Eyes on the U. S.

Throughout the world last week life seemed to hang suspended on the eve of great events. Between the warring countries, and within them, forces were so closely in balance that positive action anywhere threatened to tip the scales sharply one way or the other. And all over the world statesmen, desperate or sanguine, knew, if the U. S. did not, that the biggest potential source of such positive action was the U. S. For positive acts, which the U. S. has at its fingertips, include not only aid to Britain, but loans for Latin America (see p. 58), food for Spain, machine tools for Russia, financial aid for China, a firm stand against continued Japanese aggression.

One of the statesmen who best appreciated the U. S. position was Adolf Hitler. Last week, in a speech in Berlin, the Nazi dictator talked of the might of German arms, their ability to defeat Britain (see p. 21). But he indirectly admitted that many Germans were uneasy about the U. S., for he roared that U. S. aid to Britain could make no difference, that Germany would torpedo U. S. aid before it reached the British Isles.

On the other side of the world, another man had reason to ponder the U. S. role in world affairs: H. H. Kung of Chungking, Finance Minister of the Chinese Government. The U. S. had recently lent China $100,000,000, half of which was to bolster its skidding currency. President Roosevelt had just dispatched to Chung king his Administrative Assistant Lauchlin Currie to study the menace of Chinese inflation. In China, 28% uneasily occupied. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek recently had prevented internal disorder by disarming and disbanding the Comunist Fourth Route Army for unsubordination.

Last week, in the midst of these crises, Financier Kung reviewed three and a half years of the Sino-Japanese war and prophesied that 1941 would be "China's victory year." But Financier Kung knew and admitted that other decisive turns in the World War -- soem of which the U.S. might call--were approaching, and on their outcome depended the future of China.

Japanese Premier Prime Fumimare Konoye, 49, who was ahealthier man of 45 when the Sino-Japanese war began, had most reason of all to ponder the course of the U. S. Last week he stood before the Japanese Diet and sadly admitted: "This is the fifth year since the outbreak of the China conflict and yet there is no sign of a solution of the incident ... it is entirely my own responsibility. Billions of yen have been spent and 100,000 officers and men sacrificed on the continent . . . for which I must apologize to the Emperor and the people at large." Last week, Premier Konoye knew full well that if the U. S. in any way helps to keep Japan from a complete victory, he will have a great deal more to apologize for.

The debate in Washington over the Lend-Lease Bill last week pointed up the fact that it is nothing new in U. S. history for the U. S. to make decisions that give a turn to world events. However the U. S. has acted--daringly, as in the days of the Tripoli pirates and the Monroe Doctrine; timidly, as in the days of the Non-Intercourse Act; discreetly and yet stubbornly, as during the Civil War; brashly, as in declaring war on Spain--the wrangle over the decision has always been clamorous. In whatever direction U. S. sympathies have swung--toward an ending of the quarrel with Britain in the days of the Era of Good Feeling, toward Germany after the bitterness of the Civil War, toward Russia during the '30s--in each period the U. S. has had to face the midnight problems of what part the U. S. could and should play in the world.

But there was no precedent in U. S. history for the sense of unreality that shimmered like a heat wave over the U. S. this week. Outside the country, the whole world knew that the U. S., although anxious not to fight, was deeply involved in the War, that the U. S. had a mighty stake in is outcome, that U. S. action or U. S. inaction bore, willy-nilly upon a thousand situations trembling in the balance:

Editor Virginio Gayda, Fascist spokesman, warned the U. S. that it had exposed itself to Axis retaliation: "Teh increase of American help to England, far from not involving Americans in the conflict, is bringing them deliberately nearer and nearer to it."

Germany's Grand Admiral Erich Raeder made no bones about the plans, after British sea power had been smashed, for a mighty German fleet, with vast overseas bases, a merchant marine sailing "over the space of the globe, proclaiming the greatness and beauty of our country. . . "

Yugoslavia, hemmed in by the Axis, was eager for U. S. sympathy and support. Colonel William Donovan, traveling observer for the U. S. last week talked long with Yugoslavia's Prince Paul. As he left, the Regent said: "Goodby, good luck until we meet again," and a Yugoslave magazine that printed the remark was at first suppressed by the police, later permitted distribution.

King Vittorio Emanuele III, who personally received a Roosevelt plea for peace at the war's beginning, who received best New Year's wishes for peace from the President, is not happy in the back seat to which Mussolini has relegated him. He is even more alarmed to see the Nazis edging Il Duce from the driver's seat. Last week, Italy's king had reason to ponder on the role of the U. S. in world affairs.

Turkey, where President Ismet Inoenue kept 1,000,000 under arms, knew well that her policy depended on the effectiveness of British aid, knew well that Britain in turn depended on the U. S. Last week when Colonel Donovan landed at Istambul, the world was wondering whether Turkey would fulfill her oft-repeated statements that she would fight if Axis troops moved into the region (including Bulgaria) which she defined as her "zone of security."

France, where U. S. Ambassador Admiral Leahy, declared that he believed Britain would win, refused to allow his statement to be printed in the French press, although Colonel Lindbergh's statement that he hoped for a stalemate peace was printed at length. The French have understood who the U. S. sometimes plays a forceful aggressive part in world affairs, sometimes withdraw into apathy and indifference; but they too were alive to the force whcih any act of the U. S. now has.

Disbelief. On the fourth floor of the State Department Building in Washington are ten coding and cable rooms, isolated from other offices by heavy wire screens. The guarded outside gates are locked; the heavy wire doors connecting the ten rooms inside are unlocked only to let employes and rare visitors slip from one room to another. Well within this labyrinth, in a small room under four yellow ceiling lights, sit the closemouthed, fast-moving, middle-aged men who operate the Morse key and teletype machines. Incoming messages are passed across the hall, decoded, routed to Secretary of State Cordell Hull and his assistants. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, the coding and cable rooms are in constant telegraphic contact with 300-odd points throughout the world.

In fiscal '40 the number of messages jumped 77% over the year before. Since the invasion of the Low Countries they have averaged a million words a month. At night Secretary Hull carries reports home with him; the military and naval reports go to Secretaries Stimson and Knox. The three who receive this vast mass of up-to-the-minute information made it clear at the Lend-Lease hearings that they were in favor of positive U. S. action, at least to keep Britain from falling if possible.

U. S. citizens generally were willing to accept much positive action--as they did in the destroyer-bases deal--but only if it bore the negative label "Defense." But the public did not yet admit that the struggle with Hitler on which the U. S. is to spend $6,500,000,000 in fiscal '41 was reality. To most people it was still a phony struggle, as year ago the war to Britons was a phony war.

Last week the Gallup Poll (which had previously shown that President Roosevelt had the support of an unprecedented 71% of the electorate) showed in preliminary figures that only 54% endorsed the Lend-Lease Bill, most of them with modifications. The discrepancy was significant. To Pundit Walter Lippmann opposition to the bill was a refusal to admit the importance of the crisis. To Pundit Mark Sullivan it was a sign of confusion over the objectives of the bill itself. But whatever course of action the U. S. chose, its attitude had all the earmarks of a gigantic national self-deception. For while men argued what form of campaign the U. S. should wage against Hitler, they refused to admit the patent fact that the U. S. was already in a modern-style, undeclared, short-of-fighting war--refused to admit that in a critical moment of history the U. S. had a part to play, would have to play it, was already playing at it.

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