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To: <Ariel@xxxxxxxx>
Subject: Fwd: Old Radio Script Praising U.S. Is a Web Hit
From: "Daniel Feld" <DFeld@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 15:06:47 -0400
To: "Daniel Feld" <DFeld@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Old Radio Script Praising U.S. Is a Web Hit
From: "Stuart Cogan" <SCogan@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 14:39:35 -0400
Friday September 14 6:39 AM ET
Old Radio Script Praising U.S. Is a Web Hit
By Wency Leung
TORONTO (Reuters) - Words of praise for the United States spoken nearly 30 years ago by a Canadian broadcaster flew around the Internet on Thursday, fooling but providing comfort for the many who thought it was penned in response to Tuesday's attacks by hijacked airliners.
An electronic version of ``The Americans,'' which was originally broadcast by the late Canadian journalist Gordon Sinclair, was e-mailed under the guise of a recent editorial -- despite the fact Sinclair died in 1984 and wrote the script in 1973, toward the end of the Vietnam War.
``Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast... by Gordon Sinclair,'' the e-mail said in its introduction to the script.
In the script, Sinclair praised the United States, calling it ``the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth.''
Many Americans applauded Sinclair on Web sites that carried his message.
``My thanks to Gordon Sinclair for his powerful and thought provoking words. For me, and I hope for you, his words brings back a little of the pride we used to have in being an American,'' one wrote on a U.S. Web site.
``What a refreshing article. Thank you... Gordon Sinclair,'' another e-mail respondent said.
Sinclair said: ``I can name you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? ... They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those.''
Canadian broadcast journalist Betty Kennedy, who was a friend of Sinclair's, told Reuters he wrote the radio speech in response to reports that the American Red Cross was on the verge of bankruptcy.
``He was so incensed by this,'' Kennedy said. He wrote the speech in five minutes and immediately read it over the radio.
``The response from it was absolutely unbelievable,'' she recalled. ``The thing absolutely snowballed.''
Kennedy said she believed the transcript resurfaced, which won wide play in the United States at the time, because it spoke well of the American people.
``It was so warm-hearted... At a time of terrible trouble...they (Americans) probably need to remember that.''
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