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The VIPs who are pumped by Gunther also turn to him for information. Says Egypt's President Nasser: "You have to take Gunther seriously, because he tells both sides." Inside Europe landed in Churchill's library (and so firmly in Hitler's bad book that Gunther was marked for postwar liquidation by the Nazis). Inside Asia was on Harry Truman's desk when he broadcast his V-J day speech. Inside Africa was studied dutifully by Russia's Dmitry Shepilov, who cited it in a United Nations tirade against British colonialism, and by Richard Nixon, whose party was weighted with copies of the book on his 1957 visit to Africa.
Froth v. Fundamentals. John Gunther's critics often scorn his slickly, quickly produced Insides as superficial glimpses through hotel windows. He has been dubbed "the Book-of-the-Month Club's Marco Polo," a "Jonah among journalists," "master of the once-over-lightly." Gunther brushed off Venezuela in 24 hours while researching Inside Latin America, skipped the Ivory Coast entirely on his Inside Africa trip. At the start of his 17 months on the road for Inside U.S.A., Gunther himself recalls, he sped out of Rhode Island in horror after realizing suddenly that he had spent "eight whole days" on his first and smallest state.
His judgments on occasion prove as hasty as his stopovers. In 1955's Inside Africa he predicted confidently that independence would not come soon to Morocco; less than a year after Inside Africa appeared on the bookstalls, Morocco was independent. The last 1951 edition of Inside U.S.A. perpetuates Stevenson Democrat Gunther's three-year-old thumbs-down verdict on Earl Warren (whom he had not met): "He will never set the world on fire or even make it smoke." In all his 35 years as a foreign-news specialist, Gunther has never learned a foreign language. His critics also take him to task for deliberately passing up fundamentals for froth. Inside Africa, chided the sober Times of India, has only "one page dealing with the Moroccan economy, and four giving an account of a dinner with El Glaoui."
Drawing the Maps. Gunther as a book-journalist lacks the originality and profundity of Rebecca (Meaning of Treason) West, the stylistic graces of Negley (Way of a Transgressor) Farson, John (Hiroshima) Hersey or Vincent (Personal History) Sheean. Yet none matches him for sheer scope, reportorial zest, or, most notably, the gift of popularizing remote places and difficult subjects. Says Critic Clifton Fadiman: "Gunther is a born teacher; he doesn't miss a fact-trick. His books are almost too easy to read; because of that, they seem superficial. But he's taught us a hell of a lot about our world, in primer terms. He's drawn the maps for us. He did for us what H. G. Wells did years ago."
To the task Gunther brings driving curiosity, elephantine memory, gregarious charm, ferocious vitality. Reporter Gunther also has phenomenally sharp ears and eyes for the telling anecdote and the detail that vividly catches the mood. He has a homing instinct for the essentials in a complex situation. He is a master of the art of brain-picking—and of choosing the right brain to pick. From careful homework, he knows precisely what information his story needs, and can extract it with the efficiency of an automatic orange squeezer.