Europe Firsters

"Let's keep out of America's and Russia's quarrels!"

More & more Europeans are saying that these days. It might come as a shock to onetime isolationists in Osakis, Minn, and Kokomo, Ind. to hear such close approximations from the Continent of their 1915 and 1940 arguments.

Most intelligent Europeans know quite well that they could not stand aside in event of a Russian-U. S. struggle, but they have suffered so much that fear overcomes reason. Unlike the U.S.'s old isolationism, the new European brand does not spring from a sense of security, but from an overwhelming knowledge of insecurity. Britain's R. H. S. Grossman, a leader of the dissident Laborites, put it thus: "Europe has become a relatively unimportant place . . . where the atom bombs meant to fall on America will fall short on Britain. . . . This country is now indefensible in a war between Russia and America. If we join Russia against America we shall be starved out in three weeks. If we join the Americans against Russia, we are a little island 3,000 miles from our ally. . . . The only thing to do is to stand apart. . . ."

First Cossacks, then Negroes. Frenchmen are so tired of conflict that even conservative De Gaulle talks of making France a balance between the U.S. and Russia. Said Marc Leroy, a bank clerk: "What a pity we cannot transport France to some place which is not in the middle. I would choose America. But," he added hastily, "I do not want to choose."

Italians feel even more strongly. Said Socialist Pietro Nenni last week: "We haven't any colonies nor navy nor army nor territorial ambitions. We are today's arch-isolationists." However, unlike old-line U.S. isolationists, Europeans could not afford to say "Let them fight it out among themselves." Even a devout Communist forgot himself sufficiently to tell a TIME correspondent last week: "A conflict between you and Russia would be disaster for Italy. We'd be occupied by both of you, first by the Cossacks, then by Negroes."

Last week, visiting Midwesterner Henry Wallace--"a child in a terrible dark," as the London Daily Mail put it--was exploiting (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS) Europe's frightened, unreasoning and very natural desire to stay away from the fire.

Osakis and Kokomo, which had learned the lesson of one world, were getting quite a lesson in isolationism.

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