STILL THE MOST EXCITING COUNTRY

Home from abroad, foreign correspondent Attwood took on a domestic coverage job and a crosscountry tk for Look. Aided by his wife, a British car with French license plates, the eye of the expatriot and heart of the patriot, he made a twelve-thousand mile dash through twenty-eight states in three months and came up with notes on the constants and variables in American life. His commentary glances on many aspects of American life -- the perpetual friendliness and haste, the ignorance about world affairs and apathy towards politics, the civic feeling, the breakup of prejudice in the South, the attitudes of security-seeking youth, the disappearance of regionalism and trend to conformity and sameness, the effect of TV and travel on people in once isolated areas. He does not think we are the ""frightened adolescent fingering an atomic slingshot"" that Europeans conceive us to be (the effects of McCarthyism, visa regulations, and ""preparedness"" policy) but that we are emerging from confusion. A clever once-over slightly.