Nothing But Force

A TIME correspondent cabled from London last week: "I'm pretty sure that Anglo-American relations are in better shape than Anglo-Russian relations."

That was news. Three months ago the British were in a dither about the U.S. (TIME, Jan. 15). Certain only of U.S. uncertainty, they were much more inclined to rely on Moscow than on Washington. Since then Soviet power in the New Europe had loomed bigger & bigger. Even Anthony Eden, who had labored long and earnestly for Soviet-British understanding, had been moved to say:

"Every state tries to prevent other states combining to menace its own safety. That is why we have always . . . striven to prevent Europe falling under the domination of one power. . . . Surely we may hope that the overthrow of [Nazi and Japanese] tyrannies and the miseries which they have brought upon their own peoples . . . will prevent the renewal of any such attempts. But if ever such a threat comes into existence again I am certain that the same result will follow, and free men all over the world will combine together again as they do now to protect their liberties."

Such rumblings did not mean that Big Three relations were already cracking up, but rather that some statesmen were alive to both the difficulty and the urgency of maintaining these relations. Ready or not (TIME, April 9), the United Nations were going ahead with preparations for the conference opening in San Francisco next fortnight to establish a world organization based on the Big Three's concerted power. As the preconference air cleared a bit (see U.S. AT WAR), Big Three attitudes toward each other and the rest of trie world also clarified.

Russia. Last week great queues of silent Muscovites stood at the doors of theaters showing newsreels of the Yalta conference. Next to victory in Germany, Yalta and its portents interested the Russian people more than anything else. Their press dug out Joseph Stalin's statement last November (on the 2yth anniversary of the Russian Revolution) that the Dumbarton Oaks system "will be a new, special, fully authorized organization having at its command everything necessary to uphold the peace. . . ."

Quoting these words, Pravda added: ". . . weak peoples, defended by nothing but beautiful words and procrastinating treaties, are always the first victims of aggression. Nothing but force permeated by the ideals of democracy can defend these people. Only such force can guarantee the freedom and independence of these people."

In the Russian view, the Big Three had the force, and in the Dumbarton Oaks-Yalta proposals they had found a way to use it together. So, why discuss changes? San Francisco was simply to ratify the Big Three's work.*

Britain. Anthony Eden had been the first Big Three statesman to say, in so many words, that the powers who won the war should run the peace. But, as he had more recently indicated, Russia's emergence in Europe threatened to create a power-political situation disturbingly like the one which Germany created in 1939. Big-Power agreement was therefore vital to Britain; so, as a second line of defense, was the strongest possible understanding with the U.S.

At a pre-San Francisco conference of Dominion delegates in London last week, the emphasis was on Big Three power. Said Winston Churchill's old friend from the Union of South Africa, Jan Christian Smuts, speaking to (but not necessarily for) the world's other small nations: "We smaller powers will have to make sacrifices. I know there was something like consternation after Dumbarton Oaks when it became known that there was to be this special position and special functions planned for the Great Powers, but it was right. It is quite right."

The U.S. Government was also dedicated to the big-power idea, although no U.S. leader had been so frank in spelling it out.

Without knowing much about it, the people had accepted Dumbarton Oaks. So had Congress. Now the lack of frankness in explaining Dumbarton Oaks was bringing its penalty: with the belated disclosures of Dumbarton Oaks's dependence on power, the U.S. grew just a little uneasy. In Congress, serious opposition had developed to the Bretton Woods monetary proposals and tariff reduction, the only important, specific measures for world cooperation as yet submitted (TIME, April 9). Moscow was not the only capital whose future policy bothered the world, nor London the only one shifting with uncertain winds.

In London's sedate Claridge Hotel, a Camden, S.C. doctor's son, a onetime Oklahoma coal miner, a New York judge and a Bronx politician personified the variety and complexity of U.S. world concerns. In Room 312 was Bernard Mannes Baruch, telling the British to brace up, have faith in U.S. policy and goodwill.* In Room 514 was Pat Hurley, on a roundabout way to his Embassy in Chungking, telling the British that they must allay Chinese suspicions and subordinate their Asiatic colonial policy to the world's good. In Room 318 was Judge Samuel Rosenman, figuring out high policy in terms of food for liberated Europe. In Room 55, Boss Ed Flynn presumably added up the results, if any, of his recent efforts in Moscow and Rome to bring the Kremlin and the Vatican together.

At any rate, nobody could say that the U.S. was an international lazybones.

* At Yalta, when Roosevelt brought up the matter of a world conference, Stalin looked surprised and asked: "Why?" To discuss the security proposals, said Roosevelt. Answered Stalin: "What is there to discuss?"

* For other news of Mr. Baruch, see PRESS.

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