Letter From America

The Peabody Award for the outstanding contribution to international understanding goes to Alistair Cooke, the American correspondent of the Manchester Guardian. In a series of short-wave broadcasts which were begun in 1946 and which now number two hundred and seventy, he has been explaining the American character, the American scene and behavior to those in Great Britain who ought to know more about us. His Letter From America is heard over BBC on Friday evenings and they are as delightful as they are penetrating. Whether he is talking about Willie Howard or Joe Lewis, or Will Rogers, the heartbeat of New York or spring in the Arizona desert, a tattooist in San Diego or a Middle Westerner wintering in Florida, he is talking good sense and he is talking American as no Britisher before him has been able to do so well. He is a one-man intercultural movement, and we are proud of him.