The daily monitor leader. [volume] (Mount Clemens, Mich.) 1942-19??, 1945-04-10
. BEHIND THE SCENES
IN WASHINGTON .
There have been short wave

broadcasts to Japan from San
Francisco since the early days
of the war. Later a relay station
was established at Honolulu for
re-broadcasts, but the audience
of these two stations has been
restricted since short wave re-
ceivers are closely licensed by
the Jap government.
At best the short wave pro-
grams probably got no farther
than a few desks in the Japa-
nese War, Navy and Foreign Of
fices, but they were known to
be monitored, as Jap propagan-
dists sometimes replied to them.
REACHES FIVE MILLION
Establishment of radio Sal
pan, however, gives the psyche
logical warfare units q chance TO
60 on the air with medium wave
broadcasts capable of reaching
the five million sets known to
be in (. .istence on the Japanese
islands, and that Is an audience
worth cultivating. That U. 5.
broadcasts get through is dem
onstrated by Jap efforts to jam
the wave. Whenever that hap
pens, radio Saipan Immediately
shifts to another frequency and
keeps going. It's a great game.
But atmospheric conditions are
such that the radio Saipan sig
nal is stronger than the Japa-
nese home stations, and there
fore hard to blanket.
Voice of America as broad
cast from Saipan is entirely a
transcription program from rec
ords whose scripts are written
in New York, Washington, San
Francisco or Honolulu, trans
lated into Japanese, then put on
platters for shipment to Saipan.
Nisei voices are used for many
recordings, but their second
generation accents aren't too
we'll thought of in Japan, so ma
tive-born japanese who have
become Americanized are pre-
ferred.
The first big objective has
been to build up the credibility
of Voice Of America. Straight
news and a little commentary
has proved to be the best We
hicle. Giving the japanese peo-
pie the news which they have
good reason to know about or
suspect, but which has been
withheld from them or distorted
by the Jap government has
proved pretty effective. That
helps build up the reputation OF
radio Saipan, and when the Japs
hear it on the Voice of America
programs. they can know it's so.
NO JABS AT EMPEROR
There is no direct attack on
the Japanese emperor as an in
dividual. All the blame for what
is happening to the japanese
people is heaped on the Jap war
lords who have so grossly de-
ceivc and misled the Jap peo-
pie into a losing war. The
thought is put over that the Jap
people shouldn't continue to be
suckers for Il betrayal by
their own rulers. The contrast
between what the war lords said
they were going to do and what
they have failed to do is empha-
sized wherever possible.
Jap propagandists have tried
to make something out Of the
unconditional surrender demand
by playing up the idea that all
Americans are beasts, and that
unconditional surrender means
only that all Jap males will be
mutilated while all Jap women
will be raped. Jap militarists
have hammered this idea into
the heads of their troops, too,
and this fear Of mutilation Is the
real reason Jap soldiers won't
surrender. 1t is being countered
with broadcasts and leaflets
building up the idea that sur
render isn't disgraceful and
proving it by accounts of good
treatment of Jap soldiers and
civilians who have surrendered
m tho liberated iS1anda