Farewell and Hail

War came close to Edward Roscoe Murrow. Three times, bombs destroyed his London CBS offices. The day after he moved into office No. 4, another raid gutted the synagogue across the street. He flew 20 sorties with U.S. and British pilots, sailed the Channel on a minesweeper, lay in a London gutter to broadcast the sound of an air raid. This week, after nine years in England, Ed Murrow was off to the U.S. for good. But before he left, he spoke an eloquent "Farewell and Hail" over the BBC:

"I first came to England 16 years ago. . . . Your country was a sort of museum piece, pleasant but small. You seemed slow, indifferent and exceedingly complacent. . . . I thought your streets narrow and mean, your tailors overadvertised, your climate unbearable, your class consciousness offensive. You couldn't cook. Your young men seemed without vigor or purpose. . . . But always, there was something that escaped me; always there remained . . . the suspicion that I might be wrong."

Just how wrong, Murrow was only too glad to admit. In his calm, precise voice he recalled Munich, and Chamberlain's return, and ". . . Mr. Winston Churchill sitting there below the gangway, like the conscience of Britain.

"That was the period when, whether you liked it or not, you came into your full inheritance. . . . You were all alone and rather proud of it. . . . There was . . . the big raid of December 29th, when the City burned . . . and as I walked home at 7 in the morning, the windows in the West End were red with reflected fire, and the raindrops were like blood on the panes. That was the Christmas you sang carols in the shelters, and you were living a life, not an apology. . . . And it was then that I learned the meaning of that great word: steady."

The war, said Ed Murrow, had given him the answer to the question: "What has happened to the soul of Britain?" He hated to leave, and England hated to see him go. The Morning Telegraph called him America's "unofficial ambassador." The Manchester Guardian hoped England had not heard the last of him. CBS was afraid it had. In his new job as CBS vice president in charge of correspondents, Ed Murrow will confine his voice to the conference room.

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