No Cause for Alarm?

The question, "What is Russia up to?" was being answered by Russia in Iran and elsewhere (see INTERNATIONAL), but no one answered the other puzzle: "What is Harry Truman up to?"

At Fulton, Mo., a fortnight ago, the President had listened with apparent approval to Winston Churchill's words and applauded them. But when public reaction to Churchill's proposal for a "fraternal association" turned out to be largely adverse, Harry Truman pulled back into his shell, even declared that he had not known in advance what Churchill was going to say. If he had any decisive foreign policy of his own, he kept quiet about it, except that he still talked of UNO as if he still regarded it as the world's one hope of peace.

Yet the UNO created at San Francisco was headed in the direction of the rocks; one of the five captains of the ship was showing unmistakable intentions of steering the craft the way he wanted it, even if the ship was wrecked in the process.

But all Mr. Truman had to say last week, when a Washington newsman asked him about the international situation, was:

"Would it help any if I said that I am not alarmed about this?" Harry Truman's show of confidence convinced no one. After he talked, the question was the same as it had been before: What does the U.S. do now?

The Voice of the Turtle. Secretary of State Byrnes, who was presumed to be speaking for Mr. Truman, tried to explain. In a speech before the New York Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, Mr. Byrnes indicated the course he will steer:

The U.S. must stay strong. It is "imperative," he said, that the draft act be extended. "Should the occasion arise, our military strength will be used to support the purposes and principles of the [UNO] Charter."

But the U.S. must not offend, Mr. Byrnes cautioned. "We do not propose to seek security in alliance with the Soviet Union against Great Britain, or an alliance with Great Britain against the Soviet Union. We propose to stand with the United Nations. . . ."

Mr. Byrnes added bravely: "There is no reason to fear an open and vigorous contest between our conception of democracy and other political faiths. The voice of democracy is as thrilling today as it was yesterday."

The Voice of the Lion. But democracy was not being heard. It had roared in Fulton, Mo., but few thrilled to it. All that Americans could hear was a plea for an Anglo-American association which somehow seemed dangerous.

Many U.S. citizens were so lost in a babble of conflicting exhortations and frenzied warnings that they did not recognize the old and familiar words of their democratic heritage. Others refused to believe that the U.S. was in an ideological war, though Stalin had made that plain more than a month ago and Churchill had etched it in acid: "What they [the Russian Government] desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines."

One evening last week 1,000 disciplined men & women, who had been whistled up by the Communist-dominated Greater New York Council of the C.I.O., marched back & forth past the revolving doors of the Waldorf-Astoria.

Inside, Churchill rose to speak. Once more the voice of democracy was raised. The great debate between Churchill and Stalin went on (see INTERNATIONAL). Could the U.S. no longer tell its candid friends from its calculating competitors?

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