Know-How Woman

The ex-Communist -turned -book -peddler sat uneasily before a Washington microphone. Reason for Earl Browder's discomfort: a battery of four newsmen, a little less than friendly, a little more than anxious to interview him on Mutual's Meet the Press program.

Ever since blonde, bouncy Martha Rountree sold the program to Mutual last October, it has been a radio headliner. On Meet the Press John L. Lewis threatened his chronic coal scuttle, and Walter Reuther described the General Motors strike the week his U.A.W. hit the street. Because the show has so often made good copy, wire service reporters now cover the broadcasts regularly. To 30-year-old Martha Rountree, radio's most successful woman producer, there is no higher compliment.

She has been seeking success since her first short story was published in a Florida newspaper when she was an awkward nine-year-old. She went on to study law, worked as a newspaper reporter, wrote a sports column for the Tampa Tribune. In 1938 she moved to New York, nibbled at radio crumbs, wrote pulp fiction. She hit the big time last year when she sold her program idea to Mutual.

The popularity of Meet the Press's half-hour of give & take is largely due to Producer Rountree's ability to get top news figures for the program. She seems to know how to make men say yes when she asks them.

Her other successful program, Leave It to the Girls (Mutual, Sat. 9 p.m., E.D.S.T.), also proves that she knows how to make people talk on the air. This 14-month-old show follows the same unrehearsed technique, pitting fast talkers like Henry Morgan against four career girls. Questions submitted by listeners, mostly about love and marriage, set off a series of ad-lib crackers. Example:

Question: Do sweaters help [a girl] hold a man?

Answer: If a girl has the necessary points, it'll help. But he'll still pull the wool over her eyes.

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