Spirit
of '41 is known to exist. The program
scheduled to air at 2:30 p.m. was The
World Today, a news program. In a 1945
publication by CBS titled From Pearl
Harbor To Tokyo, a citation states that
Charles Daly made the announcement at 2:31
by saying, "The Japanese have attacked
Pearl Harbor by air, President Roosevelt
has just announced." It seems plausible
that CBS would wait to break the news, since
a news program was scheduled to begin momentarily,
when the bulletin came in. During the intermission
of The New York Philharmonic Society broadcast
which aired during the 3:00 time slot, John
Daly summarized the events thus far by saying,
"Additionally, that the announcement
was made at the beginning of the 2:30 broadcast
of The World Today." The announcement
time was corroborated in 1999 by Bob Trout,
who was part of this CBS broadcast, in a story aired on NPR,
December 7, 1999.
Trout, in London, had been cut through to
the studio a few minutes before 2:30 Eastern.
Normally at this point, Trout would talk
to Paul White, the News Director, before
actually going on the air, but for some
reason on this day Trout was cut directly
through to the studio. Trout heard regular
small talk and shuffling of papers as John
Daly prepared to go on the air. Then, less
than two minutes before air time, he
suddenly heard a burst of commotion through
his headphones: doors opened, teletypes
clattered in the newsroom, and he picked
up fragments of agitated conversations.
"War? Why it's automatically war."
Trout pressed the headset against his ears
and quickly got the picture. Seconds
before air time, Paul White came on
the line. Trout told him, "Don't tell
me, I know." White said they were going
to cancel the North African news and go
directly to Washington for a special report.
Trout would then give London's reaction.
The program began with the regular announcer
introducing the show, concluding with, "Go
ahead, New York."
According to Trout, John Daly then reported,
"The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor
Hawaii by air, President Roosevelt has just
announced. The attack also was made on all
military and naval activities on the principle
island of Ohau." [Daly mispronounced
Oahu as Ohau. He does it later in the broadcast
as well].
In the NPR story, Trout says he sat a bit stunned, listening
to the first clear details given out in
Daly's broadcast. Trout's version of events
clears up a few things, but also creates
a few problems. There are several digital
versions of CBS's The World Today in circulation. The most common and least
problematic of those is included here and
will be analyzed in detail. Its run time
is 29:16. According to Trout, the broadcast
lasted 33 minutes. Are there 4-5 minutes
of this program missing? This most-commonly
distributed version has the announcer's
introduction (ending with "go ahead,
New York"), then 8 seconds of silence.
It then goes directly to Albert Warner in
Washington speaking, without him having
been introduced. The John Daly announcement
is missing, as is the part when he would
have introduced Warner in Washington. However,
there is a separate recording in existence
that does start with the announcer, and
does have the John Daly announcement. This
is always distributed around the Internet as a separate file. Neither
of these versions has anything that connects
Daly to Albert Warner in Washington. A very
well done web site by The University of
Missouri-Kansas City has a link to an excerpt
(2:05 in length) of the version of the CBS
broadcast identical to the beginning of
the 29:16 version used here, except that
the 8 seconds of silence before Albert Warner
begins speaking is 15 seconds long. Their
clip is introduced on their web site using
the following text:
The airing of news bulletins
normally called for the CBS East Coast network
to stall thirty seconds in order for the
West Coast affiliates to plug their sponsor.
However, in the ensuing chaos of the morning's
events, the East Coast launched into the
initial flash bulletin immediately, leaving
stations such as KIRO in Seattle to jump
in frantically. In this clip, note the fifteen
seconds of "dead air" before an
abrupt connection is made with New York.
No documentation
is given for where this clip originated
from. Clearly, however, the "abrupt
connection" is not made with New York,
but with Washington. It's possible that
the 29:16 version was edited by someone
who didn't like the idea of 15 seconds of
dead air time in his audio file and just
cut some of it out before it was mass-distributed.
This seems plausible, as there are other
versions of this file in distribution that
are identical in content except that there is no dead
air time. If
the U of M-KC version is authentic,
it is possible that in the 15 seconds of
dead air time, John Daly could have made
his initial announcement, which runs 24
seconds long with the program introduction
included, and then sent it over to Washington.
Since he was basing his report on the very
brief statement issued by Press Secretary
Early, it seems plausible that there wouldn't
be anything else for Daly to add. In Trout's
NPR report, he did say that Paul White told
him they were going to go immediately to
Washington for a special report. However,
he also notes other specific times that
support his 33 minute claim and possibly
indicate that several minutes are missing
from the beginning of the broadcast. For
example, he says that Daly switched to Albert
Warner in Washington at 2:37, and that the
broadcast switched to him in London at 2:41
Eastern. Warner's report runs 5 minutes,
30 seconds, which doesn't quite fit neatly
into the 4 minute window Trout gives us.
Trout's report begins at 6:16 in the 29:16
version. If he's correct that he began at
2:41 and the program began at 2:30 with
the program introduction, that's a discrepancy
of 4-5 minutes. Trout also says that Ford
Wilkins's broadcast from Manila was abruptly
cut off at 2:49 p.m. This comes at exactly
16:19 in the recording, again indicating
a 4 minute discrepancy. None of this analysis
explains why there seems to be no recorded
portion of the broadcast connecting Daly
to Albert Warner in existence. Perhaps the
West Coast version of the program is the
only one that was recorded, and Daly re-created
his initial "announcement" at
a later time. If he did, one would think
he would not continue to mispronounce "Oahu"
(though as stated above, he does do it much
later in the broadcast as well). We do know
that Daly was not above doing recreations.
The most widely believed version of Daly's
announcement was made in 1948 by splicing
together two different recordings from two
different time periods. More on that later. Here's the 29:16 version of The World Today.
