Leonardo’s Day—and Our Own [1952]

Russell was joined on this London Forum by the Liberal elder statesman and occasional philosopher Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount (1870–1963), his most frequent fellow guest on the BBC’s popular and long-running panel programme for listeners overseas. According to Derek Holroyde, senior producer of overseas talks, Samuel suggested this particular topic of debate,“taking some such title as ‘Have the Last 500 Years Been Worth While?’” (24 Jan. 1952, ra rec. acq. 1,351a). A discussion along these lines was duly recorded, on 26 February 1952, but then held back for broadcast until 13 April—two days before the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s birth—when it received an initial airing on the General Overseas Service. The same service repeated the programme the following day, as did the Pacific and North American Services. The broadcast coincided with another auspicious occasion, namely the 250th London Forum. Russell was also a guest on the 200th programme in the series in April 1951 (see App. XIV). An abridged transcript of the recording was subsequently published under the title used here in London Calling, no. 658 (1 May 1952): 12–13 (B&R C52.08). Although Holroyde thought that this edited version “reads extremely well”, the excised passages have been restored in the present volume—although most other substantive readings from the BBC publication, and many of its accidental features, have been retained. In this letter dated 7 May 1952 the BBC producer also notified Russell that the programme would be rebroadcast once more exactly a week later, but this time on the Home Service’s Light Programme.