BURLESQUE BASIS

Evening Star, Issue 25895, 12 September 1946, Page 12

BURLESQUE BASIS

TRAINING OF JAP. RADIO ANNOUNCERS MAJOR COUSENS'S DEFENCE SYDNEY, September 10. Imitating the way in which lie alleged that he trained Japanese radio announcers, Major Charles Hughes Cousens had the Central Court in laughter to-day when the hearing of the treason charge against him was resumed g He chanted and sang lines from Gray’s ‘ Elegy ’ and the dagger scene from 1 Macbeth.’ Cousens claimed that he sabotaged the Japanese announcers by developing in them a typical Oriental singsong intonation. “ I had them clutching daggers from all over the place,” he said. It was nonsense that he trained them with the intent that propaganda broadcasts should be more effective

He met Margaret Kato shortly after arriving at Radio Tokio. She told him she had been born and reared in London, and warned hiip to be careful, as everything he did and said was being noted. She and Nakamoto warned him of the dangers of toning down'his broadcasts. Nakamoto was an Ameri-can-born Japanese who, Cousens thought, did his best to save Cousens’s life. The first batch of announcers trained by Cousens was not a success, and when he was allotted a second batch he was threatened with punishment if he did not do better. He outlined a number of threats made over a period df months, and said: “ While I was in Radio Tokio [ felt like a man walking on the edge of a precipice in the dark.” He made up his mind that Margaret Kato was trustworthy. He trained her in broadcasting “in a light Auntie style,” believing that this would be ineffective. Cousens gave details of programmes which he alleged that .lie helped to sabotage by destroying their appeal. The case is proceeding.