Percy Winner belonged to a stable of news commentators heard on WQXR before and during World War II —a distinguished group that also included Quincy Howe, Lisa Sergio, and Estelle M. Sternberger. Some were staff and some on contract, but all were thoughtful and excellent journalists. In this pre-war commentary from Feb. 2, 1938, Winner analyzes the profound changes that have taken place in both Europe and America and presciently argues that February 1938 marks "the definitive conclusion of the post-war [World War I] period" and the beginning of its successor, "the new pre-war [World War II] period."

Percy Winner is often noted as being the first American journalist to interview Mussolini; but his story, particularly during World War II, is quite the page-turner. According to his son, the journalist Christopher P. Winner, his father played a crucial role in getting spies from London into occupied Europe during the early part of the war and wrote the text of the first U.S. propaganda leaflet dropped over France after the Germans invaded. (That leaflet read in part, "To you who gave us liberty, we shall restore liberty.") Percy Winner was also the wartime regional chief of the U.S. Office of War Information for France, Belgium, North Africa, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.

After World War II, Winner was a senior editor and foreign correspondent for The New Republic, the author of three novels, and director of foreign area studies at American University before his death at the age of 74 in 1974.

Christopher P. Winner writes in detail about his father's encounter with Mussolini in Il Duce's Crackers.