Statesman & Reformer

Elder Statesman Bernard Baruch, who is a stickler for accuracy and integrity, was in an unwanted public row last week. His opponent was ex-Commerce Secretary Henry Wallace. The row was vital: it brought U.S. atomic policy into sharp debate, and it cast some highly interesting light on the character of Henry Wallace.

It began with publication of Wallace's now famous letter to the President, in which he not only deplored the Administration's foreign policy, but also criticized the U.S. plan for setting up international control of atomic power.

Bernard Baruch, in the midst of "delicate" negotiations to get the U.N. to agree to that plan, was profoundly disturbed. The Wallace criticisms were based either on ignorance, or on distortion of the facts. Despite the fact that Harry Truman meanwhile had thrown Wallace out of his Cabinet, Baruch insisted that Wallace come to him and talk things over. Baruch had in mind Wallace's many earnest followers, to whom Wallace was a man of great and sincere ideals, who believed in Henry Wallace and everything he said. Baruch wanted to nail the errors before they did any more harm.

The Vanishing Man. The friendly conference, in Baruch's Manhattan office, lasted three hours. On one side were Wallace and his adviser, alert Philip Hauser of the Census Bureau. On the other: Baruch and his associates, ex-Editorialist Herbert Bayard Swope, Banker John Hancock, Wall Streeter Ferd Eberstadt. Wai. lace, it developed, had based his criticism largely on the advice of a friend of his in UNRRA, who was now abroad. Baruch showed him, point by point, where he was wrong. The upshot of the conference: Hauser and Swope would draft a retraction for Wallace to sign.

The statement, as finally drafted, included the words: "I was not fully posted ... I am in full agreement . . . with Mr. Baruch." But when they looked around for Wallace to get him to sign it, Wallace could not be found. He had left the conference to have lunch with Henry Morgenthau Jr. They telephoned Mr. Morgenthau. Wallace had left him after lunch, and Mr. Morgenthau did not know where he was. They telephoned around New York hotels. No Henry Wallace.

That was Friday. Saturday and Sunday went by. They telephoned Mrs. Wallace. They telephoned Henry's North Salem, N. Y. farm. No one knew where he had gone.

Second Thought. On Monday Baruch got a telephone call. It was Wallace. In place of the letter which Hauser and Swope had drafted, he had written a statement which he read over the phone with the remark: "You won't like this." He was right. In it he said that he was glad to discover that "many points of the [Baruch] policies are identical with my proposals." But Baruch, the statement saidt overlooked the "major thesis of my letter to the President--the absence of an attitude of mutual trust and confidence between the United States and Russia." Baruch, incredulous and angry, demanded that Wallace try again.

Wallace drafted another statement which stubbornly said the same things. And when Baruch learned, furthermore, that Wallace was going to publish the original letter in pamphlet form, his patience ran out. Baruch then made the whole affair public.

Said Baruch to Wallace: "You have disappointed me sorely. Your reluctance publicly to correct your mistakes tends to confusion and mistrust.. . ."

Said Wallace: "Mr. Baruch has spoken.

. . . [His position is] stubborn and inflexible. [He] is unable to distinguish the fundamental critical issues from their purely procedural aspects." Wallace would not be intimidated, he said. He would "leave it to the good judgment of the American people" whether he should have signed the retraction.

These were the points which the people could judge:

P: Wallace asserted that the U.S. is trying to force down the throats of the other powers an indefinite "step-by-step" control process which all the nations must swallow before the U.S. will share its technical knowledge with the world.

Said Baruch: It is the stated intention of the U.S. to put the "step-by-step" process on a definite time schedule; the great powers, including Russia, agreed fully to this principle at the Moscow Conference.

P: Wallace asserted that the U.S. is demanding that all other powers abandon research into the military uses of atomic power until the U.S. is satisfied that the control system "is working to our satisfaction."

The U.S. has never suggested any such thing, said Baruch.

P: Wallace asserted: the U.S. is asking for something completely irrelevant when it insists that no power should have the right to veto an international atomic authority's ruling.

Said Baruch: any contract would be "illusory" if a co-signer could repudiate it at will; i.e.,'by a veto.

P: Wallace asserted: the U.S. is disregarding a Russian counterproposal which shows that Russia "may be willing to negotiate if we are."

Said Baruch: Russia's counterproposal actually adds up to little more than a formal renunciation of atomic warfare (as weak as the Kellogg-Briand Pact).

But in the final analysis, most of these points seemed irrelevant to Henry Wallace. He now beat a retreat to one last position: "Should the U.S. continue its stockpiling of atomic bombs during the period of negotiations?" In the light of recent diplomatic history, the U.S. people would presumably know how to answer that. To their good judgment Baruch left Henry Wallace.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.