Friendly Persuasion

Due To Circumstances Beyond Our Control. . . by Fred W. Friendly. Random House, $6.95.

Mr. Friendly is a big, heavily built man with a deceptively ponderous manner. When speaking in public, he tends to be something of a slow starter: to tell long, long anecdotes, the punch-lines of which he might very easily fluff. But once he is properly launched on the subject to which he is so passionately devoted electronic journalism and its importance—the eyes of his audience stop their wandering and fingers that have been idly active around the rims of ash trays begin to grope for pencil and paper. This book is, physically and in other respects, remarkably like the man.