Atomic energy as threat and promise are at the center of today's discussion. The guests are Bertrand Russell, philosopher and Nobel Prize author in London; Dr. Willard F. Libby of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, in Washington D.C.; Dr. Homi J. Bhabha, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission of India, in Paris. Lord Russell has been active in efforts to halt nuclear weapons.
Lauren Bacall, Malcolm Muggeridge, former editor of "Punch" a British humor magazine and Eric Johnston are the assembled raconteurs, and the first two help make this a most engaging session on this international fest. Miss Bacall, intelligent and humorous, discusses how good Hollywood films are as overseas ambassadors, and debates the question of female suffrage.
A discussion on education includes author Rebecca West in Buckinghamshire, England; Vice Admiral Hyman Rickover in Washington, D.C.; and Dr. Mark Van Doren in Cornwall, Connecticut.
Particularly amusing telephonic chat between actor Peter Ustinov, impresario Sol Hurok and Maryland's Governor Theodore McKeldin. This combative trio consider politics, culture and TV. Hurok and Ustinov both make good sense, with the latter being not only perceptive, but witty as he demolishes several ideas advanced by Governor McKeldin, who unintentionally proves Ustinov's contention that politicians, like the Russians, can be funny precisely because they have no sense of humor.
Conversation is carried on by Presidential News Secretary James C. Hagerty; Jacques Soustelle, minister of information for the De Gaulle government, and Malcolm Muggeridge, former editor of Britain's Punch magazine. Speakers are in Washington, Paris and London, respectively.
General Alfred M. Groenther, Aneturin Bevan, British Labor Party leader and Franz Josef Strauss, West Germany's defense minister, discuss the defense of Middle and Western Europe.
Harry S. Truman, 33rd president of the United States, and Richard Clement Attlee, 40th prime minister of Great Britain, in intercontinental conversation with Edward R. Murrow. Mr. Truman is in Independence, Mo. Earl Attlee is in London.
Murrow is joined in intercontinental conversation by Antoni Slonimski, Poland's poet laureate, Artur Rubenstein, world-famed Polish born pianist, and Archibald MacLeish, 2-time Pulitzer Prize winner. The guest speakers are in Warsaw, Paris and Washington, and the Warsaw visit is the show's first stop in a Communist country.
Dr. Milton S. Eisenhower, Puerto Rican Governor Luis Munoz-Marin and Dr. Galo Plaza, former president of Ecuador join Murrow in an unrehearsed, intercontinental conversation about relations between the United States and its neighbor nations to the South.
James O. Sastland, Herbert L. Block, syndicated editorial cartoonist of the Washington Post and Times-Herald, and Denis W. Brogan, professor of political science at Cambridge, and moderator Murrow discuss the U.S. Senate's controversial filibuster rule.