European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 11, 1947, Darmstadt, Hesse                                John Gunthers new inside monumental portrait of a nation whose variety makes for its Unity mein own kampf radio every time i hear an announcer enunciate this is the National broadcasting company i Funk smugly of the time i was a Chance to buy the organi Stock and the experience was typical of my few fleeting contacts with the radio in in the summing entirely it goes Back to the Day i met i had just moved my f Imily into an apartment on ninety first Street on a hot october Day and tie place was still in a wild confusion of misplaced packing boxes Frid newspaper Excelsior and torn nerves when the front door Chimes it was that kind of an apartment Carole i  resist the temptation to use the Little spy window set in the Gadget i haunt seen since the ast speakeasy All i could be was the doorway of the apartment i opened the and there stood although at the time i didst know her name or that she would eventually offer me the Chance of a a Orovic was a very Small which explained Why the peephole had not revealed horizontally she was ample and her amplitude was encased in a Sleazy bargain basement frock that showed a faded Blue Flower design among the grease she had no but two columns of mottled flesh ended abruptly in burst and wrinkled bedroom her hair was rather than in a loaf on top of her one of her eyes regarded me pleasantly but the other apparently was occupied with something else Down the Hall to her is there anything i can do for you she my first wild impulse was to say certainly not and slam the but instead i gave her a sickly smile of in she said As though to put me at my Hus bands the janitor and he likes to see new tenants get anything they get off to a Good i that were not even unpacked but he not she said with a Hes came Back from mulligans about an hour ago to Stoke the hot water boiler and shango out like a Light on the Coal you know How it i youre a newspaper Arent you she asked the renting agent said you i admitted you know How it she summed i thanked Horn Vic for her solicitude and told her when we were unpacked wed Call on her for any thing i started to close the but she showed no intention of closing the How do you like the newspaper business she i said it was All i know a lot of newspaper and i dont think its so she i know big shots Good there in the wrong now you take radio my wife called me at this Point in an edgy voice and i broke in on Ive got to get Back Ray in i but its of that she i know How it she gave me a Wink with her off ill see you that what she said i didst run into a Orovic until the next afternoon when i was on my Way to she was seated on a Camp Stool just outside the Street door to the fan Ning herself with a folded copy of the daily get All fixed up she asked As i nodded in pretty i trying to act As though i were in a she said As i at tempted to pass i can put you onto a Good you could get out of this Lousy newspaper i she lowered her voice and spoke i can get you the National Broad casting she can i its on the said not everybody knows but i happen whats i got i can get i that from i dont think i could afford i afford  give it three a a radio Chain for a song pretty he i chuckled never mind making up your mind right but think it talk to some of your get up a the reason i Tell you this is you look like a Nice think it when i left the House the next Day a Orovic was at her regular stand at the Well she i new what she and i told her i was sorry but i haunt enough friends to scrape up two minion Dol she looked i could get you of she shaking her but that Small you dont want to fool with Small a Orovic heaved Large she said Why should anybody have to pay Money for radio i had no ready and Sud Denly she spoke dollars that he think he anyway i managed to evade a Orovic pretty successfully after except for one afternoon when she offered me a new she had a Corner on the Pennsylvania As i but i want in the a few weeks the to Rovics i assume there but i never saw him de parted in the night and a new janitor i suppose i  blame the radio Industry Lor but Damn it i i Gudebrod inside by John 979 John Gunther is a painstaking reporter Iwho has spent the last ten years or so writ ing what amounts to a social and political history of the world in the second Quarter of the twentieth Cen if the previous volumes of his inside latin inside is probably nothing Short of much a Monument to its indefatigable author As to the nation whose complexities would seem to defy such an but Gunther has indisputably done the leg work for this personally conducted tour of the was started in the author be Gan in worked his Way up the Pacific moved across the Northwest into the Middle crossed Over into new went Down the Atlantic coast and through the South and came full Circle in the in his Odyssey he covered All forty eight talked to a thousand persons and took a million words of the chief characteristic of the Gunther was its and that paradoxically All the endless variety of Amer Ica dovetails neatly into a Harmoni Ous whoever invented the motto e pluribus unum he has Given the Best three word definition of the United states Ever the Well known differences Between los Angeles and san fran Sisco Are no greater than those Sepa rating Nashville and Dallas and fort and Cincinnati and there Are patterns within within states and within Geo graphical but they All inter lock without inside ranges from serious discussions of the nations political leaders to minute bits of Gunther says that Houston is the most reactionary City the most charming the cleanest the dirtiest the most Beautiful the ugliest new York and the Best run the greatest and most typically did you for that the hotel Davenport in Spokane washes All its coins before handing them to its customers that ten Nessee has four As much Blue grass As the Blue grass state that Montana has the most Utah has the highest standards of Washington pays the highest wages to its workers and has the fewest strikes that there is a statue erected to a murderer in Nashville that new York has More dude ranches than Wyoming Gunther is not shy about giving his considered the he is the greatest single american invention of this the worst he goes on in Atlanta and the prettiest girls come from Texas which settles no argument the Anaconda Copper mining company has a strangle hold on Virginia has the most urbane and genteel dictatorship in and culture in California compares to Texas As compares to the author draws Sharp sketches of american political leaders and he explains How Crumps machine in Memphis what there is unique about the Byrd organization in Virginia and what makes Lausche As popular in Ohio As Osburn is in gun ther devotes much space to such political figures As Stassen Vandenbergh la Bricker and the most remarkable thing about inside is the completeness of its coverage of the nation Down to the smallest some of it is much is but it is the closest anyone has yet come to giving Unity to All the variety that is r l c Battle records of the old out fits continue to Roll off the four of the most recent Are about units that fought in the they Are work horse of the Western the Story of the thirtieth in Fantry the Story of a 179th regimental combat history of the 304th infantry regiment and history of the wac 9th air Divi Only the history of the thirtieth division infantry journal press is being offered for Public but All of them might Well serve As sources for historians of the future As Well As bring Back a lot of nostalgia for Veter ans of those i Chicago greatest and most typically american 16