout]

That's a coincidence. So are we. Sorry, Tojo. Honorable time is up.

[Narrator]

You have just heard Rex Stout, chairman of the Writers War Board, bringing you another in a series of programs we call our Secret Weapon the Truth. It is armor for defense and bullets for attack. Each week at this same time, Mr. Stout will expose more of the lies put out by our enemies who hope to bewilder and confuse us, as they have the people of little nations they think they've conquered. A copy of tonight's script, plus supplementary material, will be mailed to everyone who sends a self addressed stamped envelope to Freedom House, New York, or to the station to which you are listening. And at this same time next week, Columbia brings you another in this new series of programs, our Secret Weapon. This program was produced by Paul White and directed by John Deetz. This is the Columbia Broadcasting System.