Storms & Calm

U.S. citizens, headline-sensitive but hopeful that the nations really mean what they say about keeping the peace, had some nervous moments last week. Less than a month after the cease-firing order in Europe, shooting had started again in Syria. Less than a week after President Truman had announced his plans to hail the completion of world organization at San Francisco, the Big Five found that the fabric of agreement could be rubbed perilously thin (see INTERNATIONAL).

The U.S. looked to the White House, found a measure of reassurance in Harry Truman's calm and apparently firm confidence. The President made it plain that he had watched the French-Arab crisis with anxiety. He also: 1) protested strongly to France; 2) consulted daily with Winston Churchill by cable; and 3) elected to side with Britain.

From Frankfurt am Main to the White House, and quickly back again, traveled blond, bustling Robert Murphy, General Dwight Eisenhower's political adviser. Home from London, via Paris and Germany, came Special Envoy Joseph E. Davies. Their missions were secret, the problems most urgent.

From Moscow came stories of hearty Russian cordiality to Special Envoy Harry L. Hopkins. Premier Stalin had given him four long interviews, had topped them off with a Kremlin dinner at which he resoundingly toasted President Truman. Mrs. Hopkins and Kathleen Harriman, the Ambassador's daughter, were also there--the first American women since war's beginning to be Marshal Stalin's guests.

Next day, with the French-Arab crisis at a head. Envoy Hopkins suddenly put off his planned return to the U.S. In Washington, Harry Truman announced that a Big Three meeting will definitely be held (but he could not yet say when).

In the San Francisco tangle and in the Syrian crisis the U.S. and the world could plainly see the great dilemma: every nation wanted peace, but no big nation was willing to sacrifice much to get it.

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