EX-EDITOR EYES GULF REPORTING; BLUE RECALLS PAPER'S HANDLING OF CONFLICTS

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- As a fledgling news reporter, long-time Cape Girardeau newsman John Blue covered the start of America's involvement in World War II.

Working at the Southeast Missourian newspaper, first as a reporter and later as editor, Blue wrote about the world war, Korea and Vietnam.

He watches with interest both developments and reports from the Persian Gulf.

"The coverage locally has been pretty comprehensive," Blue said.

"It is amazing. We've been watching television just as we listened to the radio during the start of World War II. You just couldn't pull yourself away from the radio. And I've been glued to the television set.

"The news coverage locally by all the media since Aug. 2 has been better and more extensive than World War II," Blue said. "I think the reasons are that during World War II, we (the Missourian) were the only real source of local news, and we had a limited staff.

"Now we have radio and television and the newspaper here all covering local news. I think the news media has done a great job of covering the story."

Blue joined the Missourian staff in July 1940 as the second world war was escalating in Europe.

"Until the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor," Blue recalled, "we were on the outside looking in. We weren't that involved.

"That night, when Japan struck, everyone was glued to their radio," Blue said.

"On Monday morning, after listening a good part of the night to the radio, we began writing local stories.

The Missourian decided to create two front pages. The local news was printed on the back page of the section. The front page contained information about the war.

"There was a hysteria about a Japanese attack on the coast of California and a lot of rumors about what was happening," Blue said.

"I did some local reporting on various aspects of the war. There were a lot of rumors floating around. One was that a Japanese mini-sub was going to travel up the Mississippi River."

Guards were placed at both ends of the Mississippi River Bridge here to protect it from sabotage.

After a few days, Blue said, things settled down. "We continued doing local coverage similar to what is being done today," he said.

"The war was vast. It involved practically every family. Everyone was touched by it," he said.

As America entered the war, the draft was accelerated. "My job at that time was to cover the draft," he said. "I handled all the draft stories. I gathered all those names of men in service and I tried to get as many pictures as possible.

"It wasn't very long and we began to get casualty lists, long lists," Blue said.

"My job was to go out and get obituaries for these men. I went and talked to the families of every serviceman killed. It was a sad reporting job," Blue said. "And parents were kind of bewildered. They didn't know what they could do."

"I also helped covered the ration board," he said. "We had rationing of meats, sugar, gasoline, tires you name it you had to have ration books and use ration coupons."

Blue was drafted in December 1942 and returned to the newspaper Oct. 1, 1945, after peace was declared.

"The troops were coming home and there was joy that they had returned and were rejoined with their families," he said.

"But we started covering the aftermath of the war," he said. The home front had taken a beating during the war.

"I had the city hall and school beats. The city and schools were in bad shape. They hadn't been able to get supplies during the war. The city had to scrounge around for supplies to keep the police cars and public works vehicles going. The city was in terrible shape."

"Servicemen were big at that time," Blue said. "We covered the veterans organizations and the recruiting officers. If you wore a uniform, everyone respected you."

Blue said he personally faced some hardships after the war. "During the war, my wife was over with her family in Anna. When I came back there was no housing in Cape Girardeau. We were fortunate to get a room in a private home," he recalled.

"This sounds terrible, but I would scour the obituaries looking for housing which might become available." Eventually he found an apartment.

Blue said the Korean War started quietly here. "It was a Saturday and we were about to close out the front page when we had a flash on the wire that North Korea had invaded South Korea.

"It was right at deadline. I think we used about an 18 point head somewhere on the front page, or it might have been page two or three."

"If anyone had realized what this meant, I know we would have held the paper. By Monday, we knew what it meant," he said.

"Compared to World War II, we didn't do a lot of local stories, especially at the outset. As it intensified, we did more local stories."

"We had our only congressional medal of honor Richard G. Wilson. When they brought his body back, the flags were out and there was a parade in town with draped drums and somber music. It was a very solemn event."

Blue said, "The Vietnam War just crept up on us. The French had been in Indo-China for so many years.

"When we first went in, it was in such small numbers. We had military observers and military advisers," he said. "The paper's coverage reflected this.

"We didn't have a lot of local coverage until people started going over in such large numbers. The draft was in affect, and some people were trying to escape the draft.

"This was such a long war. That's one of the reasons when the veterans came home there weren't any parades. The war was still going on.

"We kept getting casualty lists, the same as World War II and Korea," he said.

"The war continued and we continued to cover it as warranted.

Blue said, "Vietnam was really television's war.

"Just as this time, the American people could see the carnage. They could see the men being shot at and dying. This was the first time war was really brought home to the people and they were horrified."

Blue said the Persian Gulf war, too, is a television war.

"The sophistication of the equipment, the technology, is fantastic," he said.