Meeting in Space

To mark the anniversary of the first Telstar broadcast, CBS last week presented Town Meeting of the World, bouncing the faces and voices of Dwight Eisenhower, Anthony Eden, Jean Monnet and Heinrich von Brentano off the orbiting Telstar II. Ike was in Denver, Eden in London, Monnet in Brussels, Brentano in Bonn. Anchor Man Walter Cronkite was in New York.

Nothing was said that should be written in marble, but it really was a kind of town meeting. International problems, from food surpluses to Sino-Soviet relations, were talked over in an offhand, idiomatic way. "I want to tell you, Anthony," said Ike to Eden, "that we will be there if you people ever get in trouble. You know that."

If the program had its dull stretches of vintage cant, it also had some sharp disagreement, as when Monnet insisted to Eden that Britain should give up control of her nuclear bombs to NATO. Ike jumped in, supporting Eden's no-no position, saying: "It gets to be a matter of principle around here."

As a suggestion of what might be --future international colloquies drawing continents together--CBS's program could not have been more impressive. CBS swiftly announced plans to stage similar meetings four times a year. And just as swiftly, the network put tapes of last week's show on planes to Europe. For, unfortunately, the Town Meeting had been seen only in America, and although Ike could see his three fellow conversationalists, none of them could see him, or one another. As air time neared, the French government had decided that the remarks of the old gentlemen, particularly Monnet, might be inimical to the views of their own Old Gentleman, so they refused the use of the receiving station at Pleumeur-Bodou, which alone serves all of Europe in Telstar communications. Britain's Goonhilly Down sending station kept the show alive for the U.S. and Canada, but it had to lumber back over the Atlantic by jet.

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