In the Cards?

"Tell you how I look at it," said a U.S. radio commentator--thoroughly hep to his country's new position in the world--to a recently visiting Briton. "Guam is our chief base in the Pacific, and naturally we don't expect Guam to be selfsupporting. Now England, you see, is our chief base in Europe, and of course we've got to carry it--just like Guam."

This Yankee from Olympus had learned a great deal since the bad old isolationist days. But he, and thousands of other eager new Truman Doctrinaires, still had to learn that Britain was not Guam. Most Americans took Britain's role as a U.S. ally for granted. If the chips ever went down, Britain could scarcely play any other role. And there was still a vast reservoir of British good will toward the U.S.--as a British miner's wife illustrated last week by soundly bussing U.S. Ambassador Douglas.* Nevertheless, Britain was a resentful and reluctant ally.

The U.S. was sharply reminded of that fact last week by a Labor Party pamphlet which bluntly restated Labor's foreign policy. It will hear more this week, when party delegates convene for their annual conference at Margate (Britain's Atlantic City). There the party "rebels" (Nye Bevan, Dick Grossman et al.) will push their attacks against Ernie Bevin's foreign policy. They accuse him of 1) turning Britain into a Guam by undue dependence on the U.S., 2) being too hostile to Russia. The party's pamphlet, called Cards on the Table (a favorite Bevinism), admittedly is a defense against these charges.

King & Knave. It tries to appease the rebels and agrees with them in principle. "We can only be grateful if America is prepared in any way to make it easier for us to defend our security. But no one has tried harder than the Government to reduce our dependence. . . . The idea that we are somehow bound politically to follow American policy is . . . false. . . ."

Britain, says Cards on the Table, will not take sides in a line-up for the next world war, will cooperate with the U.S. only on specific issues "where there is a clear common interest." Winston Churchill, obviously the Knave of Clubs in the deck, "wants a permanent alliance with America against what he sees as a permanent political danger." Ernie Bevin, the King of Hearts, "wants as close an association with Russia as we have now with America."

The pamphlet admits vehemently that such an association has so far been made impossible by Russia's bearish, boorish behavior: "It is difficult to forgive from a recent ally such attacks as the following, broadcast to Norway by Moscow radio on June 8, 1946: 'This little country [England] went to war because it and its fascist reactionary leaders love war and thrive on war. The attack on Hitlerite Germany was purely incidental.' "

But the pamphlet nowhere condemns Russia or Communism on moral or ideological grounds. Russia's expansion is presented merely in terms of a Russian desire for security. There is even a coy note: ". . . We have resisted every temptation to regard Russian policy as final. . . ." Labor hopes that Russia will some day realize Britain's usefulness: "For so long as Britain plays a decisive part in the defense of American security, it is impossible for America to adopt a policy of world aggression without British agreement."

Old Hat? The rebels were far from satisfied, still cried that Bevin was really carrying on a Tory foreign policy. Last week, Londoners heard a story about Bevin walking into a hat store to get a black hat. The clerk asked what style he preferred. Ernie grinned: "An Anthony Eden Hat." Actually, the story was false. No Tory at home or abroad, Bevin gets his hats through a friend, the secretary of the hatters' union.

* The Ambassador, who went down into a Yorkshire coal pit last week, is no stranger to mining. His grandfather and his father hit it rich in Arizona copper, and M.I.T.-trained (geology and metallurgy) Lew Douglas worked in Arizona mines before entering Congress in 1927.

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