 The Columbia Broadcasting System presents One World's Life. The historic fight around the world by Wendell Wilkie during the dark days of the war blazes the phrase, One World has a beacon for liberty loving people everywhere. The Common Council for American Unity and the Wilkie Memorial of Freedom House have therefore decided to establish a One World Award patent after Mr. Wilkie's globe circling trip as a dramatic reminder of his dream for all mankind. It really began one night last February in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. Some friends of the late Wendell Wilkie had gathered on the anniversary of his birthday to honor his memory. The former mayor of New York, Fiorillo H. LaGuardia, was chairman of that occasion. Tonight, Mr. LaGuardia speaking from the living room of his home in New York City re-enacts his role on that evening. After announcing the establishment of the award, Mr. LaGuardia paused and continued. The Common Council for American Unity and the Wilkie Memorial of Freedom House have agreed that this award be given to recognize and encourage contributions to the concept of One World, particularly in the field of mass communications such as press, radio and moving pictures. The Board of Directors of the two organizations have reached a decision as to the winner of this year's award. On their behalf, I have the pleasure of announcing that it is presented to Norman Corwin. This is Norman Corwin. From the voice of Mr. LaGuardia at the dinner to LaGuardia Field took four months of preparation. Passports, visas, reservations, selection of route, inoculations, the building and testing of recording equipment and a hundred personal requirements. And then in the middle of June, we set out. There were farewells, the boarding of the plane, the motors revving up. And out of the window, as we taxied down the field, a last glimpse of a cluster of friendly faces and waving hands. The day was bright and clear, the ship stainless and glistening. The only dark thing I recall about the moment was the headlines in the morning papers concerning the state of the peace. We took off. We had no time to look at the country beneath us. The time had already begun. The wire recorder was rigged up forward in the navigator station and I tested it to see how it worked on the ship's electrical system. Collaborating with me in the test was a young passenger, nine years old, named Lionel Salem, who had wandered up and pumped me with questions about the machine. I showed him how it worked. Tell me Lionel, is this your first trip? Yes. You've done no flying at all? No sir. Well, how do you like it? Fine. And where are you going? Uh, Brussels, and they were going to take a train to Paris. What are you going to Paris for? God, that's where I was born. We're going. We're coming back in September. I see. You're not going to attend the peace conference, is that it? Nope. Would you like to attend the peace conference? Nope. Do you think you could contribute something to the peace conference if you attended it? Nope. Well, that's a frank answer. In the time it takes to travel by train from New York to Albany, this pan-American clipper was flying over the lakes of Nova Scotia. In another hour, we landed at Gander Newfoundland for fuel and lunch, and then we were off due east to cross the Atlantic. As the day wore on, we sighted icebergs 12,000 feet below us, looking like white flecks on the blue surface of the ocean. I struck up a conversation with a pleasant-faced gray-haired man who turned out to be Vladimir Hoban, Czechoslovak ambassador to the United States. He was on his way home to Prague. We talked about Czechoslovakia and the war, and about Wendell Wokie, whom he had known. After a while, I switched on the recording machine and we passed the microphone between us. Mr. Horban disposed of my biggest question very simply when I asked what he thought the best means of promoting understanding between nations and tolerance among people. Well, that's a pretty big question. Which anyway can be answered by two words if the people will understand them, that is decency and honesty. I said that one of the objectives of my trip was to find out whether decency and honesty were understood around the world, whether the average man had a sense of moral principle and could define it. The ambassador urged me out of curiosity to make a test at random right here aboard the clipper by stopping the first person to go by and drawing him into conversation on the subject. The first person to go by was a stewardess who was going by all the time in the course of her duties. She was Miss Romaine Cahoon, home in Forest Hills Long Island. She warmed up to the subject quickly and at one point I confronted her with this. I said that for some time, excellent codes of decency and honesty, such as the Ten Commandments and various bills of rights had been in practice, but I said they had been only roughly adhered to and I suggested that perhaps something new in the way of principles might have to be added while she disagreed with me. I disagree with you in saying you think something new has to be added. I think that any principle that is perfect in its inception doesn't have to be improved. I think it should be practiced more, but I don't think it's possible to improve it. This is my pet theory, perhaps I'm wrong, but it seems to me that all wars and international disagreements are results of, shall we say, magnified minor quarrels and squambles. I think it's most important that we, shall I say, do our spring house cleaning at home before we try cleaning our neighbor jars. A signal light flashed over the door to the cockpit and Miss Kahoon went back to work. The plane roared along toward Ireland. As the night lengthened, the passengers sagged in their seats and slept, but Bland and I sat up talking on the chance that there might be something about the plane's routine to record so that those of you who've never crossed the notion by air might tonight hear what it's like. There wasn't much actually. 700 miles off the coast of Newfoundland we recorded the voice of Wethership Charlie, a small craft flying in a wide circle 15,000 feet below us. Charlie is one of several ships of various registries, assigned by international agreement to stay far out at sea and do nothing but supply weather information to transatlantic planes. Chalk up won for quiet and unspectacular accord among the nations. Charlie's voice as it came over the radio was fuzzy, but anyway here's a moment of how he sounded when he called Clipper 6-0 with a weather report. Clipper 6-0, Clipper 6-0, Wethership Charlie, Wethership Charlie. Visibility, Wethership 12-0, 12-0, temperature 29. We left Charlie behind in the static and flew on. There were only a couple of hours of full darkness because some are twilight lingers in the northern latitudes and besides we were racing to meet the sun. Dawn was edging over the horizon just as we began to descend to Ireland. I stood microphone in hand behind Captain Smith in the pilot's seat and described somewhat inelegantly what I saw. My tone you'll notice is fairly dismal and that's because I was getting tired. You'll hear the captain command the lowering of flaps, meaning wing flaps, which act as brakes on the speed of the plane. Heading down to the soil of Ireland. 80% flaps coming down. What's that noise? What's that air, Captain? I now see straight ahead of me a power row of lights. The rolling alley lit up. We're heading right for it. There's mists all around it. Darkness. We're heading straight down the alley. What's that flap? What's that flap coming down? Lights way off in the distant town of Rhine in the air. It was raining in Rhine, formerly Rhine Aenea, when we landed. I disembarked. We ate breakfast at the airport and took off again. Ireland drifted under us, then the Irish Sea, then the mountains of Wales, then the tight green Thames country, and at last we landed at Heathrow outside London. Behind us was the first leg of the One World flight. New York, Newfoundland, the Atlantic, Ireland, England, all in slightly under 12 hours. London was different than when I had seen it last, and the difference was all to the good. There were no barrage balloons overhead, no signs pointing to air raid shelters, no fresh bomb ruins. It was early on a Sunday morning, and as we drove in from the airport, the city was still sleeping and the streets were bare. Hyde Park in the heart of the town was quiet as a country dell. Peace, I thought, as I looked about this corner of the world so lately embattled is pretty wonderful. The British had fought hard for it, and on London it looked especially becoming. The morning of our arrival was warm and fair, one of the few legitimately summery days in any English year. By night it was raining, and even indoors it was chilly. I found people were eating the same cold salmon and Brussels sprouts and generally dull food in the same cold rooms as during the darkest days of 1942, but they seemed fairly cheerful about it. It was now 13 months since the end of the war in Europe, but England was still feeling the pinch. That's the way it is with modern war. There are very few spoils left to the victor. The morning after I arrived, the government announced that the milk ration would be cut, the soap ration reduced by one seventh, and that rationing of bread would begin soon. I asked a housewife about conditions, a middle-class housewife named Hill, and she was almost gay in her seeming unconcern. She said she was getting one egg every two months and one pint of milk per week. I asked her about the availability and variety of other foods and how the fare compared to the days of the war. She answered, Well, I think it's a little better now. This is last week I got two pounds of strawberries, but that's because I have dealt with the same man for eight years. He knows me very well. He goes into the back of the shop, comes out with his finger up to his mouth saying shush, and he put something in the bottom of my bag and I kind of asked what it is. They replied to tomatoes, cucumbers, new potatoes, and peas. What did you ask what the price was? Now I've been dare to. But what was the price? I don't know. You mean you will be billed at the end of the month? I'll be billed at the end of the month and I'll split my hands in half and ask for another box. How long has it been since you had a meal at home which was a really filling meal so that you felt that you might perhaps have to stagger away from the table? Christmas. Last Christmas. Once a year then. Well, once a year, yes, but then I wangled that. You see, I knew somebody in the country who knew a farmer who sent a goose and we ate it in one day. Three of us. Twenty pound goose. Ordinarily, in any season other than Christmas that would be a rash and impulsive headstrong... Oh, it certainly would but you can't get them. This housewife was not a customer of the black market but she had enough money to be prudent and not ask the price of strawberries. But for the poor in England as everywhere else including the United States there is never a grocer who says shush and put something in the bottom of the bag. There is never the twenty pound goose, not even on Christmas. Beginning in London, clear around the world to Los Angeles I was to find very few cities where food for the majority of people was ample and varied and cheap. Black markets plenty for those who could pay but for the low income bracket it was the old routine ranging from not quite enough to eat to sheer starvation as in China and parts of India. But other things besides food were on the minds of the English people and their government at this particular moment and I set out to learn what a few of them were. I made an appointment to record the Prime Minister Clement Attlee at number 10 Downing Street. He received me in the cabinet room where so many decisions fateful to the world have been made in recent history. He was wearing a cardigan sweater and he puffed a pipe with an expression of deep absorption. It had been previously made clear to me that the Prime Minister had never been recorded in this manner. That, like the President of the United States he always spoke for radio purposes over several networks never for an individual one. But in deference to the auspices of the One World Award an exception was being made in this case. You may remember that not too long ago tension was high in international relations and against this background I asked Mr. Attlee whether he felt there were any indications that the concept of One World could make headway. I don't think we ought to get respondents too early or too easily because of the international difficulties after all we're trying to clear up after the greatest war in history and you can't expect all the problems of that war and a good many appear overnight. Probably the cause of all the differences is the dramatic news but I think it's worthwhile paying some attention to the terrorist activity which serves agreement. Have you any ideas on what I might term the techniques of peace? I think one important thing is first of all to realize there's something quite from no more war. You continually think of the prevention of war you don't get very far. You've got to think of positive peace and that really depends on a greater understanding not just between governments not just about politics but about ways of life and for that I think first of all you want far greater information and in a realization that we're all engaged on a constructive enterprise and neighbors and that enterprise is quite as exciting but quite as adventurous than you ever had in war. We're all engaged in the great adventure of democracy. Every nation's got its special and if we consider what contribution we can make rather than looking at what we think some other nation is not making I think we should do better. This then was a recommendation for self-examination or self-searching for beginnings at home. On another level it was the same thing the young stewardess had said in the cabin of the clipper. I think it's most important that we shall I say do our spring house spinning at home before we try spinning our neighbor's odds. And in my very next interview in London this same principal got another vote. I looked up the playwright and novelist J.B. Priestley author of The Good Companions and other works well known outside his own country. He had just returned from a trip to Scandinavia and the Soviet Union and I wanted to sound him out on his feelings about the world. He fell in gladly addressing the microphone as an old friend in the first place he said he was bored with all this former diddling about passport and customs that he wished the nations would hurry up and return to the old days when they didn't bother with that sort of thing. Then he went on to explain what he thought was wrong with the world and he used psychological terms to state his position. There's a great danger now I think of what the psychologist called projecting the contents of the unconscious onto the outside world. In other words instead of trying to understand the other people you project the contents of the unconscious that you don't like with the evil bit of yourself onto these other people as if they were a blank wall and you were throwing a lantern slide on and there's a great deal of that happening. I mean I think one reason why the victorious allies began drawing away from each other the minute their common enemy was defeated their common enemy was that they were still busy they were still in the same psychological mood and they had to find and vent enemies almost. Do you see what it was? I saw the drift with his remark but it too was a call for self-examination to find out whether there was some evil bit of ourselves which we were pinning on someone else and then throwing stones at the result. Somehow the British seemed in a mood to analyze themselves all over the place to question their own policies at home and abroad. It was not long after I left England that a sweeping investigation of the British press was demanded in Parliament. In my travels about London I ran into a cabbie who wondered whether Palestine couldn't be made a healthier place for the British Tommy by smarter handling of the problem on the part of the government though he didn't specify what he meant by smarter handling. I talked with a pub owner who wondered whether Britain's merchant sailors weren't getting a raw deal and then there was the writer Westerbie who wondered whether his craft had been entirely honorable over the last generation. For the last 25 years what have we been doing which has been working as I'd written a book once we've all been working under the light of the red lamp. We sell an idea, we sell a conscience, we sell what we're supposed to save too many of us for them with the public fancy and not taking a chance and not putting forward an idea which might be unpopular because if you're a professional writer you've got to think about your pocket well it's about time professional writers thought more about their contrary to say things to each other and to other people instead of saying things to the publisher I left Westerbie for an interview with Lord Van Sitter a Conservative member of Parliament and an outspoken critic of Allied policy in Germany and of Russian policy everywhere we discussed both questions and he was pessimistic about the way things were going in the United Nations most of the trouble he blamed on Russia the only way to treat problems as a whole he said was by quote, revision of the general tendency of Russian policies at the moment he was critical of Anglo-American information his comment is obscured in the recording by a poor power supply but if you listen very closely I think you'll be able to make it out on the other hand he said that the expression the iron curtain was quote rather exaggerated in as much as journalists can penetrate in Eastern Europe and move about fairly freely but the greatest stress on freedom of information came from the next man I interviewed Mr. Philip Norl Baker, then Minister of State he argued that not only must information be free but uncolored that it must not be distorted to fit a publisher's or broadcaster's personal political prejudice or angled in the interest of sensationalism and circulation our meeting was in the Foreign Office Mr. Norl Baker who has since then become Britain's Minister of Air was outspoken about manipulators of public opinion to whom he referred as publicity magnets I confess that I think most publicity magnets are a very grave error when they believe as they do believe now that only quarrels and disputes are new in our economic and social council work in New York last week we had many discussions in which every single speech may whether it was by the United States delegates or by the United Kingdom delegate or by the Soviet delegate or the Ukraine or Yugoslavia was in fact a constructed speech intended to help towards a long term result and yet nearly all the newspapers came out day by day if they mentioned the thing at all with a heading Anglo-Soviet clash was indeed a point of which we were not in agreement with the Soviet Union but taking the discussion as a whole it was a utter misrepresentation of the fact in the next sentence Mr. Norl Baker uses a Latin phrase which you might have trouble catching magna est veritas the truth is great I don't mind the runic representation of the magna est veritas and in the end it will prevail but what I do mind is the utter stupidity of the publicity magazine in thinking that the people want to go on reading about clashes after eight years of appeasement and six years of total war they want to hear about constructive efforts I talked with other people a bus driver who was worried about the loan from America and yet come through two factory workers who thought Russia was still a pearl of theirs a couple of radio men who thought radio was the only instrument that could make one world a gentile doctor who thought that the Jews of Europe were being dreadfully treated I looked around the city for signs of one world in the theater there was a Swedish psychological drama playing at the academy French light opera at the Adelphia Italian heavy opera at the Cambridge American play The Hasty Heart at the Aldich and the Russian Brothers Karamazov at the Lyric I heard the Brazilian samba coming from a loudspeaker of a record shop along Charing Cross Road somewhere it was the last Brazilian tune I was to hear until I got to China I left London taking with me the same impression of a strong and confident British people I carried away when I was last among them during a dark period of the war although they were questioning and self-critical they were not by and large apprehensive about the peace they understood that it was going to take not months but years to put the world together after the staggering disruptions of the war they were not inventing enemies though some of them, like Mr. Noel Baker intimated that certain segments of their press were only too busy doing this for them whether or not their leaders were wisely guiding them through the complex problems affecting Palestine, Greece, India and the world in general they disagreed I knew for certain or thought I knew that the ideal of one world would not be hard to sell to the tough, war-weary, ration-weary people of England who could use more fuel, better clothes a lot more varied diet and a great many more friends on a grey morning, I drove to North Holton, bordered the Paris plain it took off into a stormy sky and it flew at low level over the poetic country of Chent and Sussex we sat on cushioned seats and rode easily through the same skies that had been the greatest aerial battlefield in history this way had come to Luftwaffe and gone back broken this way had come to Knight Raiders and the Buzzbombs and the V-Rockets this way had gone the Stirlings and Lancasters, the Liberators and B-17s we crossed the coast at Bexhill and headed for France the weather over the channel was clear and the water sparkled with a million facets of reflected sunlight I looked out of the window at the bright straight and found myself thinking of Paddy Finneken the Irish ace in the RAF who died down there one afternoon there were thousands of fighters like Paddy lying beyond view with the English channel across their chests I thought of them and I thought of the many others as we made our landfall on the French town of Bitter memory by name Dieppe and I wondered whether if those boys could talk they would go for the idea of a world made one you have been listening to Norman Corwin, CBS playwright producer and first winner of the One World Award in the second of a series of Columbia broadcasts entitled One World Flight the authentic record of his 37,000 mile global trip heard on the first part of the program was Fiorillo H. LaGuardia all voices except those of Mr. Corwin and Mr. LaGuardia who was heard earlier in the program were recorded in tonight's broadcast the original musical score was composed and conducted by Alexander Semmler Dai Delachapo was associate director this is Lee Vines and this is CBS the Columbia Broadcasting System