Correspondents who crossed paths with David Schoenbrun at the Aletti Hotel in Algiers or the bombed out crater that was the Terminus in Naples or with the great invasion fleet that landed troops in the south of France in August of 1944 soon knew him as an articulate, accomplished reporter. More than that, they knew him as an incredibly brave war correpondent of dynamic energy and sensitive appreciation of the fighting man. And he could write.
” The John S. Cropper rolled easily on the gentle swell of the Mediterranean, just off the coast of the French Riviera. Overhead, a cloudless sapphire sky was streaked with pink as dawn advanced from Italy. From the land came the scent of jasmine and honey and the rustling of a thousand wings as the larks rose to greet the sun. A soldier from Tennessee, leaning over the rail next to me, said, “‘Man, is this ever a place for an invasion?”‘
Thus David Schoenbrun begins his book on France spotlighting that August morning in 1944 when for the first time he set foot on the magic shores of the country he had set himself to know long before as a boy in Brooklyn.
For this book, ” As France Goes,” the Overseas Press Club awards committee singled out Schoenbrun for its first annual plaque for the “best book on foreign affairs.”
It is not the first OPC award for the brilliant Columbia Broadcasting System Paris correspondent. In 1955 he was acclaimed for his CBS radio reporting from abroad.
“As France Goes,” published by Harper and Brothers, was aptly described by Theodore White, as a “correspondent’s book- one of the most exacting forms of contempory writing.”
The OPC awards committee, selecting it as the book of the year, felt it was that and more; a sharp, vivid analysis, rich in personalities, anecdotes, humor and, with all, an authoritative source book for future writers on all aspects of French life and the frequentlty confusing politics which baffle so many.
The selection of the Schoenbrun book was by no means a runaway choice. Ranged against it in the final selection was Drew Middleton’s highly readable first hand report ” These are the British,” publsihed by Alfred A Knopf, and Henry A. Kissingers provocative, “Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy,” published by Harper and Brothers.