Lion's Tail & Eagle's Feathers

Anglo-American relations looked good last week--no nasty diplomatic incidents, no spectacular twisting of the lion's tail or plucking of the eagle's feathers by hyperthyroid editors or politicians. On the positive side there was even a solid report (see FOREIGN NEWS) that the British would accede to U.S. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes's suggestion on the partition of Palestine.

Because affairs were in this happy posture, it was perhaps a tactful time to note that down in the deep roots of national policy the British and American peoples were not understanding each other's foreign policies as well as two close democratic allies might.

The British Case. Britons are increasingly restive and resentful over their dependence on the U.S. They don't like being tied by the U.S. loan and other strings to what they consider the boom-or-bust economy on the U.S. side of the Atlantic. They cite the end of price controls and the near-disastrous coal strike as examples of U.S. irresponsibility. This resentment is aggravated by what the British see as a U.S. effort to put on them all the blame for policies which seek a joint U.S.-British objective.

For instance, in the Middle East, the U.S. has just as much interest as Britain in 1) keeping the Russians out, and 2) getting the oil out. The British see the Palestine problem against the background of the larger U.S.-British objective of playing along with the Middle East Arabs. When President Truman flayed Britain on the Palestine issue, one angry Briton said: "He has sold your oil for a mess of New York votes."

The recent revolt of 150 or more British Laborites (TIME, Dec. 9) against the close tie-in of U.S. and British foreign policy was an extreme and distorted expression of a very real British dissatisfaction with what they see as a U.S. policy of putting Britain in the middle.

Americans can answer, brutally but not brightly, that the U.S. is the senior partner in world power, and the British therefore will just have to get used to the way Americans work and think. Wiser Americans note that Britain, in depression for a generation and drained by two wars, is acutely conscious that her margin of survival has shrunk past the danger point. The British anxiety over their dependence on the "reckless" U.S. may be exaggerated or dead wrong, but it is, in view of their own position, understandable.

Most U.S. Britain-baiting is directed against the British imperial position. Although U.S. strategic planning leans very heavily on the Empire, anti-imperialist U.S. tradition makes it difficult for Americans to understand Britain's very real Empire problems (see below).

Such difficulties are not going to end or seriously impair Anglo-American cooperation. But unless the differences are noted, analyzed and ironed out (as now seems to have been done on Palestine), the Anglo-U.S. association will be increasingly uncomfortable.

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