THE KELLAND PLAN

TIME herewith publishes the gist of a plan, proposed last week, for U.S. participation in the postwar world. TIME calls its readers' attention to this plan because: 1) it is a specific blueprint, documented far beyond generalities; 2) it is pointed toward next week's meeting of the Republican Postwar Advisory Council at Mackinac Island, Mich., called to formulate an official GOPolicy on postwar affairs.

Author of the plan is pint-sized, vitriolic Clarence Budington Kelland, G.O.P. National Committeeman from Arizona, longtime fictioneer for the Saturday Evening Post (Sugarfoot, Arizona), onetime tub-thumping isolationist (Pearl Harbor changed his mind). A bitter-end Republican, he caused a rumpus in Manhattan's famed Dutch Treat Club by stating, in May 1940, that the Fifth Column in America was headed "by that fellow in the White House."

The press was divided on the Kelland Plan. Columnist Raymond Clapper greeted it with huzzahs; the Cleveland Plain Dealer sniffed a new "super-imperialism." But on one fact press and politicians agreed: here was a concrete proposal.

"I have called this blueprint the Zones of Safety Plan."

First Zone. "The First Zone of Safety shall be to set up a trusteeship when this war shall have been prosecuted to the day of unconditional surrender. I propose that the trustees shall be Russia, Great Britain, the United States, the producing and effective nations, with China a full and equal member. . . . These trustees . . . shall administer the territories and people and economy of our enemies. . . . This trusteeship shall be indefinite in point of time. ... It will set up local governmental machinery. ... It will police the territories. . . . One of its first objectives will be to restore France to its rightful place as a first class power. .. . "[The trusteeship] shall establish an International Commission which shall not be a peace table empowered to settle the terms of final agreement between warring nations, but a fact-finding body whose labor it shall be to present to the trustees a concrete plan for the elimination of the causes of war. The trustees . . . shall encourage each nation to establish such a form of government as is best suited to its people and its conditions. The trusteeship shall continue until either the Commission shall have evolved a just set of specifications for peace and tranquillity, or until . . . these questions shall have solved themselves. Then, and only then, shall binding and final treaties be entered into. . . ."

Second Zone. "The Second Zone of Safety shall be erected . . . against the emergence of any predatory nation or combination of nations among our late enemies. It shall be a concord among the victor nations, Great Britain, China, Russia and the United States for offensive or defensive joint action. . . .

"Such a combination would be so imposing, so powerful that no nation would dare to challenge its just and jointly stated will."

Third Zone. "In the event that the First Zone of Safety shall fail to insure peace, and that it is impossible to establish a permanent concord among the victor nations, a Third Zone of Safety is proposed . . . : a permanent defensive alliance between the United States and Great Britain. This alliance shall provide that the two . . . great English-speaking nations shall act as one in case of attack upon either. . . .

"The last definite vestige of a foreign policy which this nation has exhibited was the enunciation of the Monroe Doc trine. Since then, to the day of Pearl Harbor, our foreign policy has been makeshift . . . and opportunist. It has been hoping for the best while taking no measures to prepare for the worst. From the Presidency of Mr. Monroe until this day the Monroe Doctrine has been accepted by Great Britain. . . . Great Britain was our unacknowledged ally in the preservation of the two Americas from foreign aggression. . . .

"Therefore, it is only honest and realistic that we should jointly acknowledge and avow this alliance, make it permanent, definite as to terms and patent to the world. It will be the most tremendous step toward permanent peace that the mind of man can conceive."

Fourth Zone. "The Fourth Zone of Safety looks specifically to the Western Hemisphere. It should be a concord among the nations of North America and the nations of South America . . . both military and economic. Its first and chief article must be that every nation from Tierra del Fuego to the northernmost reaches of Canada will stand as one ... against This is not a mere Good Neighbor Policy. It is a policy of American Solidarity against any non-American nation threatening the territorial integrity of any American nation, large or small.

"The first four Zones of Safety have been based upon international collaboration, if possible between all nations, if not possible, between groups of nations acting for the common good. ... I suggest a Fifth Zone of Safety as insurance of our own house against fire."

Fifth Zone. "I hope it is not possible, but it may be possible that the four preceding Zones of Safety will not work. It is thinkable that all of them might fail and that the United States would be left alone. . .

"Our nation must build and maintain a fleet the most powerful in the world . . . a five-ocean navy. It must provide itself with an air force so numerous and efficient as to stand alone. It must continue a standing army of sufficient size and training.

"But that is not enough. We must so Acme ring our land . . . that no nation, no coalition of nations, shall be able to penetrate our fortifications. We do not want territorial aggrandizement . . . but at last we must face realities. . . .

"[We must] ring this land with a mighty circle of Gibraltars through whose cordon no enemy can ever penetrate. . . . The islands of the Pacific [which] are essential to us, must become ours. The Pacific Ocean must become an American Lake. . . .

"What we acquire we must fortify. . . . [In] the Atlantic, we must acquire by treaty or by occupation such islands and such territories as we deem necessary to our safety. . . . We must go far afield. Dakar and Casablanca . . . must be ours in permanence. . . . We must have our own permanent naval and air bases in Iceland and Greenland. We must maintain, continue, perfect and enlarge our base on Bermuda. . . . We must make equitable arrangement if we can for the possession of the islands of the Caribbean. . . .

"We must extend the Monroe Doctrine. . . . Let us in friendship and with generosity and equity of consideration endeavor to procure a cession ... to ourselves or to our South American neighbors . . . [of] every foot of American soil now flying the flags of nations across the seas ... to the end that America shall be wholly American . . . and wholly secure.

"We will collaborate but we will not amalgamate. . . . But when we have done it. . .we must remain a sovereign nation."

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