RADIO
How do you like your radio discussions ? Extempore, or set down on paper to be read ? There is much to be said for and against both. The Brains Trust, for instance, owed half its attraction to the fact that speakers were faced with questions of which they had not fore-knowledge. It was presumed that out of the fullness of their hearts they had to reply, or with whatever was given them in that place. It was not always satisfactory ; not all the speakers had the immediate lucidity of, say, Dr. joad, and many of them could be seen afterwards descending from the studio smiting their foreheads, afflicted with resprit d'escalier.
One of the most venerable, distinguished, weighty and brilliant of the Brains Trust members had his own solution to the problem. At each question he would bend his head over a sheet of paper, clear his mind, make notes under (a), (b) and (c), and emerge five minutes afterwards with a considered reply. The other members tended to take up the function of pickets, or scouts, or skirmishing troops. He himself evaded the full shock of battle ; he was the Old Guard. He never met his Waterloo.
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