The second box set in the series of NBC audition packets I have in my collection, contains a full episode of the news show Voices and Events.The show was highly innovative for its time because it integrated tape recordings of actual audio clips—the literal “voices and statements” of world leaders, politicians, and celebrities—rather than just having an anchor read from a script. Until present this is the rarest Andy Warhol cover, as I have not heard of the existance of a second original copy (yet).

Date of broadcast of the show in the box set was presumably: Sunday, February 5, 1950. James Fleming was the editor, and Robert Warren the announcer. The six sides of the three records are numbered EO-CX-358 to 363.

I have not been able to find out who the two radiomen on the cover are supposed to be, or from which photo Warhol has traced the image. It is absolutely not certain that the source image is just one photo, it can be two seperate ones. Also the equipment the newsmen use could have been altered by Warhol.

“Programs for the Fifties”. Title page of a folded promotional leaflet by NBC radio, with Andy Warhol illustrations for several radio shows, among which Voices and Events. Archives of the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh

Second page.

Third page, with Voices and Events.

I have recorded all six sides, and did some research to find the actual dates all events that are mentioned in this episode took place.

Introduction: “The National Broadcasting Company’s News and Special Events Department brings you ‘Voices and Events’. The living record of history this week. You’ll hear Vice President Barclay, Senator Taft, Anthony Eden, John L. Lewis, Dean Acheson and Bob Hope. These and many others. The actual voices of the people who made the news this week, as they made it.”

SIDE ONE
– (Promo talk)
– Union leader John L. Lewis on the coal miner’s strike
– Washington Off-Guard: “funny man” Bob Hope jokes at the annual White House Radio Correspondents’ Association dinner.

SIDE TWO
– Washington Off-Guard continued, with Vice President Alben Barclay, NBC newsman H.V. Kaltenborn and others, in a “quiz” with a sound clip of U.S. President Harry S. Truman imitating H.V. Kaltenborn
– Discussion at the Congressional Atomic Committee, the day after president Truman gave the green light for development of the hydrogen bomb (January 31, 1950).

SIDE THREE
– H Bomb topic continued.
– Nuclear scientist Klaus Fuchs sentenced for spy activities In London (Jan 1950) with quote by Secretary of State Dean Acheson
– A time of crisis at the Met, “two important decisions last week”: new director Rudolf Bing brings Norwegian singer Kirsten Flagstad back to the Metropolitan Opera (which is controversial , because of her husband’s alleged Nazi connection) and also ends the contract with famous Helden-tenor Lauritz Melchior

SIDE FOUR
– Crisis at the Met (cont.): snippet of the last performance by Lauritz Melchior (In Wagner’s Lohengrin, Feb 2 1950)
– Talk of the town on Broadway: T.S. Eliot’s new play The Cocktail Party (NY opening was on Jan 21, 1950). Short archive clip, T.S. Eliot reciting a verse from The Waste Land. Short interview with Cocktail Party director E. Martin Browne.
– Preview on the Election campaign in the UK: Clement Attlee (Labour) vs Anthony Eden (Conservatives). (Actual elections were held on Feb 23^rd 1950)

SIDE FIVE
– Winston Churchill speaks at a recent gathering
– Decision by county of New York on inheritance of heiress-spinster Mary Bullock Powers (died two years earlier, July 20, 1948): cousin Hollis Gale is sole beneficiary of $5.000.000
– Ted Williams renews contract Boston Red Sox for 1950 season ($125.000)
– In January U.S Battleship Missouri ran aground on a Hampton Road Shoal. Live on board report of the refloating on Feb 1, 1950. “Boy you can feel the excitement on board here now. She’s moving! She’s moving! … You can feel the tension, the excitement on board here. The men are jumping around,  cheering!”

SIDE SIX
– GOP rally in Washington Stadium, with movie star George Murphy
– Senator Taft on the GOP’s Statement of Principles (which was written on 18 January 1950)
– VP Alben Barclay at Northern Democratic Dinner

Epilog: “And so ends a week of politics and crisis. The week be it remembered that the power of the sun in the shape of the H Bomb came into the hands of men. Who already had their hands full…”