Brief description:
From the Prologue:
"I'll have to be careful what I say," thinks the General, facing the semicircle of reporters who have been brought on from as far as New York. He doesn't know their names -- one never knows the names of these pleasant, alert people—they are eyes, quick pencils, a woman’s hat or two -- men and women who are friendly enough, and yet avid for the word, the unconsciously revealed fact that will give them a story beyond the stereotyped information of the routine interview. So-- a man must be careful what story he reveals.
A hundred years from now some author—a school teacher on vacation, perhaps—-a spinster, surely—let’s see—fiftyish and earnest;; she'll take her brief case, her lunch and vacuum bottle to some library--that of a Historical Society, or some Foundation collection letters and newspapers—she’ll change her shoes and put on a smock over her clean shirtwaist, and she’ll thumb through all the papers of the World War II era. . . . The General’s gray eyes smile ever so slightly, and a little fondly, as his mind builds up this earnest seeker after facts.In any case, she’ll come upon the accounts these newspaper chaps are about to write. These personal interviews -- how little she knows! What is personal or intimate about a single man facing fifteen or sixteen smart-as-paint reporters, and telling them just what he and the War Department want them to know?
"I'll have to be careful what I say," thinks the General, facing the semicircle of reporters who have been brought on from as far as New York. He doesn't know their names -- one never knows the names of these pleasant, alert people—they are eyes, quick pencils, a woman’s hat or two -- men and women who are friendly enough, and yet avid for the word, the unconsciously revealed fact that will give them a story beyond the stereotyped information of the routine interview. So-- a man must be careful what story he reveals.
A hundred years from now some author—a school teacher on vacation, perhaps—-a spinster, surely—let’s see—fiftyish and earnest;; she'll take her brief case, her lunch and vacuum bottle to some library--that of a Historical Society, or some Foundation collection letters and newspapers—she’ll change her shoes and put on a smock over her clean shirtwaist, and she’ll thumb through all the papers of the World War II era. . . . The General’s gray eyes smile ever so slightly, and a little fondly, as his mind builds up this earnest seeker after facts.In any case, she’ll come upon the accounts these newspaper chaps are about to write. These personal interviews -- how little she knows! What is personal or intimate about a single man facing fifteen or sixteen smart-as-paint reporters, and telling them just what he and the War Department want them to know?
Publication
Dodd, Mead & Co., (1950) 1st,Hdbk,DJ,,Good