"Life with Luigi" in the Cold War
In 1950, about 3.9 million households in the United States had televisions -- this was 9 percent of American homes. Radio was the primary source of entertainment, dramatic, comedy, and variety programs. Radio was also a rallying tool for the first Crusade for Freedom campaign and Radio Free Europe.
A very popular weekly radio program that aired from 1948 to 1953 was a situation-comedy show “Life with Luigi,” with famed Hollywood actor J. Carrol Naish, who, as Luigi Basco, feigned a heavy Italian accent. The show aired before a live audience on the CBS radio network Tuesday evenings from 9:00 to 9:30 P.M. The fictional Luigi Basco was a new immigrant from Italy, who had recently arrived in the United States. The show’s premise was that Luigi wrote a weekly letter to his mother, who had remained in Italy, about his continuing experiences in the United States.
On September 19, 1950, the weekly half-hour long radio program was entitled “Crusade for Freedom Speech” and sponsored by the Wrigley Chewing Gum Company. The program's narrator started the program with a commercial: "You know friends, Wrigley's spearmint chewing gum is a typically American product that appeals to peoples of all ages and nationalities in all parts of our country."
During the program, Luigi was visited by a Crusade for Freedom volunteer who not only had Luigi sign the Freedom Scroll but also to put a Crusade poster in his shop’s window and asked to seek out others to sign the Freedom Scroll. The Crusade volunteer also told Luigi that the scrolls would be collected and “enshrined at the base of a huge Freedom Bell in Berlin.” Luigi was unsuccessful as the people he asked to sign the Freedom Scroll ignored him because they were too busy, were in a hurry, or had other reasons not to listen to him about the Crusade for Freedom.
The teacher of his night-school citizenship class, Miss Spaulding, selected Luigi to give a speech about freedom before a meeting of 10,000 other immigrants. The topic selected by Luigi’s teacher was “What Freedom Means to Me.” At the meeting he told the assembly not only about his failure to gather signatures but also what the Crusade for Freedom meant to him. The results were successful and those 10,000 persons who had listened to him signed the Freedom Scrolls and $300 was collected.
Near the end of the radio program, listeners heard a recorded statement by General Lucius D. Clay, Crusade for Freedom national chairman in New York: "Luigi, you give me a great hope. And you also fill me with considerable pride. It has not taken you long to learn what America really stands for. You have also found that because you believe in its ideals, you can reach the hearts and minds of its peoples. Thank you very much, Luigi, and the many thousands of other volunteers who are undertaking the Crusade for Freedom. But thank you especially Luigi for your faith in your new country and your belief in freedom.
Luigi concluded the show with by reading from his letter to his mother: "Yes, Mama Mia, now you see why America is a wonderful country and is worth fighting for. Because only here is it possible for a little immigrant like your son to hear from a great general and a great American like General Clay. It is like I once wrote to you, in America: everything is possible. Your loving son Luigi Basco,"
