Spotlight on Lee Falk - The WWII Years

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America's isolation from war ended on December 7, 1941, when Japan staged a surprise attack on American military installations in the Pacific.

Office of Facts and Figures

President Roosevelt appointed Archibald McLeish to head the "Office of Facts and Figures" (OFF), a federal agency that took responsibility for the management and mobilization of the domestic foreign language press during the first six months after Pearl Harbor.

Foreign Language Division

Within the OFF was the "Foreign Language Division" (FLD) which had: "the task of explaining how price control worked, how the draft worked and so forth, in foreign languages via press or radio to foreign language speaking groups".

Alan M Cranston (collaborator of "The Big Story" and later senator from California) had left journalism and start working for "Common Council for American Unity", an organization that was trying to help immigrants adjust to American life. Read Lewis recommended Cranston to McLeish and McLeish chose Alan Cranston to head the Foreign Language Division of the OFF. Cranston enlisted two friends to assist him: Lee Falk, served as associate chief of the FLD and handled radio issues; and David Karr to head the press section.

In his letter inducing Falk to take the job, Cranston explained that Falk would compose radio scripts for use in foreign-language broadcast designed to provide information about the war, to boost morale, and to sell the war to the German, Italian, and other groups in this country. For this, Cranston said, Falk would have to relocate to a Washington slum, work constantly, and take thyroid pills.

Office of War Information

June 13, 1942, The Office of War Information (OWI) was established as a federal agency, to conduct the government's wartime information and propaganda programs. The office came into being by integrating several agencies — including the OFF, already engaged in information and intelligence activities.

Lee Falk - Chief of Radio of the Foreign-Language Division of the OWI

It is an interesting real-time connection in the newspaper strip of Mandrake the Magician from June 30, 1942. In the strip Mandrake is talking about a new job, some sort of espionage, in Washington. If we deduct six to eight weeks as a result of the difference between the script and the publication in newspapers this is written early May 1942. About this time Lee Falk was drafted as associate chief of the foreign language division in Washington, at a salary of a dollar a year.

Lee Falk had some experience with radio from his work in St. Louis in the years 1932 to 1934. For a local radio station he had scripted "Ethel King".



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Army Signal Corps

Later, in 1944, Lee Falk was transferred to the Army Signal Corps.

In 1944, joined the Army Signal Corps which shipped him around the USA 12 times from one post to another. He managed to continue writing daily for his comic strips.

Sources

  • Lorraine M. Lees, Yugoslav-Americans and National Security During World War II, p42