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Breaking Walls

501 EpisodesProduced by James ScullyWebsite

Breaking Walls: The Podcast on the History of American Network Radio Broadcasting.

34:14

BW - EP125—001: March 1954—Edward R. Murrow Brings The News. Perry Mason Busts The Syndicate

As the United States entered March 1954, U.S. officials announced a successful hydrogen bomb test, while four Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire in the House of Representatives chamber. Five were wounded.

On March 9th, Edward R. Murrow’s news team produced a CBS See It Now episode, “A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy." They used excerpts from McCarthy's own speeches to point out his contradictions. Murrow and head of CBS News Fred W. Friendly paid for the program’s marketing. CBS wouldn’t allow the team to use the company logo.

The broadcast provoked thousands of letters, telegrams, and phone calls to CBS headquarters. They ran fifteen-to-one in favor of Murrow’s sentiment.

McCarthy went on the program to reject Murrow's criticism. He said, “Ordinarily, I wouldn’t take time out from important work to answer Murrow. However, in this case I feel justified because Murrow is a symbol, a leader, and the cleverest of the jackal pack that’s always found at the throat of anyone who dares to expose individual Communists and traitors.”

The rebuttal served only to further decrease McCarthy’s already fading popularity. However, his Army hearings were set to convene on March 16th. They would help emphasize the fact that the United States of America, like the radio industry itself, was during this year, in a state of turmoil. Unlike Howard Hughes though, tonight we will talk about it.

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Airing weekdays at 2:15PM over WCBS in New York was Perry Mason. The show debuted on October 18th, 1943.

Mason was a crime-busting lawyer. It often featured the just-heard Mandel Kramer. On March 1st, Mason, who was voiced by John Larkin, and Della Street, voiced by Claudia Morgan, wondered who was behind an underworld syndicate.

While Perry Mason’s directors were men like Carlo DeAngelo and Carl Eastman, women were as likely to be in the mid-day director’s chair as men, and they often exuded confidence that put fear into young radio actors.

By 1954 Mason’s cast had greatly expanded. On radio, he was as much a detective as a lawyer. The version Raymond Burr played on TV was markedly different. The radio version of Perry Mason ran until December 30th, 1955. Mandel Kramer could be seen starring in The Edge of Night.

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