In the past, TIME'S editors have written many roundups on the mood of Europe in the spring. Perhaps the best remembered of them (we still get letters referring to it) was called Springtime in Europe and read, in part:

Spring came to Germany a month late, and in Berlin, rainy and cold, people were singing a sprightly song called Bel Ami, crowding Hitler's favorite show, Melody in the Night (although Miriam Verne, U.S. dancer who caught Hitler's eye, had gone to Munich to play The Merry Widow). The Rhine suddenly rose, flooded machine gun nests, concrete pillboxes and subterranean construction on Germany's great western fortifications. . . .

That was June 1939, and one of the real differences between then and now is that in 1939, while the people of Europe made the most of the precious days of peace, the U.S. and the world were primarily interested in what Europe's statesmen were thinking, planning and doing. Today the U.S. and the world are more interested in what the people of Western Europe are thinking. What the Italian voters do in their April 18 elections, for instance, is far more important than almost anything a Western European statesman might do at this time.

Therefore, in the story, Europe in the Spring, in this issue's International section TIME'S editors have been fortunate in having some fresh material available for background on what Western Europeans are thinking about questions of freedom & regimentation, war & peace, hope & despair. This material is part of the international survey of public opinion I discussed here six weeks ago. As many of you will recall, the findings of this survey were to be a basis for discussion by world spokesmen at an international forum on "The Future of Freedom" co-sponsored by TIME and New Orleans and scheduled for April 14-17 in the city of New Orleans.

Unfortunately, the mounting pressure of world events forced us to postpone the forum indefinitely. As things shaped up, statesmen we had invited to speak at the forum found that they could not leave their posts, either in the U.S., Latin America, or Europe. And the month of April, obviously, was going to be a time of further crisis.

The events that caused us to postpone the forum were intensified during the taking of the international public opinion poll. In Great Britain, France, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Brazil, Mexico and Canada, personal interviewers working through Elmo Roper, his overseas affiliates and, in the case of the U.S. Zone of Germany, the American Military Government, were in the middle of getting their answers to the survey questions when the Czech coup of Feb. 25 took place. Therefore, in the light of events during and since the survey was taken, the responses to some of its questions--especially in the U.S., where our survey was completed before the coup--may now be outdated. On the other hand, many of the replies, as indicated by Europe in the Spring, are as valid today as when they were given.

An example of what the polltakers were up against is indicated by the response given to one of them by a German he was interviewing. Said the German: "Since Czechoslovakia, no one in Berlin or Germany or Europe is able to tell what's coming next. East or West? That's just what all of us are wondering."

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