Nbc Goes To War

The diary of radio correspondent James Cassidy presents a unique view of World War II as this reporter followed the Allied armies into Nazi Germany. James Joseph Cassidy was one of three-hundred-and sixty-two American journalists accredited to cover the European Theater of Operations between June 7, 1944 and the war’s end. Radio was relatively new, and World War II was its first war. Among the difficulties facing historians examining radio reporters during that period is that many potential primary documents—their live broadcasts—were not recorded. In NBC Goes to War, Cassidy’s censored scripts alongside his personal diary captures a front-line view during some of the nastiest fighting in World War II as told by a seasoned NBC reporter. Ambitious and young, James Cassidy’s coverage of World War II for the NBC radio network notched some notable firsts, including being the first to broadcast live from German soil and arranging the broadcast of a live Jewish religious service from inside Nazi Germany while incoming mortar and artillery shells fell two hundred yards away. His diary describes how he gathered news, how it was censored, and how it was sent from the battle zone to the United States. As radio had no pictures, reporters quickly developed a descriptive visual style to augment dry facts. All of Cassidy’s stories, from the panic he felt while being targeted by German planes to his shock at the deaths of colleagues, he told with grace and a reporter’s lean and engaging prose. Providing valuable eyewitness material not previously available to historians, NBC Goes to War tells a “bottom-up” narrative that provides insight into war as fought and chronicled by ordinary men and women. Cassidy skillfully placed listeners alongside him in the ruins of Aachen, on icy back roads crawling with spies, and in a Belgian bar where a little girl wailed “Les Américains partent!” when Allied troops retreated to safety, leaving the town open to German re- occupation. With a journalistic eye for detail, NBC Goes to War unforgettably portrays life in the press corps. This newly uncovered perspective also helps balance the CBS-heavy radio scholarship about the war, which has always focused heavily on Edward R. Murrow and his “Murrow’s Boys.”

Bill Carter, executive producer of CNN’s docuseries The Story of Late Night and host of the Behind the Desk: Story of Late Night podcast, details the chaotic transition of The Tonight Show from host Jay Leno to Conan O’Brien—and back again. In 2010, NBC’s CEO Jeff Zucker, had it all worked out when he moved Jay Leno from behind the desk at The Tonight Show, and handed the reins over to Conan O'Brien. But his decision was a spectacular failure. Ratings plummeted, affiliates were enraged—and when Zucker tried to put everything back the way it was, that plan backfired as well. No one is more uniquely suited to document the story of a late-night travesty than veteran media reporter and bestselling author, Bill Carter. In candid detail, he charts the vortex that sucked in not just Leno and O'Brien—but also Letterman, Stewart, Fallon, Kimmel, and Ferguson—as frantic agents and network executives tried to manage a tectonic shift in television’s most beloved institution.

David Brinkley, one of America's most respected and celebrated news commentators, turns his journalistic skills to a personal account of the tumultuous days of World War II in the sleepy little Southern town that was Washington, D.C. Carrying us from the first days of the war through Roosevelt's death and the celebration of VJ Day, Brinkley surrounds us with fascinating people. Here are the charismatic President Roosevelt and the woman spy, code name "Cynthia." Here, too, are the diplomatic set, new Pentagon officials, and old-line society members--aka "Cave Dwellers." We meet the brashest and the brightest who actually ran the government, and the countless men and women who came to support the war effort in any way they could--all seeking to share in the adventure of their generation.

For over four decades, the Cold War superpowers endeavoured mightily to 'win hearts and minds' abroad through public diplomacy. This work examines this important topic.

This set of essays offers new insights into the journalistic process and the pressures American front-line reporters experienced covering World War II. Transmitting stories through cable or couriers remained expensive and often required the cooperation of foreign governments and the American armed forces. Initially, reporters from a neutral America documented the early victories by Nazi Germany and the Soviet invasion of Finland. Not all journalists strove for objectivity. During her time reporting from Ireland, Helen Kirkpatrick remained a fierce critic of that country’s neutrality. Once the United States joined the fight after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, American journalists supported the struggle against the Axis powers, but this volume will show that reporters, even when members of the army sponsored newspaper, Stars and Stripes were not mere ciphers of the official line. African American reporters Roi Ottley and Ollie Stewart worked to bolster the morale of Black GIs and undermined the institutional racism endemic to the American war effort. Women front-line reporters are given their due in this volume examining the struggles to overcome gender bias by describing triumphs of Thérèse Mabel Bonney, Iris Carpenter, Lee Carson, and Anne Stringer. The line between public relations and journalism could be a fine one as reflected by the U.S. Marine Corps’ creating its own network of Marine correspondents who reported on the Pacific island campaigns and had their work published by American media outlets. Despite the pressures of censorship, the best American reporters strove for accuracy in reporting the facts even when dependent on official communiqués issued by the military. Many wartime reporters, even when covering major turning points, sought to embrace a reporting style that recorded the experiences of average soldiers. Often associated with Ernie Pyle and Bill Mauldin, the embrace of the human-interest story served as one of the enduring legacies of the conflict. Despite the importance of American war reporting in shaping perceptions of the war on the home front as well as shaping the historical narrative of the conflict, this work underscores how there is more to learn. Readers will gain from this work a new appreciation of the contribution of American journalists in writing the first version of history of the global struggle against Nazi Germany, imperial Japan, and fascist Italy.

"By focusing on the medium of radio during World War II, Horten has provided us with a window into an important change in radio broadcasting that has previously been ignored by historians. The depth of research, the book's contribution to our understanding of radio and the war make Radio Goes to War an outstanding work."—Lary May, author of The Big Tomorrow: Hollywood and the Politics of the American Way "Radio broadcasting, and its impact on American life, still remains a neglected area of our national history. Radio Goes to War demonstrates conclusively how short-sighted that omission is. As we enter what is sure to be another era of contested claims of government control over freedom of speech, the controversies and compromises of wartime broadcasting sixty years ago provide an ominous example of difficult decisions to be made in the future. The alliance of big business, advertising, and wartime propaganda that Horten so convincingly illuminates takes on a heightened significance, especially as this relationship has tightened in the last several decades. When radio and television go to war again, will they follow the same course? This is cautionary reading for our new century."—Michele Hilmes, author of Radio Voices: American Broadcasting 1922-1952

"Stunning. Sean McFate is a new Sun Tzu." -Admiral James Stavridis (retired), former Supreme Allied Commander at NATO An Economist Book of the Year 2019 Some of the principles of warfare are ancient, others are new, but all described in The New Rules of War will permanently shape war now and in the future. By following them Sean McFate argues, we can prevail. But if we do not, terrorists, rogue states, and others who do not fight conventionally will succeed—and rule the world. The New Rules of War is an urgent, fascinating exploration of war—past, present and future—and what we must do if we want to win today from an 82nd Airborne veteran, former private military contractor, and professor of war studies at the National Defense University. War is timeless. Some things change—weapons, tactics, technology, leadership, objectives—but our desire to go into battle does not. We are living in the age of Durable Disorder—a period of unrest created by numerous factors: China’s rise, Russia’s resurgence, America’s retreat, global terrorism, international criminal empires, climate change, dwindling natural resources, and bloody civil wars. Sean McFate has been on the front lines of deep state conflicts and has studied and taught the history and practice of war. He’s seen firsthand the horrors of battle and understands the depth and complexity of the current global military situation. This devastating turmoil has given rise to difficult questions. What is the future of war? How can we survive? If Americans are drawn into major armed conflict, can we win? McFate calls upon the legends of military study Carl von Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, and others, as well as his own experience, and carefully constructs the new rules for the future of military engagement, the ways we can fight and win in an age of entropy: one where corporations, mercenaries, and rogue states have more power and ‘nation states’ have less. With examples from the Roman conquest, World War II, Vietnam, Afghanistan and others, he tackles the differences between conventional and future war, the danger in believing that technology will save us, the genuine leverage of psychological and ‘shadow’ warfare, and much more. McFate’s new rules distill the essence of war today, describing what it is in the real world, not what we believe or wish it to be.

A Newsweek Best Book of the Year: “Captivating . . . rooted in first-rate research” (The New York Times Book Review). In this New York Times bestseller, once-secret government records and interviews tell the full story of the thousands of Nazis—from concentration camp guards to high-level officers in the Third Reich—who came to the United States after World War II and quietly settled into new lives. Many gained entry on their own as self-styled war “refugees.” But some had help from the US government. The CIA, the FBI, and the military all put Hitler’s minions to work as spies, intelligence assets, and leading scientists and engineers, whitewashing their histories. Only years after their arrival did private sleuths and government prosecutors begin trying to identify the hidden Nazis. Now, relying on a trove of newly disclosed documents and scores of interviews, Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter Eric Lichtblau reveals this little-known and “disturbing” chapter of postwar history (Salon).