These efforts were inspired to some extent by the manner in which the Communists exploited such films as genuine reflections of life in the United States. Both the comrades and the USIS were wasting their time. The British public can be agonizingly apathetic, but it is not stupid. I never met anyone who thought these films represented the real America or who believed the Communist contention that they did. The fact is that the ability of the United States to make and show such pictures testifies to the strength of America. When the Russians produce an epic about the slave labor that built the White Sea-Baltic canal or an exposé of the corruption that riddled Soviet industry in the war and immediate post-war years, we can begin to worry. The theater since the war has exercised an important influence in bringing America to Britain. Starting with _Oklahoma_, a series of Broadway musical shows dominated the London stage for a decade. One of the minor occupations of British critics is grumbling about the shortage of "real" British musicals. But even the grumpiest have been won over by the music of Richard Rodgers and Irving Berlin and the lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II. British taste is not always in accord with our own. _South Pacific_ was not the critical success in London that it was in New York. The British loved _Guys and Dolls_--they had lost their hearts to the late Damon Runyon in the thirties--but they did not like _Pal Joey_, in which John O'Hara gave a much more realistic picture of the seamy side of American life. But the accent has been on musicals. Very few serious American plays have successfully invaded London. In this field the traffic seems to be the other way. The comics, invariably described in left-wing publications as "American Horror Comics," have been another medium for the spread of American culture in Britain. Like the movies, they have their critics, and, like some movies, they are used by the Communists to demonstrate what fearful people the Americans are. The reader will notice that British Communism, although of almost negligible importance as a political party, is active in promoting differences between the two nations. The Communists know very well that the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom is the strongest link in the Western chain; if they can break it, the rest will be easy.