Fresh Start

Prime Minister Clement Attlee's arrival in Washington to visit the President did not stir the world, nor the U.S., nor even the capital press corps.

Yet mild Mr. Attlee's-journey to the U.S.--his fourth in four years but his first as Prime Minister--seemed highly necesary. Apathy, mistrust and confusion hung over the relations between the Allied powers. The happy agreements on generalities at Potsdam had been blown sky-high by the failure in London. The way to make a fresh start seemed to be through Anglo-American understanding.

Policy of the People. The Prime Minister had slept well on his 20-hour trip over the ocean in a Douglas Skymaster, and he seemed refreshed when he landed at the airport. He was whisked in a black Cadillac to the White House, where Harry Truman greeted him on the front porch. Arm in arm they entered the mansion, where Attlee would stay for two days, then move to the British Embassy.

Canada's Premier William Lyon Mackenzie King arrived ten minutes later by train from New York and took up residence at Blair House. The talks between the three men whose nations had collaborated on the atomic bomb began at lunch.

That night there was a state dinner for 52, attended by some members of the President's Cabinet and by the small retinue of advisers accompanying the British Prime Minister. Harry Truman spoke earnestly of his desire that the U.S. should have a "foreign policy of the people" which would fit into a "worldwide and continuous peace program." Agreeing, Clement Attlee said: "What we are out for today is to try and devise a world policy of the common man."

Taps & Drums. Next day--Armistice Day--the three heads of state motored to Arlington Cemetery. It was raw and windy. As the motorcade entered the cemetery, the 21-gun presidential salute from three 755 boomed out over the Virginia hills. After a minute of silent prayer, each of the three men laid a wreath of chrysanthemums on the marble sarcophagus of the Unknown Soldier. Taps sounded, and the roll of muffled drums. There were no speeches.

On the Sequoia, the Secretary of the

Navy's yacht, that afternoon the Messrs. Truman, Attlee and King cruised up & down the Potomac and resumed their talks. The atomic bomb was the overriding topic, and word leaked out that Clement Attlee had a fresh proposal. It was a compromise between the "share" and the "don't share" proponents.

Clement Attlee suggested that the U.S., Britain and Canada, as holders of the bomb secret, share it with the eight other members of the United Nations Security Council. The conditions were these: i) that all future scientific information of all countries be likewise shared; 2) that the other nations give ironclad guarantees that they will work in honesty and frankness with UNO; and 3) that Russia state its political objectives and territorial aims fully and completely.

If the Russian aims and objectives are satisfactory to Britain, the U.S. and Canada, and are accompanied by a firm statement of Russia's intention to work with UNO--Clement Attlee proposed--the bomb secret will be shared. If not, the secret will be kept, but with a guarantee not to use it except in cooperation with the United Nations.

This plan ignored the fact that the U.S. alone so far has solved the technique of the bomb's manufacture. But it was a start on a realistic discussion of the bomb.

There were other problems facing the President and the Prime Minister, and they seemed certain to come up for discussion. Washington dopesters hinted that there might soon be an Anglo-American agreement on Palestine, perhaps this week. And Mr. Attlee would unquestionably try to break the stalemate on the U.S. loan to Britain.

Policy of Drift. Clement Attlee had arrived at a time when U.S. foreign policy was in a state of flux. The firm tone of President Truman's Navy Day speech was not followed by firm action. Fortnight ago, Pundit Walter Lippmann had complained: "It is quite clear . . . that our foreign relations are not under control, that decisions of the greatest moment are being made in bits and pieces without the exercise of any sufficient overall judgment ... by the President and his chief advisers. . . ."

The President, according to a White House secretary, was "well prepared" for his conversations with Attlee. Perhaps the two mild, quiet men would reach some understandings and make some decisions which would start the world back on the road to unity. Their discussions had one advantage: they were not over-bally -hooed. If they failed, they had at least not raised the hopes of the world too much.

*For a current crack about Mr. Attlee by a master cracksman, see PEOPLE.

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