Sevareid on Wise Guys and Suckers

A blast from the past

A short one here, and, I hope, the closest this Substack will ever come to politics.

I’m reading Eric Sevareid’s memoir “Not So Wild a Dream.” This is a follow-on to an amazing book by Caroline Alexander, Skies of Thunder, which I can’t recommend more. In it, Alexander devotes a few words to the story of how Eric Sevareid, who at the time was a war correspondent, had to parachute out of a stricken bomber over the rugged mountain terrain along the India/Burma border in 1943.

For me, growing up in the Sixties and Seventies, Eric Sevareid was just a random old guy who would show up on network newscasts. I had no idea he had such an interesting background until reading Skies of Thunder. His memoir, which is written in high literary style, describes a great many more adventures as well.

In 1940 he reported on the Fall of France to the Nazis, and later on the Battle of Britain. When he came back to the U.S. shortly thereafter, he had become somewhat famous, and went on a speaking tour. Of that experience, he writes:

I learned to understand a fundamental suspicion in the American character, a Yankee trait which I had to admit was an outgrowth of the democratic habit, part of its bulwark in normal times, but now a downright menace as precious time rushed by. It was an American trait, not so much to avoid action, but to avoid the humiliation of being “taken in.” America was terribly afraid of losing its fancied status as the “wise guy,” of being a “sucker.” I wondered: Do these people disbelieve by nature, or have the press and radio completely lost the people’s faith? For, time after time, I would find an imposing man—generally a businessman—approaching me after a lecture, patting my arm, and saying: “That was mighty interesting. Now let’s you and me have a little drink with some friends of mine and suppose you give us the real low-down?” They could not believe that I had already told them all I knew, that their press and radio each day was telling the whole truth to the best of their abilities.