Two Men

Wendell Willkie lunched at the White House last week with Franklin Roosevelt. No one else was present.

What these two men said to each other in 75 minutes was not made public. But the times, the war, above all, the contrasting personalities of Wendell Willkie and Franklin Roosevelt made that meeting dramatic. Willkie, 49, good-natured, practical, forthright; Franklin Roosevelt, adept, experienced, in politics for 30 of his 59 years. The room where they met had seen some mighty contrasts in its day; it had rarely contained two men so sharply opposed in temperament, training, belief.

Over that luncheon lay the question of war. Over it too lay the question of U.S. public opinion. Two days earlier, President Roosevelt had told Congress that U.S. naval forces had occupied Iceland. U.S. public opinion supported this move even though Iceland lay in what Germany called its war zone. Moreover, said the President in his message, "I have . . . issued orders to the Navy ... to insure the safety of communications between Iceland and the United States." It now seemed inevitable that U.S. and German forces would clash in the Atlantic. But no observer could claim that U.S. public opinion was prepared for a struggle of the magnitude of the one that was in the making. It was a great question whether the U.S. public would not dismiss, as a manufactured "incident," the first conflict that came.

The long conference ended. One story about it reached the press. As Willkie was leaving, President Roosevelt told him that his friends had advised him to retain the foremost U.S. psychiatrists to work out ways of correcting and influencing public opinion. Willkie grinned. "Mr. President," said he, "have you heard of the first meeting of your fifth cousin, Theodore Roosevelt, and Albert Lasker, the advertising man?" The President had not. Willkie told how Lasker traveled to Oyster Bay, how Teddy, all smiles, teeth and outstretched arms, burst in to greet him, crying out, "Mr. Lasker, I've been told that you have the master advertising mind in the country." Said Lasker hastily, "It would be presumptuous for any one to claim that, in your presence."

"And so," said Willkie, "I think it would be presumptuous for any psychiatrist to tell you how to influence public opinion."

Whatever the President told him, and

whatever Wendell Willkie really thought, he appeared to be well satisfied on leaving. Reporters pounced on him with questions. Iceland? Willkie said that he believed the occupation of Iceland was only the first of many similar steps that should be taken to insure delivery of aid to Britain. Northern Ireland? "Yes. I favor bases in North Ireland and Scotland." He smiled when a newsman told him that pollsters had found the U.S. overwhelmingly opposed to war. He said, "If in April of 1861 the people of the North had been polled, I believe they would have voted against war. But when war came, they rallied behind President Lincoln. Why? They had made up their minds on the fundamental issues of slavery and union: they wanted leadership."

Wendell Willkie's suggestion that the U.S. should have bases in Northern Ireland and Scotland immediately became big, if brief, news. At his press conference President Roosevelt dodged the inevitable questions. He said he would not be surprised if U.S. workmen and U.S. materials were being employed by the British on at least 50 bases throughout the British Empire. But that did not mean that the bases were for the U.S. Government.

The U.S. in the summer of 1941 was not indeed the U.S. of the months before the Civil War; President Roosevelt was not President Lincoln; the new war that the U.S. was entering was not the War between the States. But Willkie's parallel was striking.

The North was not united behind Lincoln, did not agree to fight to free the slaves and plant Northern freedom in the South--but it was determined that slavery should not be extended into fresh territory, and determined that the Union should be preserved. In the summer of 1941 the U.S. is generally agreed that Hitler shall not extend his power into regions that threatened the freedom of the U.S.; the only dispute was over where those regions lie.

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