THE U.S. PRESS ON LEBANON

Los ANGELES MIRROR-NEWS :

We moved to keep the peace. We have to accept the chance that it may mean war.

Los ANGELES TIMES :

Most Americans denounced the British-French-Israeli attack on Suez. The tragic irony is that our intervention is not very different ... A disinterested observer might say that we are warmongering.

BUFFALO COURIER-EXPRESS :

The plain fact remains that the situation would be far graver and the peril to world peace much greater if the United States Government had indulged in appeasement or procrastination.

LORAIN (OHIO) JOURNAL:

No nation, however rich and powerful, can continue indefinitely to take the beating that America is taking at the hands of its State Department.

NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE :

A day to make every American proud of his heritage.

Columnist JOSEPH ALSOP :

Iraq is everything, the Lebanon nothing . . . The cold war, remember, has been nothing more nor less than an unremitting Soviet effort to upset the world balance of power . . . The balance of power in turn depends upon the outcome in the Middle East. And in the present circumstances, the outcome in the Middle East depends upon the outcome in Iraq. Most of the reasons for not taking action [in Iraq] are mere twaddle--Hammarskjold-twaddle, world opinion-twaddle, other kinds of twaddle.

WALL STREET JOURNAL:

Throughout our history one of the great strengths of the United States in the world has been that it could depend upon the support that lies in the decent opinion of mankind. Today we are plainly in danger of losing esteem.

ABILENE (TEXAS) REPORTER-NEWS:

The fat's in the fire, and regardless of what has gone before, our country is now committed to a realistic facing up to the Middle East muddle.

DENVER POST, first day after the landing:

The Eisenhower Administration has chosen to regard Arab nationalism as identical with Communism, or at least as equally dangerous to the West. The truth of the matter is that our policy is as false as it is fatal.

DENVER POST, fifth day after the landing:

The disappearance of all Arab governments that are pro-Western by inclination, or that dissent from Nasser's concept of pan-Arabism, would carry starkly tragic implications.

ARIZONA REPUBLIC, Phoenix:

A major political disaster.

WASHINGTON POST & TIMES HERALD:

This is substantially a salvage job; and if it is unpleasant, it will not be made easier by any partisan effort to brandish mistakes.

PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE:

When the coup in Iraq brought down the pro-Western government there, it also brought down the whole ramshackle structure of U.S. policy in the Middle East.

DETROIT NEWS:

We had to go into Lebanon because the Iraqi revolt made it obvious that if we didn't choose sides at once we soon wouldn't have a side.

TUCSON (ARIZ.) DAILY STAR:

It negates completely a basic American principle of promoting the worldwide rule of law among nations.

CHICAGO AMERICAN:

Please, let's not hear so much hereafter about America's high mission to lead the world.

NEW YORK TIMES :

The United States cannot be one of the two great world powers and refuse to act like a great power. To ignore appeals for help from supporters like Lebanon, to watch unmoved as friendly statesmen are mobbed and countries like Iraq are convulsed, to make no effort to reassure other friends in trouble like the Jordanians would be to abdicate the role that history and our wealth and energy have thrust upon us.

JOHN S. KNIGHT'S Editor's Notebook:

Stripped of all pretense, we are out to save the oil.

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH:

We are using the same excuse which the Russians used when they ruthlessly crushed the rebellion in Hungary.

ST. LOUID GLOBE DEMOCRAT:

Our move in Lebanon is not aggression, though Arabs and others may not believe this. The presence of the Marines and the hovering Sixth Fleet could have an immensely stabilizing influence. Let us hope this is the result of the episode.

SCRIPPS-HOWARD'S WASHINGTON DAILY NEWS:

This is the kind of grim presidential honesty to which Americans will rally.

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE:

The speed and efficiency of the Navy-Marine Corps operation was in contrast with the vagueness of the justification put forth by President Eisenhower.

Editor RALPH McGiLL of the ATLANTA CONSTITUTION:

The President had no other choice.

CHICAGO TRIBUNE:

Once again, we have before us an example of dismal miscalculation in Washington.

MEMPHIS COMMERCIAL APPEAL:

We had to take positive action now or never.

NASHVILLE TENNESSEAN:

Marine diplomacy.

BOSTON TRAVELER:

There are times when it's best to show muscle, and this is one of them. Nothing discourages a trouble-maker more than the possibility that he might get hurt.

FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM:

Having gone this far, there is no alternative to seeing it through.

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS:

U.N. Nervous Nellies cheated the United States out of victory in the Korean War, and one such experience was one too many.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR:

But if the action Washington and London have taken can stabilize the Middle East, objective eyes will look less critically upon it. Then the real test will come--the task of convincing the peoples of the area that the West can and will help them to attain legitimate aspirations.

LEWISTON (IDAHO) MORNING TRIBUNE:

This is not "Eisenhower's War." It is our war. And we had better be prepared as best we can to fight it.

HARRY S. TRUMAN (for the North American Newspaper Alliance):

The 00President has made a momentous decision and proclaimed a policy which every citizen of the United States should support.

I hope, too, that we will find a way to create an atmosphere of genuine bipartisanship in which our foreign policy can be supported by all citizens. For it is necessary that those who are trying to destroy the free world clearly understand that we will unanimously support the man who takes the leadership--and that man necessarily will have to be the President of the United States.

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