Letter from America
1946 – 2004
Alistair Cooke
(Allen Lane, 2004)
Wes Streeting, the health secretary for England, has accused – yes I think that’s the right word – accused, Scotland’s First Minister of being “an analogue man in a digital world”. Apparently he is not up to speed with “the doctor in your pocket”. He says everybody needs the App. You can make appointments, both in general practice and in hospital out-patients’. But wait a minute. Couldn’t you always do that, simply by making a phone call?
I was delighted to hear that Mr Swinney is an analogue man. We must hold on to all that ancient knowledge, skill, and wisdom. You never know when you may have need of it.
I thought of the analogue man when I I picked up this bulky tome, Letter from America, (504 pages) in a second hand book shop, and I was pleased to work my way through an anthology covering six decades of American history. I remember the broadcasts very well, delivered in that urbane, rather patrician mid-Atlantic accent. It’s extraordinary to think that Alistair Cooke was still broadcasting in his 96th year. Terry Wogan, always one for recognising the moment to fold the tent and bow out, thought he should have quit while he was ahead, but I can’t say I detected any diminution in his journalistic powers, and indeed the book backs that up. The last essay, The Democrats’ Growing Confidence (February 20th, 2004) is looking forward to the presidential election of that year. “George Bush,” said John Kerry, “must be driven from the White House, and I’m the man to do it.” Well, as we know, despite being very well qualified for the presidential role, he never made it. Al Gore, another well qualified presidential candidate, never made it in 2000. He missed out by a hanging chad. Alistair Cooke saw that coming. Al Gore was very earnest, and very environmentally sound. He was more adept at giving a lecture than in whipping up enthusiasm at a rally of the faithful. By contrast, George W. Bush was a guy the American voter wanted to have a beer with.
Some of the essays stand out by virtue of their historic importance – Vietnam, the assassination of JFK, and his brother Bobby, the attempted assassination of President Reagan, Watergate, 9/11… The essay on the death of Bobby Kennedy (A Bad Night in Los Angeles, 9th June 1968) is remarkable for the fact that, very unusually, Cooke, himself more a commentator than a roving reporter, was actually there, at the Ambassador Hotel in Wilshire Boulevard, when the sordid event took place. The on-the-scene account crackles with energy; he could have been a thriller writer.
Many of the essays are apolitical, and clearly no subject matter is off-limits. Golf, jazz, the New England fall, Fred Astaire, Chaplin… He has an insatiable curiosity for people and places.
Well, he couldn’t go on for ever. And there is something fitting about his bowing out in the first years of the twenty first century. The fact is, he was describing a way of life, and a culture, that no longer exists. He was in fact an analogue man, beginning to be aware of the digital age. He couldn’t have fully known about the enormous effects social media platforms would have on his own profession, although he was clearly aware that there was something afoot. He had started noticing that the younger generation, intelligent, vivacious people, were not reading books. Where were they getting their information from? Online. But was it peer reviewed?
I had another nostalgic encounter with the analogue world last week. I visited the National Museum of Flight at East Fortune and admired the Vulcan, Harrier Jump Jet, Jaguar, Lightning, Comet, 707. And a Spitfire; I couldn’t see a Hurricane. But the jewel in the crown was Concorde. A magnificent feat of engineering, and a thing of great beauty. Yet clearly space was at a premium. The cabin is somewhat cramped. Still, you only had to endure it for about three hours, crossing the Atlantic from London to New York. And the cockpit is decidedly analogue. Lots of dials, but no computer screens. It bespeaks a heroic age, of David Frost commuting to NY twice a week, of the Queen sitting in her favourite seat, 1A, of the great and the good quaffing champagne and flying so high that they can detect the curvature of the earth. Concorde consumed an enormous amount of aviation fuel, particularly when deploying afterburners to accelerate to Mach 1, and then Mach 2. I don’t think one’s “carbon foot print” seemed to be such an issue at the time. New Yorkers just complained about the racket. It took some time before the US allowed Concorde into its airspace. They grumbled about noise pollution. But some people thought they were just jealous of the UK’s and France’s mastery of supersonic flight.
If Alistair Cooke could fly from London to New York now, would he recognise the country he was landing in? There is one remarkably prescient statement in Letter from America, from about 40 years ago. He passed a few remarks about a young up-and-coming New York property tycoon, one Donald Trump. Apparently he was buying up anything and everything. Why not, said Cooke, all of America?
jamescalumcampbell 