L.T.:.-f.:..! G. TOE DAY, .QECEAlBER 1...._1248. GOOD EVENING EVERYBODY: In a Congressional Committee room in Washington today, they began an open~earing. All was to be made public, the testimony, the evidence - in the new sensationa spy disclosures. They are inTestigating the microfilm copies of secret governaent documents, produced by Magazine Editor Whittaker Chambers • . , A witness took the stand, Bumner Welles, who waa Under-Secretary of State at the tiae the spy work was done. Be was asked to pass on the importance of documents of state, which had been copied to be giTen to Soviet espiona Suaner Welles began by stating that he was a priTate oitilln now and did not feel qualified to decide whether or not the stolen secret material should be made public. With that qualification, documents were handed \o him - as he sat at the Committee hearing table. Be was shown one sent fro• Paris to the St te epartment in I l ·neteen Thirty Eight. Top secret. ashington, January, ' elles who is a picture of the suave, umner , I LEAD -2 knowing diplomat, scan n ed the pa p er with a serious f a ce which grew mo e s erious as be read. T hen be s p o e, slo ly, solemnly: wir. Chairman, after reading this me ss age,w he s aid, •1t is my conviction that the publication of this document would be prejudicial to the national interest.• Be was shown another, which he thought was not so important. Then a third, a telegram from Vienna, and again declared - it would be harmful if published. There was only a br1ef session of proceeding• like this, and then - the open hearing was turned into a closed hearing. The Gommittee changed its mind about publicity, and decided to continue the inTestigation in secret. Sumner i elles' opinions were corroborated b7 Assistant Secretary of ~tate John Peurifoy, who state that the microfilms indicated, what he called a "systematic and sure titiousw looting of the files of the This in the late Nineteen Thirties. _!2Jl_~§_lQ_Ail Toni h t e her t t tree or f our officials in a t least two overnment departments fed secret documents to Whittaker Ch bers. The Co · 1111ittee investi · ators declare t t Chambers has iven them the names. e do not know who the accused persons are, except that one is Alger Hiss, former State Department official, against aboa bittater Chambers . has ijeen bringing charges all alona. Biss is now suing Chambers for libel. FOLLOW ES IONAOE We have a hint of an ans er to the question_ why did l'lQ_t Whittaker Chambers produce the microfilm copies nen he testified last SUDlller? 111Qk1:n@H~1a fipat eA&PgH ef-. Rad &lpiGRa@:e i:ft the 89Ye11aou•, Chambers today was testifying before the New York Grand Jury. He talked to newsmen and said: "The filu left -,_possession tn Nineteen Thirty-Eight. I got them back 1n lineteen Forty-Eight." For ten years he did not have them; but 1 tOQy he intimated that he knew where they were durini that period. So the answer may be that Whittaker Challbera waa not 1n possession of the microfilm copies when he teet1t1ed last IWllller. But all that is clouded in secrecy - Chambers giving few details. He says that, getting back the films this year, he hid them - because they might fall into the hands of Alger Hiss. ,he fel'ftler state .oepartaent otfici~l wnom CnaMbiis n,a+ ➔ eewv.nt! 1,e ee een:1,ed 818YI0I or J:uu·HIS A&Rded Q\'8P 808 .. -v,i, a mu ....- f" Toni ht' s medical re o r t on S ecret · ry o f s ate Marsh a l l c o nti n u es to be ood -- no complications. Be ~ underwent e major oper tion, s ur g ery of the kidneys. le s men cons u lted civilian doctors, a part from the hospit a l, a nd they g av e their o p inion on the Mar sh all oper a tion -- the remo v al of a kidney. They explained that 1uch oases usually take froa three to five weeks for recuperation. The y said that, ordinarily, such an . operation would f orce retireaent fro ■ active work, when the pJtient is as old as Secret a ry larshall. He will be sixty-eight on December thirty-first, the last day of the year. George M-rshall has often expressed the desire to retire to bis Virginia farm, but it is known that President Truman would like to have hi ■ remJin in office. a S0V1E'1 ' ~ - L Yll.§ Two voices from behind the lron ~urtain -- thoat two escaped Hussian flyers who six weeks ago flew into the zone of liberty. Today they were interTiewed by newsmen, and stated that the Tast majority of the rluasian people are opposed to war, but that Stalin propaganda is drum■ ing ap hatred for the western liberal countries at a treaendoaa rate. But that 70 ~ are opposed. As for ■ illions of Hussian soldiers who saw , . / eatern urope daring and after the ~econd lor.1~ · ,' are i■■une to the Stalin war propaganda, an4 h ld '-- ,, d d as "potential d sertera." .,, 80 aa7 ou ✓ •• regar e - t✓iwo fugitive y fro• the Soviet ~ ir Force. traveler has just flown in from far-off Persia and is in the studio with me tonight. It happens th t several weeks a go I sent him a cable asking hia about a great earthquake reported to have occurred in Eastern Iran. I thought he would have the tacts at bis fingerti p s. So, tell us about it, Lowell, and, a little about Iran in general. ~.T.,lr: This is an age of rapid coa■unicationa, when aessagea circle the earth in fractions of seconds, and when a person can take off fro ■ the airport at Istanbul one .-ternoon, and land at La Guardia the next aornina. But the first I heard about that Persian earthquake, Dad, was from you -- fro ■ your cable that came a week after the quake occurred, asking for the details. And there I was, apparently on the spot! Some fifty villages were destroyed and several thousand people left without homes in the northeastern province of Yeshed. h / . Our air altac e i Te he ran, ajor Don ~teele, flew his C-47 to the stricken province LO 1f ELL _!!!Q~§.i.-2..B.:. - 2 sh , rtly a fter the c · tastrophe aft • -- er your w ire came. Be c a rri e d relief food and clothi·ng th th db d a a een onated by the A merican community in the Iranian capital. Shortly thereafter, those of us in teheran were r ather shocked to hear th a t this American donation was not used as intended, but somehow was diYerted into the ~ck ■arket, as 1•~ afraid happens all too often in aanl countries. --0-- L,T.: lbat of Persia in general? Or should we say Iran? L.T,,Jr: Both are correct. Iran is of world iaportance now, largely for two reasons: First, because 0£ its vast oil resources in an area where roughly one-third of all known oil deposits are located; and secondly, because it borders on southern Soviet Russia. What is Iran doing to stem that Red tide? ~he has just started a seven-year plan of general national development, to be financed largely by royalties from the great Anglo-Iranian oil conceee ion. In the Saturday Evening Post I came across an LO EL1_TBO ' AS , JR. -3 artic 1 e about iddle East oil -- also about ax ~eston Thornburg, my boss. It termed him "The ystery Oil an of the iddle East. What he is doing out there should be no mystery. He simply is not content merely to talk and write about problems in the Kiddle East. He's there on the spot, solving them. For inst . nee, he is more responsible for the activation of Iran's seven-year plan than any other man, Persian or foreign. And though it 11 not commonly known, it was he who sold the Persian Go•ernaent on the idea of employing a group of Aaerlcaa industrial consultants -- known as the Overseas Consultants, Incorporated -- to give guidance to that se•en-year plan. Mr. Thornburg believes that the best way to prevent these Middle Eastern nations -- Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia -- fro ■ falling vie tim to the aggression of a strong foreign power, is to put the ■ squarely feet -- raise living etandards through economic d and that 1· 8 the goal of all his efforts out evelopment; there during these troubled times. L. T. : A ropos of hat the two · fl d uss1an yers s ai toda1, did you hear abut Soviet matters out there at the Caspian door to Russia? --0-- k~T.AlEJ Yes, only recently I was chatting with a Polish woaan now married to an American Army officer. Ber husband is with our Uilitary Mission in Iran. During the war tbia woman was forced to work in the fields of 1outhern Russia -- gathering food for Stal'in's a . r ■ iea -- as a slave laborer. ~o ■ ebow, after the war, in rags she eacaped into Iran. And here's the encouraging thing she had to say: that the majority of Russians are fed up with the ~ommunist regime -- that more and more of the ■ are learning what goea on outside -- learning that tbe7 are being denied ■any pleasures of life that people of other nations take for granted. She felt that one day the people of Russia might be able to take their destiny in their own hands -- that there might be a real R•2Pl.!.!' revolution in Russia. --0-- LO ELL THO ' A~.1-.l~~ -5 -- L.T.: Tlranks, Lowell, for joining me on t he air a gain -- tonight. a nd welcome bac k from Persia. --0-- ill, CJl~!Ql2 In Tokyo, qu e tion was a s ked a t G~neral MacArthur's h ea dquarters. Out there the Supreme Commander today ordered a delay in t h e execution of Tojo a nd the other Japanest war criminals -- a delay for at least nine days, to give the l ■ erica . n , Supreme Court ti ■e to hand cl~ . ! ~ ~.J-~.!'- -- ~-~.<?. !,s ion i~. ~~-~~ J!l~!!'.l)}!•.1,J,o~,f!l. ~ ~A••• lewsmen pointed out that the United States was only one of eleY.an countries represented on ttie inter,nation al tribunal. So why might not the courts of the other ten ra~i•• the sentence•? Suppose the lawyers for the defenae ••r• to make an appeal in each, ne after ano~her, aaa ~• granted a bearing. That ■ ight delay ttie e~ecution• indefinitely. Such was the international conundrum presented at the MacArthur headquarters. The answer? None at all - no comment on tbat global puzzle. It is announced that American 8 ip p ing lin e s will not get theirs are o are all Plan cargoes, unless they This is stated by arshall Plan adminis- cut their r tes. trator Paul Hoffman, • o says t t the American lines obarge a lot more than European steamship coapanies. For ex ■tle, four and a half nollars more per ton of coal 1ent to France. According to the Act of Congress creating the · laropean Recovery Program, one half of all Marshall Plan 1hip ■ enta are supposed to be transported on American •••••ls. But Administrator Hoffman explains that, at the prieaent rates they are cbargint, the Aaerican lines are Yirtually getting a subsidy, and he doesn't think that Congress intended any such thing. A railroad strike bas been called -- against the Southern Pacific. Tis was announced to d ay by officials of the Brother o d of iremen andlJlilnemen. They say there are two hundred and ninety-six issues in dispute, -- that many oints of controversy unsettled ever since nineteen forty. So the union has called a Southern Pacific strike for Dece ■ber fifteenth. Recor -brea · in fi urea for American colleges, which t is · all enrolled the . reatest num'b , er of stude . nts •••~• The fi urea, released in Washington tonight, ahow a tot _ l of more than two-million-four--bundred tbouealld. There ar• ■ ore than one million seven bundr•d t h ousand · ■•n, and nearly seven hundred thousand women atudents~- ,a tncralae of three percent for this year over la ■ t §Y~2!lIY_!_tfifiQ~-E~l-B Today in Yor court, rrol Flynn aid -- •This is t worst a pearance ever made.• We w sup be ore the ju e, accused of kicking a cop in the shine. It all be an• en the movie ero, toget er with press a ent of the films, took taxi in lew York. A cou le of cops, in police car, t ought the cab driver looked too young, and dem nded to see bis license. This turned out to be all right, and that would have b en th t -- save for the fact that the movie press a ent was indignant about the whole thing. Be got into an argument wit the cops, and t ey arrested him. Durin1 all of• ioh time Errol Flynn was calm and collected. The star of rambunctious he-man parts on the screen - he just stood there, dignified and serene. They all went around t o t e police station -- wheN the press agent was booked for disorderly conduct -- Errol Flynn still a pict~re of reserve and restraint. Then somet in happened, somethin surprisin - a ~Yi§!!IQ!i_ifiB_~_f~XHH_=_i_ reaction to be fi ured _ ut, perha p s, iJ■■ by movie fans • o go in for psycholo ical screen dramas, the kind that explore the recesses oft e human soul. Suddenli, according to the story, Errol Flynn kicked the cop in the shins. The reaction of the policeman was equally eaphatic. Errol Flynn placed under arrest, tossed in a■ong the aa1orted characters the cope pick up on an average night, rescued finally by the proprietor of a fashionable nigbt olub, who put up fi~• hundred dollars in bail. Today the case was ut off until toaorrow. Atter what Errol Flynn call• bis' worst appearance. ind now, let's have a good appearance. leaning -- ti ■e for rou to appear., Belson.