Diluted Cheer

Young Ed Stettinius, looking tanned and fit in a sharkskin suit,* got back from London full of exuberant cheer. He wanted to pass the cheer on. In high good humor, the Under Secretary of State reported to Cordell Hull, made the rounds of the British and Russian Embassies to give them the good word, too; then he called in the 55 State Department correspondents. His cheery words:

The 23-day mission had been far more important than he had dreamed before undertaking it; the U.S. should really have sent such a mission long ago; a tremendous number of bothersome issues had been quickly resolved to everybody's satisfaction; Stettinius had returned with the conviction that the U.S. and Britain will stick together through thick & thin, even though one nation or the other may have to make political or economic sacrifices. To hear him talk, Anglo-American relations could hardly be better.

Newsmen popped specific questions. Would the British back economic sanctions on Argentina? Had Geographer Isaiah Bowman (who went along) worked on postwar German boundaries? What was decided about De Gaulle, about Poland, about occupation of Germany? Stettinius answered with considerable frankness. Encouraged, newsmen asked permission to quote. The Under Secretary seemed willing. But beside him sat State's veteran news chief, Michael McDermott, who looks like a fire chief but has the caution of a mother superior. McDermott apparently regards Stettinius as a promising freshman in need of schooling in State Department discretion. McDermott tactfully suggested that the Under Secretary's offhand, off-the-record conversation needed "editing" before publication. Newsmen went away assured they would soon be able to write much of what they had just heard. Next day McDermott informed them that Stettinius' answers were off the record forever. Instead, the newsmen were handed a McDermottized "digest." Samples:

"Under Secretary Stettinius told the press and radio correspondents this morning that it was very pleasant to be back in Washington, but he still had a little buzzing in his ears as a result of the long flights entailed. . . . Mr. Stettinius had most satisfactory discussions with Prime Minister Churchill. . . . Mr. Eden [was] cooperative. . . . Mr. Stettinius said he did not wish to imply that there were not some difficulties, some hurdles. . . ."

The somewhat foreign relations between the State Department and the American people seemed to be getting no closer.

Meantime British censors cleared a cable from a TIME correspondent reporting the Stettinius achievements in considerable detail. The Under Secretary had discussed French policies with General Eisenhower, Arabian oil with the British Foreign Office, tangled postwar problems with foreign ministers of the governments in exile. He left convinced that the U.S. must work closely with De Gaulle, and that Germany should be given surrender terms more specific than "unconditional." He also brought back hope of agreement between Poland and Russia. Summing up Stettinius' visit, London's reliable Whitehall Letter talked of "unofficial agreement on all major problems . . . including the likely form and shape of a new League of Nations with Britain, the United States and Soviet Russia as key members. . . ."

* In England he had outtweeded the tweediest Britons.

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