Eve of a Hundred Midnights by Bill Lascher Page B

machine, and even a device that could capture ten minutes of audio on each side of a twelve-inch record. There, Stuart would tune in to broadcasts from XGOY, the government-run radio station in distant Chungking, while Alacia set up recordings of each broadcast and transcribed every word spoken. Stuart would become both the primary link between China and the United States and the primary vehicle for the work Mel was about to begin in Chungking.
    Aware that an American audience would have a difficult time understanding heavily accented English, especially over what was often a poor signal despite his radio expertise, Stuart asked his counterparts in China to hire an announcer who could speak the language clearly. Peng Lo Shan, XGOY’s station manager and also an employee of China’s Ministry of Information, turned to Holly Tong to find out whether Mel, the young American he’d just hired to work in his publicity department, could help organize the radio station. This idea had intrigued Mel ever since Tong’s agents had approached him a second time in Shanghai, and he was finally able to start working shortly after his arrival that foggy late December morning.
    In a highly political move, China’s broadcasting service had been moved to the publicity bureau from another government ministry on January 1, 1940. Aside from running XGOY, the publicity bureau also compiled material for daily and weekly English-language news summaries, handled foreign correspondents, censored outgoing copy, and saw to other public affairs needs of the government.
    Mel’s first task with the publicity bureau was surveying its radio capabilities and needs. He quickly recognized the need that Stuart had mentioned: a clear-speaking American announcer who understood the U.S. radio audience.
    â€œNo one up here knows much about broadcasting, particularly the kind of programs to send to the U.S.,” Mel wrote.
    The United States, not China, was XGOY’s target demographic. If XGOY could generate sympathy for the Chinese cause in the United States, it might be able to help sway public opinion and put pressure on the Roosevelt administration to assist Chiang Kai-shek’s war effort.
    Mel had a friend from Los Angeles who he thought would be a capable announcer, as well as a source of advice about broadcasting. They corresponded about XGOY for a few months, but the friend never came to Chungking. Thus, Mel became the announcer.
    Aside from needing someone who understood the United States, XGOY had other problems. For one thing, it broadcast in thirteen languages besides English, so news copy had to be translated into each of these. Those translations were of varying quality. For another, there were any number of technical complications. And none of it mattered if, as happened more than once, someone forgot to flip the switch that made the broadcast go live.
    Mel’s job wasn’t simply to assist at XGOY. He also helped rewrite newspaper and magazine copy originally written bythe publicity bureau’s Chinese staff. He even was a ghostwriter for a column that a local bishop supplied to a newsletter called McClure’s . From the beginning, Mel wasn’t particularly charitable in his descriptions of some of the bureau’s work that he had to rewrite. Much of it was unintelligible when it reached Mel, even though it had been written in English.
    â€œTwo of us retranslate these atrocities into a news story form whenever possible,” Mel said. Moreover, many of the original stories were written by government ministers and other important Kuomintang leaders, or their advisors. Mel had to be cautious before he made any changes.
    â€œOf course, there is the problem of face and toe-treading,” Mel noted. “So when certain writers butch badly—that is permissible.”
    However, Mel added that he might have been somewhat exaggerating how bad the work was for good reading. He admired and respected his