The Quiet American

His plumage was vivid and vulgar--a sport shirt with a palm-leaf motif, sometimes a tie with a bulb-breasted nude. His Stetson sat squarely on top of his head, a cigar grew out of the right corner of his mouth, and he glinted at the world through rimless, hexagonal glasses. Readers of Lord Beaverbrook's Daily Express could spot him at a glance: he was "the loud American." For the past nine years he has swaggered regularly through the frontpage, one-column panel drawn by one of England's most popular cartoonists: urbane, grandly mustached Osbert Lancaster, London clubman, stage designer, critic of architecture (Pillar to Post).

Last week in Lancaster's cartoonland appeared a new brand of American--conservatively dressed, restrained in mien and look (see cut). Explained Lancaster in an article: "On arriving in New York after an absence of nine years, I found that I had been propagating a version of the typical American which was founded on a hopelessly out-of-date model. The old self-confident, easily bamboozled, back-slapping persona is a figure of the past."

On his five-week trip to the U.S., Lancaster, 50, took along his cartoon regulars, banjo-eyed Maudie and her mustached husband Willie, Earl of Littlehampton. Gasped Maudie in a supermarket: "Haven't you got anything--but anything--that's been touched by human hand?" But everywhere Lancaster went, he was impressed by the change in Americans and Americana: Andre Gide on drugstore newsracks instead of "a couple of Mickey Spillanes," polite cab drivers, even architecture "with a new restrained look . . . the severe but effective cliffs of steel and glass that now dominate Park Avenue." Furthermore, "voices are quieter, manners less rugged."

Back in London last week, Lancaster concluded: "While as a cartoonist I hate to see an easy target lowered, I am bound to say that personally I much prefer the .American the way he is today." The upgrading of boobus Americanus brought quick kudos from roundhouse Rightist John O'Donnell in his column in the New York Daily News. Declared O'Donnell: "[Lancaster's] decision is a greater diplomatic victory than our State Department has ever won when it comes to making friends with foreigners."

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