Andy Rooney_ 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit - Andy Rooney [14]
The S&S is put out by two boys who really know what newspaper work is all about. Bob Moora and Bud Hutton. Hutton is the typical tabloid desk man—has worked on most NY papers. Moora is the stabilizer—five years with the Herald, two as night editor. (Moora says of Yank “If I ever get back there I’m going in swinging, what a bunch of glamour boys.”) And I could think of a few examples of what he meant.
The editorial offices are in the Times building. The Times itself has shriveled into the bowels of its building and we work in three offices previously used by pages three, four and five of the Sunday Supplement.
You should see the Times function. About twenty seventyish English gentlemen come in each day about noon, retire to their rugged offices with a roaring fire place and a boiling samovar and ponder the days news. When a decision is made about using an item they call a secretary, have fresh crumpets sent in, pour the tea and chat. Then they dictate what they have to the secretary and while I’m not sure I think it then goes before the Board of Directors for approval previous to release.
It will be a sad Christmas for me and nothing merry for you I’m sure. I spent most of what money I had on twelve Wedgewood service plates and a Wedgewood bowl for Mother. I paid quite a bit for them, about $50 so I hope they get there intact. They are in three huge boxes and will probably be in several thousand less huge pieces when they get there.
I sent you something not nearly as nice but then Mrs. Rooney had no choice about being my mother and I thought it was time I did something decent for her. Next month and all months thereafter I will draw an extra $150. so when your birthday roll around etc. (By the by Lovie, that means that all in all I will kill about $250 a month. It will cost something to live here but not $250.)
If you volunteer for Red Cross work here, you will find me usually in the vicinity of Blackfriars near the Embankment but in the event that you don’t get over I will see you sometime in 1943.
All my love forever,
Andy
21
At the end of World War II Andy Rooney collaborated with fellow Stars and Stripes reporter Bud Hutton to write an informative firsthand account of the Army’s daily newspaper titled simply The Story of the Stars and Stripes. Written by and for soldiers, The Stars and Stripes was, as editor Bob Moora put it, a paper ‘for Joe.’ A morale booster and source for hard news about the American forces and the enemy’s movements, the paper was also, in Rooney’s words, a “refuge for eccentrics.” Established by a corporal, a sergeant and a private, The Stars and Stripes was produced in the height of war and published in Rome, Paris, Frankfurt, Casablanca, and Liege. In their book, Hutton and Rooney offered readers vivid accounts of the perilous, sometimes tragic, sometimes hilarious life of newsmen covering the frontlines of battle.
As a twenty-four-year-old reporter for The Stars and Stripes, Andy Rooney boarded a B-17 bomber with the Eighth Air Force to fly on America’s second bombing mission over Germany. In 1944 he landed on Utah beach, three days after the brutal invasion of Normandy. The day that Paris was liberated from Germany, Rooney entered the city with French forces. Rooney’s front-row seat to the war afforded him a unique purview into the soldier’s life and a crash course in delivering news under the most unforgivable conditions imaginable. The following selection from The Story of the Stars and Stripes offers a glimpse of that world.
Places of Business
T he Times of London is an institution. From the drab and motley cluster of brick and wooden buildings in the dingy shadows of Queen Victoria Street, on the edge of London’s old city and just off the Thames, the Times does grammatically as it considers right, and in so doing molds an important (the important, the Times is apt to feel and not without a lot of justification) portion of British public opinion. The
With Bud Hutton, in a Hollywood publicity shot
Times does not hurry. Through its intricate, winding hallways