No Retreat

The day after Harry Truman produced his half-a-loaf message on aid for China, he also made up his mind about Palestine. After a final, bitter week of intra-Cabinet wrangling, he decided to leave things exactly as they were. To U.N. Delegate Warren Austin went the President's instructions: no retreat from partition.

If there had ever been a thought of turning back (TIME, Feb. 16), it died with the hard political facts of the Wallace victory in New York. The Administration thus refused Zionist demands for all-out military support for partition. It also turned down its military advisers' demand for a policy of withdrawal.

How would the U.S. act to insure the success of partition? That all-important question was left unanswered. Delegate Austin's orders were simply to sit tight, let others talk, and speak his piece when called on.

Leaping at that open question last week, Ohio's Bob Taft promptly urged U.S. support for a "moderate" U.N. police force, a U.N. decision on arms for Palestine which the U.S. should follow. Said Taft: "If the United Nations fails to enforce its decisions, or if the great powers fail to back up those decisions, the United Nations will sink into insignificance as did the League."

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