A Word to Tiny Minds

When he is in the mood for Yank-baiting, no one does it with more enthusiasm than Yank-admiring Lord Beaverbrook, 81, Canadian-born proprietor of the London Daily Express (circ. 4,250,000) and three other British papers. Beaverbrook's intermittent brand of anti-Americanism rests on the suspicion that the U.S. is out to reduce Britain to satellite status, has manifested itself in everything from his opposition to a 1946 U.S. loan to Britain ("We have sold the Empire for a trifling sum") to wild editorial outcries at the Ford Motor Co.'s recent bid to buy 100% control of its British subsidiary ("Why should all the profits flow across the Atlantic?"). Last week, newly returned from an 18-month U.S. sojourn, the Express's "This Is America" columnist, personable Peter Chambers, 36, unstoppered a report that read startlingly like a chapter-and-verse rebuttal of his paper's--and his boss's--views.

"What makes an anti-American?" inquired Chambers. "Envy, for one thing: a kind of meanness which resents the fact that any country should be bigger and richer than we are.

"At a cocktail party in Chelsea you run into anti-Americanism as expounded by a public school man: 'Those dreadful cars . . . And isn't the food tasteless . . . and they have really no manners . . .'

"Americans are noisy and often impatient in public places, but the idea that they are ill-mannered is a myth. They have, in general, better manners than I have met anywhere else in the world.

"Do let's try to get up to date on the U.S. . . . We are dealing with a highly sophisticated people, and it's time we got rid of our folk-image of the American as a boob from Hicksville with a cigar in his face, a camera round his neck, and a roll of dollars to buy culture with.

"A report to the State Department recently stated that 47% of the British people believe we should not commit ourselves to either America or Russia. My response to this is: Are we out of our tiny island minds? America has bailed out the free world since the war with billions of dollars. Many people resent her generosity; but at least let us not impugn her good intentions."

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