Word: priestley
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Last week Nazis short-waved to the U. S. the propaganda that Duff Cooper had booted ace Commentator J. B. Priestley off the air waves. Alleged reason: Priestley was threatening to supplant Duff Cooper as headman of the Ministry of Information. Truth was: although Priestley had not abandoned his thrice-weekly broadcasts to Canada and the U. S., he had given up his Sunday-night talks to the radio listeners of England...
Admittedly the most effective speaker in England after Winston Churchill, Priestley left the English air waves amid a hubbub of press excitement. London papers suggested that he had been squeezed into silence by pressure from Whitehall, which was, they said, alarmed at his forthright pleas for more democracy in Britain. Declared the New Statesman: "He tells us he was not stopped. But . . . that these broadcasts should stop is a national calamity which may matter more than Dakar...
Three weeks ago CBS Newschief Paul White and CBS European Director Ed Murrow started arranging by cable and short-wave conference to present from England a show called London After Dark. Working with BBC, Murrow lined up nine commentators, including Vincent Sheean and J. B. Priestley, got them spotted with portable mikes all over Lon don. Last week the program was heard in the U. S. Unexpected was the cooperation of Adolf Hitler, whose bombers flew over London, but dropped no bombs...
...expect more than half a dozen people have left." From Hammersmith's the program jumped to Piccadilly Circus, where Vincent Sheean spoke briefly of the silent streets. Following interviews with trainmen by BBC men in Euston Station, the program wound up with J. B. Priestley...
Sincere, hearty, full of gallant buck-you-uppo, most of Priestley's remarks have been right down the U. S. alley. On food: "You can eat yourself sick if you want to, but of course it is very nice to have a parcel of America's noblest produce including perhaps a bottle of rye or bourbon." On parashots: "There we were-ploughman and parson, shepherd and clerk, turning out at night as our forefathers had often done before us, to keep watch and ward over the sleeping hills and fields and homesteads...