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| Friday 30th of July 2010 |
19 Av 5770
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‘Jewish boy from Montreal’ handled U.S. army’s PR on D-Day |
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By JANICE ARNOLD
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Monday, 31 May 2004 |
 Gordon Berger being decorated
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By war’s end, he was the decorated chief PR officer for the European theatre, largely for his organization of D-Day coverage from southern England.
It might, he said, have had something to do with the fact that he had a portable typewriter with him when he enlisted at the recruiting centre in Plattsburgh, N.Y., in March 1942 – a gift from his mother to make sure he wrote home. The “New Jersey” on his birth certificate made him eligible for Uncle Sam’s army.
Until then, his PR experience been brief: working for publicist Colin Gravenor, who would become a legend in the industry. But that short writing and photography experience helped get Berger into the Signal Corps officers’ school, from which he graduated after 90 days, as a second lieutenant.
He was assigned to the Pentagon, where he met the head of the army public relations office, Lt.-Col. Bill Slater, who in civilian life had been a popular radio host. Eager to get a post, Berger grasped at straws to sell himself: he had lived in Canada all his life, knew a bit of French, understood the British way of thinking. Perhaps he would be useful as a liaison officer in Europe?
Slater told him what he was up against: university graduates in journalism (Berger had never gone to college) and experienced newspapermen. Yet, he was chosen and found himself in a transit barracks in Shenango, Pa., among older men with established careers with magazines such as Life, or in radio or acting. He was as amazed as they were that he had landed among them.
In June 1943, he was shipped to London and began his duties at the U.S. army’s PR headquarters on June 6, one year before D-Day. His roommate was Bob Light, a man about 10 years his senior who had managed a top Los Angeles radio station and had had a few movie roles. His commanding officer was Maj. Harlan Miller, before the war a highly regarded Washington-based columnist.
This was a propaganda unit, with staff writing articles, not for the consumption of the enemy, but for the folks back home. “Harlan was like our city editor,” Berger said.
Berger’s first important assignment was covering Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower presenting a medal to an RAF officer. Wanting to get a better shot than the stiff pose Eisenhower favoured, Berger suggested that the recently appointed supreme commander of the Allied Exhibitionary Forces, pin the decoration on the officer’s chest.
“‘Lieutenant,’ he said, chilling me with the iciest blue-eyed stare I had ever experienced, ‘you do your job and I’ll do mine.’”
Celebrities often dropped by the PR office – authors and actors who fed the writers interesting material.
For a couple of days, Berger was a “glorified guide” to novelist John Steinbeck, who came over as a war correspondent.
Things changed when Col. Justus Lawrence was put in charge of Berger’s group. Lawrence had been publicity director for Hollywood movie producer Samuel Goldwyn.
With the invasion that was sure to come sooner or later, the PR office’s mission was to give the future heroes in the combat units as much attention as they could in the U.S. and British press.
Because he was a Canadian and supposedly understood “how the British mind works,” Berger was sent to the southern base in Salisbury, two hours from London. Lawrence assured him that was where the action eventually would be. Given his relative inexperience, Berger thought he was the least likely candidate for such a plum.
In the meantime, his job was to improve for the British the image of the American troops, who were arriving in ever greater numbers. The British lamented that the Yanks were “overpaid, oversexed and over here!”
It wasn’t always a joke. Berger said his first orders were to go to the editor of the Salisbury Gazette and express the U.S. military’s displeasure over its reports on soldiers having been involved in murder and rape while on leave.
“Being ignorant in matters relating to the press, Col. Charles Thrasher [his commanding officer] assumed I should be able to sweet-talk the editors into some sort of voluntary censorship. For me to comment on the sanctity of the British press just at that moment was a guarantee of remaining a second lieutenant for the rest of my army career.”
While Berger cast about for an answer, a siren wailed warning of an air raid. “I’m a bit ashamed to admit I felt just a tiny tinge of gratitude to the Luftwaffe for their timing.”
Later that day, Berger was ordered to witness the hanging of an American soldier who had killed a taxi driver. “I passed out,” he said.
Walking past the 1,000-year-old cathedral in Salisbury afterward, Berger hit upon the idea that he believes saved his career. The next day, he had his answer for the colonel: Have the bishop bless the Stars and Stripes and put on a grand parade on New Year’s Day, 1944. Thrasher loved it, immediately grasping the PR value.
“It really had been two incredible days for a nice Jewish boy, so far from home and in a strange land.”
Flag day was a success. It was featured in all the newsreels. Thrasher was promoted to general. And, despite his protests that he was unqualified, Berger was made his permanent PR officer and promoted to first lieutenant.
Berger decided to give some exposure to the one million U.S. soldiers not on the front lines. He convinced the commanders to release a dozen former journalists doing joe-jobs to become full-time “soldier correspondents,” writing human-interest stories about men performing unglamorous but necessary jobs, to be printed in newspapers and magazines in the U.S. and Britain.
The project mushroomed and Berger soon had the army’s most experienced journalists working under him in a tin hut at southern base. Half were Jewish. Other GIs were given a crash course in journalism, as he had proposed, to train them to write “home-town” stories. Altogether, they turned out more stories than headquarters could process.
One memorable task for Berger was escorting Walter White, head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and a New York Post correspondent, during a five-day, fact-finding mission on the status of black servicemen for U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Berger also escorted Rabbi Barnett Brickner on a presidential mission to make sure the army wasn’t guilty of anti-Semitism. Berger assured him that everyone was too busy fighting the war to be anti-Semitic.
“Jews in the army in general faced few problems. The Nazis had provided all the rationale they needed to want to fight a war. Morale was good,” he said.
In early May, Col. Thomas Lewis, a high-level Pentagon official, visited and was favourably impressed with Berger’s set-up. Lewis had been in charge of Young and Rubicam’s radio division and was married to Hollywood actress Loretta Young. On May 22, Berger was called to London. Lawrence told him the Allies would soon be invading Europe and the south coast of England was the most likely take-off point. The responsibility of the PR office was to see that the American people, and indeed the entire world, receive the news of the assault as soon as possible.
War correspondents were to have access to whatever they needed to cover every aspect of the invasion as it unfolded.
There was a dispute among the brass as to who would control the PR, and planning had lagged. What could Berger and his team do?
Specifically, the chiefs wanted escorts for the correspondents and jeeps – in scarce supply – to transport those who would be covering from the shore.
Also present were Capt. Merrill Pannitt, who in civilian life had been an editor with the Annenberg Group and would later found and edit TV Guide, and Col. Ernest Dupuy, aide to the head of the psychological warfare division.
“The three of them looked at me intently. I couldn’t believe that this far into their planning, no serious preparations seemed to have been made to activate any plans when the time c
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