No More Giants

I'm reading in Bob Edwards' biography of Edward R. Murrow, "Edward R. Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism," and came to his report on the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Part of it is on the universal praise he heard of President Roosevelt from those at the camp, and others:

If I've offended by by this rather mild account of Buchenwald, I'm not in the least bit sorry. I was there on Thursday, and many men in many tongues blessed the name of Roosevelt. For long years his name has meant the full measure of their hope. These men who had kept close company with death for many years did not know that Mr. Roosevelt, within hours, would join their comrades who had laid their lives on the scales of freedom.

Back in 1941, Mr. Churchill said to me with tears in his eyes, "One day the world and history will recognzie and acknowledge what it owes your president." I saw and hear the first installment of that at Buchenwald on Thursday. It came from all over Europe. Their faces, with more flesh on them, might have been from anywhere at home. To them the name "Roosevelt" was a symbol, the cvode word for a a lot of guys named "Joes" who are somewhere out in the blue with the armor heading east. At Buchenwald, they spoke of the president just before he died. If there be a better epitaph, history does not record it.

What his tory also doesn't record is that we've had a president of the United States who could fill Roosevelt's shoes in the last twenty years; perhaps even longer. Hearing former President Trump yesterday denigrate the alliance that came out of World War II and would leave countries open to invasion and perhaps annihilation if he's re-elected, is something I hope others will remember.

I understand this is a recording of Murrow's report, delivered by Murrow about two years after the original radio broadcast.