Consistent Inconsistency

At a time of great crisis last week, when Europe seethed with civil strife as well as war, the new U.S. Secretary of State, platinum-haired Edward R. Stettinius Jr., chose to restate U.S. foreign policy.

In Athens, British troops fought Greek guerrillas. In Italy, snow-bearded Count Carlo Sforza, a longtime U.S. exile, was resoundingly vetoed for a cabinet post by Great Britain. Allied policy in liberated Europe was at a new low. The time had obviously come for the U.S. to take a stand. But Ed Stettinius waited to hear from President Roosevelt.

The word came soon enough. Ed Stettinius kept mum until his next regular press conference. He greeted the correspondents with his usual affability. Then, casually, he said he had a statement. From a scrap of paper, Ed Stettinius read:

"The position of this Government has been consistently that the composition of the Italian Government is purely an Italian affair. . . . This Government has not in any way intimated to the Italian Government that there would be any opposition on its part to Count Sforza. . . . We have reaffirmed to both the British and Italian Governments that we expect the Italians to work out their problems of government along democratic lines without influence from outside. This policy would apply to an even more pronounced degree with regards to governments of the United Nations in their liberated territories."

Doctrine of "Abstention." This was certainly news, to the U.S. and the world --especially the "consistently." Along with Britain, the U.S. had been sitting on the Italian lid for 15 months, since the Italian armistice. Now the U.S. suddenly jumped off the lid. Two days later Ed Stettinius affirmed that the new policy applied also to Greece.

Thus the U.S., starting its fourth year of war, was launched on a new tack in liberated Europe: the doctrine of "abstention" initiated two weeks ago by the U.S. refusal to guarantee Poland's boundaries. However well and democratically meant, however high the motives behind the policy, it was a shot in the arm for U.S. isolationism; it was also a bare-knuckle blow to Britain.

Plain citizens were dizzy, trying to figure out the "consistency" of U.S. foreign policy: "expediency" toward Vichy, flirting with Giraud, meddling in Argentina, "abstention" in Poland. Rumania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia.

Between U.S. meddling and abstention, Europeans found ground for revival of their worst fear: that at war's end the U.S. would refuse, as it had 24 years ago, to accept its share of responsibility for the peace.

Aid for Anglophobes. The Stettinius statement also gave aid & comfort to those in the U.S. who practice a secondary form of isolationism: Anglophobia. In the Senate, up rose Louisiana's stocky, curly haired Allen J. Ellender, a graduate of the Huey Long school of Tommy-gun politics, now turned world statesman. Cried he:

"Great Britain is taking the lead in causing disunity among the Allies. . . . My belief is that Great Britain will persist in seeking to expand her now vast empire and to form blocs of nations here & there all over the world. . . . With a navy larger than the combined navies of all other countries in the world and a respectable army, it would seem to me that we should be able to force the British to see the light."

Some commentators labeled the rebuke to Britain "rude," "tactless," "undiplomatic," "quarrelsome." But why had the statement been made? Behind it, obviously, was Anglo-American divergence on a basic question: what is democracy and how is it achieved? Both countries agree that democracy exists only when people in an orderly country have a free choice of parties and candidates. Britain asserted its right and duty to keep order in liberated countries until such a free choice could be freely exercised. Without apparently advancing any alternative, the U.S. condemned this as "outside influence." Britain's worry was that tightly-knit Communist minorities, aided by disorder, might take control of Western Europe, country by country. To this possible outcome the U.S. statement, on its face, proclaimed indifference.

By week's end, the Stettinius statement had roused a mixed reaction in Europe. In a ringing speech, Winston Churchill made the British position pikestaff plain (see FOREIGN NEWS). In Italy, Count Sforza was cautiously grateful for "American generosity"--but he did not get into a new government. Moscow was aloof and silent. U.S.-Soviet relations, however, had never been better.

Undampened Stet. The storm left Stettinius undampened, unruffled, appar-ently well pleased with himself. When British Ambassador Lord Halifax paid a hurried call, the new Secretary put on a rare show. Popping like a jack-in-the-box from room to room, he carried on three conferences in three rooms at once. After 29 minutes of conversation snatched between pops, Lord Halifax emerged, his usually somber face wreathed in a wide grin. To newsmen who cornered him in a dim-lit State Department hall, he purred his diplomatic best: "I don't think we need to be unduly excited about what's happened. If there has been lack of consultations on either side at any time, the result will be closer consultations at all times . . . there is substantial understanding between us as always, with the aim of maintaining and developing frankest exchanges on all points."

But Lord Halifax' impregnable tact could not disguise the fact that the Stettinius statement had let everyone down and satisfied no one, in or out of the U.S. --except the isolationists.

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