Radio: Technically of Age

By flashing a generally excellent image from San Francisco to the East Coast last week, television proved that it had come of age, technically speaking. The new microwave relay system made a telecast of nearly 3,000 miles seem as easy for the networks as transmitting a show from across the street.

Though the picture and sound were technically clear, transcontinental TV got only laggard help from its human machines. H. V. Kaltehborn’s running commentary tended to obscure rather than illumine the action. The announcers, in their interviews with delegates, managed to say almost nothing, and that dully. Due to an inept translation, Russia’s Andrei Gromyko was made to sound even more illogical than usual.

But TV’s sharply observant eye once again brought history to life. It was finicky about detail, looking over the shoulder of Czechoslovakia’s Gertruda Sekaninova as she jotted down notes; absorbedly watching Japan’s Premier Shigeru Yoshida nimbly unroll the manuscript of his speech with one hand and roll it up with the other; turning away from a repetitious speaker to look at the stony-faced Russians, at an Anglo-American huddle.

Viewers may remember such visual treats as President Truman’s airy “Let’s go, boys” gesture to California’s Governor Warren and San Francisco’s Mayor Elmer Robinson, as he left the platform. Equally memorable were the lethal exchanges between Gromyko, as inflexible as granite, and U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson, as impersonally stern as a veteran headmaster. Poland’s bristling Stefan Wierblowski provided drama when, overruled, he remained on the stand, quivering with indignation and spluttering protests, but powerless against the Olympian calm of Acheson.

But each night when the show ended, the screen quickly returned to TV reality. Scarcely had the voices of the world-juggling statesmen died away when, after station identification, viewers were treated to some such rousing chorus as “My beer is Rheingold, the dry beer! Think of Rheingold whenever you buy beer . . .”