"Deep Understanding"

Among U. S. tourists massed eagerly outside the Palace of the President of France one day last week was a little woman in a simple summer frock. Severely a Paris gendarme told her to move on. Obediently she moved. "Imbecile!" hissed a plain clothes agent of the Surete Generale at the startled gendarme. "C'est Madame Straus!"

In time's nick the wife of the new U. S. Ambassador to France was escorted into the courtyard of the Elysee, permitted to loiter there. Up whirled a motorcade of twinkling French Government cars, disgorged the U. S. Embassy's entire corps of secretaries escorting impeccably turned-out Jesse Isidor Straus.

Tycoon Straus, who resigned his R. H. Macy & Co. chairmanship to become ambassador (TIME, March 20), carried more than mere formal credentials from the White House to the Elysee. A trace of President Roosevelt's irritation at French reluctance to fall in with the White House's plans for European disarmament (TIME, May 8) edged Ambassador Straus's little speech on being presented to sad-eyed President Albert Lebrun.

"The deep friendship toward France on our part," read Jesse Isidor Straus, "calls for deep understanding from France. We are ready to cooperate with France . . . with the expectation that you will work with us. In that spirit I present my credentials."

On the same day last week Premier Edouard Daladier received at 10:30 a. m. President Roosevelt's special "Disarmament Ambassador." ever-optimistic Norman H. Davis, and Britain's Air Minister, florid Lord Londonderry. After chatting through lunch and all afternoon, the statesmen shook hands in friendly disagreement at 5 p. m.

The U. S. and Britain still refuse to guarantee French security. France still holds that she is menaced by Hitlerite Germany and dares not commence to disarm unless her security is guaranteed. In Geneva, almost unnoticed last week in London's preparations for the World Economic Conference (see p. 16), the World Disarmament Conference adjourned amid utter gloom to meet again July 3. Up at the last moment popped Japanese Ambassador Naotake Sato to read a 2,000-word declaration from Tokyo.

"Japan is surrounded by water," declared Mr. Sato irrefutably, "and we must think of our special situation." The rest of his remarks amounted to serving notice that when the Conference meets again Tokyo will press for revision of the London Naval Treaty ratio (5-5-3) to give Japan a rating of at least four.

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