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We Interrupt This Program

THE PEOPLE We Interrupt This Program... A San Francisco electrical engineer named D. Reginald Tibbetts was sitting up late amid the clutter of radio equipment in his bedroom. At 4:27 in the morning (P.W.T.), listening to the dit-dah-dah of fast Morse, he began transcribing a Domei News Agency broadcast: "The Japanese Government are ready to accept. . . ." At the same time, in a white frame house in Portland, Ore., an FCC monitor picked up the same exciting news —Japan was officially offering to surrender.

After that, for too many hours and too many false alarms, the nation waited.

When the...

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