$6.50 Broadcast

For a variety of reasons (main one: to avoid wearing out radio stars' welcome), Radio does not go in for selling phonograph records of broadcasts to the public. But one night last week, listeners to WQXR in Manhattan heard a broadcast called Then Came War: 1939 that anyone was welcome to buy, on three double-faced, twelve-inch records, for $6.50.

For those who stayed tuned in during the war crisis, Then Came War: 1939, a MARCH OF TiMEstyle dramatization (with background by Commentator Elmer Davis) of the ten tumbled days that ushered in World War II, contains little new or startling. But for anyone who wants to keep Hitler's actual voice around the house, it is a collector's item. From shortwave radio speeches and from foreign recordings, the producers caught Hitler, Chamberlain, Daladier in action, fitted their own voices into the pattern of war in the making. Momentous remarks: Chamberlain, after Munich (sounding like a man having trouble with his uppers): "I believe it is peace for our time"; Hitler, less than a year later (while a quieter voice translates): "Our soldiers have been shot at, and since 5:45 a. m. we have been shooting back." Two days later, in the thick French of Daladier: "The cause of France is the cause of Justice"; and brokenly, from Downing Street, the voice of Chamberlain again: "This country is at war with Germany."

Already released to 5,000 schools throughout the U. S., as well as to a scattering of record shops, Then Came War: 1939 is the first of a planned series, The Sound of History. On the fire: Russia v. Finland.

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