UNdistinguished Voices

It wasn't what they said; it was how they said it. There was not a topflight voice among U.N. delegates, said Major George Robert Vincent. As chief of U.N.'s sound and recording section, he had heard them all; as the world's greatest private collector of voices (TIME, April 10, 1939)* he ought to know. Last week Voiceman Vincent analyzed some U.N. voices:

P: France's Henri Bonnet: "Good timbre, best voice in U.N."

P: Britain's Sir Alexander Cadogan: "Terse, clear, clipped, cultured, humorless."

P: China's Quo Taichi: "Stubborn . . . tactful."

P: Russia's Andrei Gromyko: "Deadpan . . . plugger."

P: Australia's Lieut. Colonel W. R. Hodgson: "Lawyer type."

P: Poland's Oscar Lange: "Only U.N. voice with a sense of humor." <1 Norway's Trygve Lie: "Charming, justly fair."

P: Mexico's Francisco Najera: "Shallow, unclear . . . worst of U.N."

P: America's Edward Stettinius: the voice of a "jovial salesman."

*Notable voices among his 5,000 records: Gladstone, Florence Nightingale, P. T. Barnum, Theodore Roosevelt.

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