RAYMOND GRAM SWING: BETTER ON PAPER THAN ON THE AIR
Netboy, Anthony
Raymond Gram Swing: Better On Paper Than On The Air PREVIEW OF HISTORY, by Raymond Gram Swing. Doubleday, Doran. $2. Reviewed by Anthony Netboy RAYMOND GRAM SWING is the outstanding member of...
...There is an emotional lift and well-chosen facts to drive the points home...
...His treacly, unctuous voice gets tiresome and his informal air wears thin...
...The daily "columns," however, are often good reading...
...The period covered in this book of selected broadcasts ranges from the Pact of Munich, which Swing rightly called a confession of French and British military weakness and their distrust of the Soviets, to the pitiful German surrender in Tunisia which shattered the myth of German invincibility...
...Therein lies his genius...
...Here some general principles of peace, power, education, etc...
...Both the introductory essay and the addresses prove that Swing is at home as a news commentator...
...A man of some erudition and a veteran foreign correspondent, his broadcasts are not the highly dramatized chaff of the average commentator...
...Swing's prose can be quite moving, as in pieces like "Christmas Eve...
...are tackled...
...It asserts that the essentials of enduring peace are "a relationship of trust among the Great Powers," a system of justice in which big and little nations will accept a limitation on their sovereignty, and the enforcement of law on a neighborhood basis...
...War is the Breakdown of Peace" and "Goering on the Russian Winter...
...The day's report of battles, ministerial crises, diplomatic conferences, etc...
...Reviewed by Anthony Netboy RAYMOND GRAM SWING is the outstanding member of the motley crew who nightly pour their news commentaries into the air waves...
...This book proves that Swing is a much better writer than speaker...
...Rather it highlights the chief events...
...On domestic events Swing is always an intelligent commentator but often uncritical of official policies...
...is to him part of a single unfolding world drama whose tangled threads he skilfully holds together in his nightly serial...
...Although it is difficult to see sometimes the outline of this drama as one day's bewildering news merges into the next, Swing manages very adroitly to keep the narrative clear...
...Preview of History is not a record of this hectic period...
...A long essay on "Realities of a Power Peace" introduce the book...
...Several speeches delivered at various college commencements are appended...
...Swing in his quiet way gives to current news some pattern and meaning...
Vol. 7 • November 1943 • No. 47
