Leadership in Action

Any doubt as to the import of what the U.S. and the U.N. did last week was dispelled by the world reaction. No event since V-J Day had had such an impact on world opinion.

A moment after Truman had spoken, old friends seemed firmer friends and uncertain friends seemed surer. Britain was first and firmest. It immediately put its Far Eastern Fleet in MacArthur's command. Churchill found the right phrase for the action: "An inescapable duty." France found itself a cabinet (see FOREIGN NEWS). Germany, which feels that it may be the next Korea, found new heart.

All over Asia, leaders' words rang with a new sense of clear purpose. The most interesting reaction came from India. Its newspapers freely predicted that India's U.N. delegate would not vote for the U.S. resolution on Korea. Then Pandit Nehru came home from a trip to Indonesia, Malaya, Burma. For months he had been preaching "neutrality" in the struggle between Communism and the West. What he had seen in other lands, plus the U.S. action on Korea, changed his mind. He amazed his countrymen and the world by lining India up on the side of the U.N. and the U.S. He made it clear for the first time that he considered Communism, not colonialism, the great threat to Asia.

In such decisions as Nehru's lay tangible proof that what the world had been waiting for was U.S. leadership in action--in bold and determined action--against the march of Communism.

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