Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Wednesday Night at the Radio!

First up, since we just saw McCain-Obama in a so-called (thanks, Ward) "town meeting," let's try America's Town Meeting of the Air. The great John Dunning used to play these every once in a while on his Denver radio show. One I vividly recall was a debate between future Secretary of State Dean Acheson and America First leader General Robert E. Wood on the question, "Is a Hitler Defeat Necessary For the Survival of the United States?" (10 October 1941). Acheson was quite eloquent in the affoimative.

I don't have that one. In fact, I can't find a single complete show on the Intermutt--very odd for a program that ran 21 years and was so popular it sometimes got 4,000 letters a week.

All I could find was a piece of one show containing most of an opening statement (on TMotA, each participant got one of ten to 20 minutes) by former CPUSA chairman Earl Browder, who was debating someone named Murray. Great stuff: "The cult of the menace of communism is a reactionary myth, of the same general political significance as--anti-semitism" (24 October 1946).

Here's a 1939 Time piece on "ATMotA."

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