Autographs as evidence
Media
Part of Panorama
- Title
- Autographs as evidence
- Language
- English
- Source
- Panorama Volume XVII (Issue No.7) July 1965
- Year
- 1965
- Subject
- Wit and humor
- Autographs
- Rights
-
- Fulltext
- The news stunned the Am erican people. Six days later the sacked general landed at San Francisco to be received like a national hero. Half a million people greeted him that evening causing one of the worst traffic jams in the history of the city. Two days later in Washington a hysterical crowd received him at the airport although it was after midnight. He was there to address Congress. He gave an un forg et t able performance. MacArthur, always a flam boyant orator, was at his best on a nation-wide television hook-up. He said, 'I address you with neither rancour nor bitterness in the fading twi light of my life, but with one purpose in mind, to serve my country.’ He ended with the drama tic curtain line: ‘Like the old soldier in the ballad I now close my military career and fade away — an old sol dier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty.’ — P. Tur ner. AUTOGRAPHS AS EVIDENCE During the War, in the Scotland Stadium in Glasgow, when the first American troops were giv ing gn athletic exhibition, a messenger boy came to my box requesting me to come to the reception room to meet Anthony Eden. Mr. Eden greeted me in a typical fan manner: “Mr. Robinson, my wife won’t believe me if I tell her I met you unless I have your autographs.” I thought he was pulling my leg, and in res ponding I told him I heard in Hollywood that he had had many offers as a romantic leading man. As I signed the autograph, I told him that I, too, had to ask him for his autograph because my wife would never believe I had met him, unless I had something to show for it. — Edward G. Robinson. July 1965 41