Eighteen Days

WAR & PEACE

I feel that I am walking through history

--Wendell Willkie.

Last week Wendell Willkie returned to the U. S. from the British Isles and the war. At 8:05 one cold morning the Dixie Clipper, glittering in the bright morning sun, loomed over the Whitestone Bridge, came down for a perfect landing in the choppy water off New York's LaGuardia Airport. The returning traveler, extremely tired, his white shirt rumpled, his gray herringbone suit needing pressing, waved for photographers, greeted his son, kissed his wife, and said: "I'm glad to be home."

Behind him lay one of the most extraordinary journeys in U. S. history. Searching for a parallel, commentators could think of only two: President Wilson's voyage to the Peace Conference, Theodore Roosevelt's triumphal tour through Europe after he left the White House. Yet even these, dramatically as they brought the U. S. before Europe's millions, were unlike the trip of Wendell Willkie, private citizen traveling at his own expense, into besieged Britain and out again. When he left, 18 days before, the headlines were announcing the fall of Tobruch and the riots in Rumania. When he got back, the British Navy was pounding Genoa (see p. 30), British troops had taken Bengasi, were a third of the way to Tripoli (see p. 36). When he left, debate on the Lend-Lease Bill was growing strident, and there were rumors that he would be ostracized by the Republican Party because he supported the bill (with restrictions). When he returned, the bill was through the House and the U. S. was waiting for Wendell Willkie's testimony at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings.

He had traveled 14,000 miles. He had talked with four Prime Ministers, twelve Cabinet members, one King (and an African tribal chieftain on the way home), one Archbishop, the Lord Mayors of Liverpool, Bristol, Birmingham, Sheffield, innumerable soldiers, policemen, laborers, dock workers, charwomen, waitresses, bricklayers, chemists, reporters, shopkeepers. He saw a Communist demonstration and, while bombs drooped outside, listened to a debate in the House of Commons. He had a long talk with men working on the London sewers, an all evening session that lasted until two in the morning with Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden, Lord Beaverbrook and Major Clement Attlee.

He had gone in & out of air-raid shelters, hospitals, airplane factories, chemical works, pubs (in one, when he bought beer for the soldiers, the proprietor broke out a bottle of champagne he had been saving for the Armistice). On the eve of his return he flew unexpectedly to Dublin to lunch with Prime Minister De Valera and the Cabinet Members of Eire; in a message to Germany he spoke as an American of German descent who opposed everything that Hitler stood for. Everywhere his reception was tumultuous, enthusiastic, unvaried. The tributes ranged from the London Times ("Everywhere and with everyone he has left the impression of sincerity, friendship, boundless energy and radiant high spirits which has been immensely heartening. . . .") to the sage observation of a "North Country" woman ("Young man, you have a very happy face").

The Wendell Willkie who returned from Britain measured his words. He said he had found no trace of defeatism, observed that "the free people of the U. S. should be prayerfully thankful that they are not living as the free people of Britain are compelled to live, with sleepless nights of apprehension and days of fear for what may happen on the morrow." On aid to Britain he was as firm as he was when he left: "The opponents of aid to Britain are saying that if the U. S. gives aid to Britain we may become involved in war, while if we do not give aid to Britain we can remain at peace. That is a wholly unrealistic statement of the issue ... if we do give aid to Britain we are likely to stay out of war, while if we do not give aid to Britain we shall probably become involved in war. . . ."

Wendell Willkie in 18 days had done much to make the U. S. real to Britain. He now faced the difficult task of making the war real to the U. S.

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