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Jillian Tempesta

Humanities Core Course

Dr. Adriana Johnson

4 June 2009

Redefining A Public in “The Case of Milo Radulovich”

See It Now premiered in 1951, at the beginning of the red scare that followed World War

II. Its creators were Edward R. Murrow, a former WWII foreign correspondent, and Fred

Friendly, his producer; both were veteran radio broadcasters. Unlike its predecessor, a radio

show called Hear It Now, the television version not only presented the news but also provided

commentary. The team renamed the show See It Now to highlight its visual aspect. Television

critic Jack Gould said the “filmed colloquy between Mr. Murrow and [his interviewee] gave the

sequence a sense of immediate reality”, emphasizing how the visual relationship between the two

figures reached a level of closeness with its audiences (Gould 26). Murrow’s broadcasts evolved

with the changed medium. According to a Time magazine review of Hear It Now in 1950, the

radio show was not engaging; it “manage[d] to move quickly and entertainingly over the news”

but did “little to illuminate or interpret” it (“Hear It Now”). When Murrow moved to television,

he took advantage of the visual appeal to engage his audience in critical thought. Instead of

simply reading the news in a presentation format, See It Now interacted with a collective of

individual citizens. In 1954, the red scare had reached a peak. At first, politicians such as Senator

Joseph McCarthy targeted government workers only, but as hysteria mounted those outside

politics were brought into the fray as well. Former Air Force pilot Milo Radulovich faced a

dishonorable discharge because of his family’s political ties. See It Now addressed his story in an

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episode called “The Case of Milo Radulovich”. As the news team worked on a short interview

with Radulovich, initially meant to supplement a segment on Senator McCarthy, the focus of the

episode began to change. Murrow had found an individual's story to stand for the larger problem.

The entire broadcast revolved around one individual to create a "little picture that would

dramatize the conflict" (Rosteck 59). See It Now reveals the disconnect between how Americans

existed in their private lives in contrast to McCarthy’s widely accepted vision of public

uniformity; by doing so, the program uses Radulovich’s story to reclaim diversity as a social

norm.

The Existing Public

Senator McCarthy’s public was defined not only by

the anti-communist movement but also by the appeal of a

return to normalcy following the war. As a result,

conformity was a prominent value; this was a product of

prosperity and not necessarily a negative idea (Gibson 339).

For example, people moved out of cities and into uniform

suburbs. The idea of conformity as a value is exemplified by

this 1950 Western Electric advertisement, in which a line of

uniform corporate workers enjoying the abundance of

telephones stretches back infinitely into the page. The phrase “[s]omething the Reds haven’t got”

touts the riches associated with capitalism above communism; paired with the average workers,

this image relates prosperity and conformity and makes it the norm, which also immediately

defines any diversity of belief as subversive and associated with “the Reds”, or the communists.

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Anti-communist sentiments were also present in traditional forms of media, like the newspapers.

For example, one New York Times article warns of Communists present in unexpected places,

calling communism a “creeping expansion” that could break out “almost any place, any time”

("Redford Cautions Red Threat Stands”). As See It Now suggests through the quotes of

Radulovich, their accused communist, it is not only communists hidden in small towns that one

has to worry about but also the “chain reaction” of the government’s response to them.

Bringing A Private Citizen to the Public Eye With Visual Appeals

“The Case of Milo Radulovich” uses the visual format to open the news process to their

viewers, an act of disclosure that brought audiences into the world of the media. See It Now did

not have a set. Instead, the program was filmed in the studio among wires and standby screens

(Edwards 106). This opened the alien process of producing television to their audiences at home,

which gave their show an element of raw believability in an era that was critical and suspicious

of the fledgling medium of television. Showing the process behind the program gave the show a

working-class feel, which lessened the distance between the show’s target audience of other

working-class Midwesterners. See It Now also did not attempt to hide that they were

broadcasting from a large city building. To connect themselves to the small towns watching, the

producers kept images of them on standby screens (Edwards 106). For example, in “The Case of

Milo Radulovich”, an image of Dexter, Michigan, the subject’s hometown, is shown on a

monitor just behind Murrow’s head as he introduces the story of the accused communist. This

sets Radulovich up as an average person, one who belongs to the suburbia of McCarthy’s

America despite the allegations. This appeal of empathy and identification is a key element of

the broadcast as a whole, and is also integrated throughout the words and images used

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throughout the telling of the story itself. Murrow and Friendly sought to bring audiences into

their subject’s world in the same manner they sought to bring audiences into the world of

television: visually.

See It Now capitalizes on the immediacy of images by using them to set up what seems

like the norm: a small suburban town. Radulovich’s town of Dexter is shown in the studio

background, and then the cameras switch to the standby screen to bring the viewer into

Michigan, panning up to Radulovich’s front door. On the way, the camera passes cultivated

gardens and civil monuments. The intent is to build Milo Radulovich up as one of the audience

by giving him a place in society (Rosteck 61). Radulovich is always interviewed on his living

room couch, keeping with the everyday theme of a small town. The way Murrow’s tense speech

of politics juxtaposes the quiet air of suburbia is the first indication that the pre-existing norm

will be replaced. While Radulovich is kept in his town, the narrative that introduces

Radulovich’s accusers, the Air Force, is accompanied by shots of empty official buildings and

signs (Murrow). The intent is to portray the government as an inhuman faceless entity while

developing Radulovich’s character as an average American (Rosteck 65). By using the town as

an integral part of this character, Murrow reinforces the message of the “chain reaction” that

Radulovich predicts, the message that “it could happen to anyone,” as Radulovich himself says

(Murrow).

Choosing A Private to Represent America

The reporters interviewed Radulovich’s neighbors and spliced them together so that their

perspective followed after every judgment against him; they are used as an average “chorus of

citizen-witnesses” to, as in Sophoclean literature, guide the audience’s thought process (Rosteck

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66). Through the testimony of his neighbors, Radulovich’s actions are defended as ordinary.

These people include town cornerstones such as the chief of police, a shop owner, and a former

mayor. John Palmer, the first citizen, says that he is confused about how “they” can convict

Radulovich because his father “read a paper he wasn’t supposed to read” (Murrow). The ethos of

his place as the town’s police marshal and the logos of his argument build a norm around

Radulovich. He goes on to include a dimension of pathos as well, saying that he himself couldn’t

“condemn his father and cast him aside, and neither could any boy who had a father” (Murrow).

The townspeople are indignant because this is happening to one of them, a ‘normal’ person in

terms of the existing public. The mayor of twenty-nine years vouches for Radulovich, saying that

the only certainty is that “the boy’s relatives are Communist-inclined” but that Radulovich

himself cannot be held responsible for their views (Murrow). Madeleine Lewis, a dry-cleaning

shop owner, represents the other ordinary citizens; galvanized into public writing and public

speaking by this incident, she circulates a petition around town. In showing the indignation of

his neighborhood, Murrow guides the audience to view Radulovich through the lens of his

neighbors. This completes the image of Radulovich as the epitome of McCarthy’s norm.

However, the testimony of the neighbor-chorus (the audience’s stand-in) redefines that social

norm to include diversity of opinion, therefore making his accuser’s image the new extreme. If

Radulovich and his family are harmless average citizens despite their politics, then McCarthy’s

definition of ‘normal’ must not be broad enough.

The story was shot in Dexter not only to interview Radulovich and his neighbors but also

to take advantage of how the public viewed small town America. According to reporter Joe

Wersheba, who interviewed Radulovich, the broadcast would not have worked if Murrow’s team

had not chosen a Midwesterner to represent their story. Wersheba later said that “the people in

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cities were scared to death to open their mouths”, in contrast to the straightforward country

people. The appeal of “Mainstreet America” contrasted what would have been the “effete eastern

radicalism” of cities brought to mind by the introduction of an accused radical (Sperber 417).

Like the accusations of communism voiced-over the everyday images, the threat of communism

in the setting of small-town America seems extreme and highlights the “unexpected...the

subversive and the hidden intimidations of McCarthyism” (Rosteck 73). The same strategy of

combining commonly-held images with reality in defining Radulovich is used in the appeal of

pathos inherent in “Mainstreet America”. The media served as an intermediary, one of its Oxford

English Dictionary definitions, in that it brought a private story from a small town to the nation’s

view. Radulovich is chosen as a liaison between McCarthy’s public as portrayed in the media

(such as the Western Electric advertisement) and the private world of citizens; his middle-class

Midwestern town becomes representative of America. The reality that there could be a diversity

of opinion in a small town forced audiences to rewrite their views of suburbia.

By choosing Radulovich’s family as a middle ground between communist extremists and

suburban conformity, See It Now redefined the social norm for the average American.

Previously, broadcasts of See It Now had what was called an “almost mathematical impartiality”,

but in “The Case of Milo Radulovich” only Radulovich’s side is explored (Gilbert 217). This is

partially because the opposing side refused to comment and partially because of the changing

format of the show, which allowed reporters to appeal more directly to their audiences (Murrow).

Even these broadcasts “accumulated more respect” for their “balance and… impartiality”

(Rosteck 22). However, “The Case of Milo Radulovich” broke this precedent. Although all the

images and interviews shown were calculated to make the audience react a specific way against

the accusation, Murrow is the only one who openly editorializes. He does so at the very end of

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the broadcast, making it sound as if he just wants to clarify by saying “[p]erhaps you shall permit

me to read a few sentences just at the end, because I should like to say rather precisely what I

mean” (Murrow). In this conclusion, Murrow reads an unofficial transcript of the court

proceedings, echoing the other time a person spoke directly to the camera, in which Radulovich’s

lawyer presented the claims against Radulovich and recounted the unfairness of the trial. This is

only one of two instances in which a person speaks directly to the camera; the others, including

Radulovich, speak to the audience through reporters and are looking slightly off-screen. As a

result, these two shots seem pure and unfiltered by film editors and reporters, who generalized

the story by presenting it in a narrative form. The specific details that Murrow reads to the

audience are outside the narrative, giving it the sense of “immediate reality” that Gould wrote

about; therefore, the audience feels the full impact of the injustices involved in the trial. For

example, Radulovich was not allowed to see the specific charges leveled against him because

they were presented in a sealed envelope (Rosteck 66). When Murrow says that “we” should

examine “the relationship between the individual and the state”, he is challenging the public to

criticize the existing public and broaden the definition to include a diverse, thinking commune of

private citizens (Murrow). Because the news at this time was considered an impartial medium,

Murrow’s treatment of the subject as average implicitly redefines what is normal.

Conclusion

“The Case of Milo Radulovich” redefined the public sphere by moving it from a unified

group of conformists to a collective of private individuals. See It Now took advantage of the new

medium of television and used its visual rhetoric to redefine this norm. When he first made the

transition from radio to television, Murrow said that he wished it had never been invented

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(Edwards). The team kept the radio format on television for their initial broadcasts, but as the

show went on they discovered that with the change in medium needed to come a change in form.

They lengthened their segments and, as a result, began to focus more on the individual. “The

Case of Milo Radulovich” was the broadcast of See It Now that epitomized this intent. By first

building the audience’s confidence through visual appeals, Murrow sets himself up as an

impartial observer. He then brings Milo Radulovich into the picture, defining him as an average

citizen with images from his neighborhood. Radulovich represents the average citizen during red

scare, a tactic that writer Thomas Rosteck compares to the literary term ‘synecdoche’ in that it

uses a part to stand for the whole. His neighbors react as the ideal audience would, with

questions and indignation, and everyone is interviewed on their streets or in their living rooms.

By defining Radulovich as average by using his town, Murrow also defines the town as the

norm. This shift occurs implicitly during the narrative. If the media, supposedly an impartial

source, is treating the Midwestern town of Dexter as the norm, and if the people of the town

agree, then the new radical American is the one who follows unquestioningly at the risk of both

their family and their rights. This prompts citizens to step out of the boundary of the former

public sphere in order to create a collective of critical individuals. The audiences reacted the way

the way See It Now intended. Of the 8,000 letters CBS received regarding the Milo Radulovich

broadcast, opinion “ran 100 to 1 in Radulovich’s favor” (Rosteck 76). “The Case of Milo

Radulovich” became the threshold for critical news broadcasts, and was followed by three more

targeting not Senator McCarthy as a person but the style of fear-driven government that he came

to represent.

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