Brave New Deeds

U.S. officials who went to the Potsdam conference remember the evening when Secretary of State Byrnes showed up an hour late for dinner in the American quarters at No. 3 Wilhelmstrasse. Winston Churchill had held him up, talking. "All we do here is listen," lamented Jimmy Byrnes. "Britain tells us what she wants. Russia tells us what she wants. I'm tired of listening to what other people want. . . ."

Last week, in Paris, Jimmy Byrnes began telling the world what the U.S. State Department wants. A U.S. foreign policy was being laid down in positive and specific terms. Specifically the U.S. offered to join in quadripartite control commissions for 25 years in Germany and Japan, moved to stop Russia's expanding European sphere, and held out economic support to those economically stricken nations who might otherwise collapse and fall into Communist control (see INTERNATIONAL).

These would be brave new deeds to put the U.S. in a brave new economic and moral position in the world. There was only one catch. How did Jimmy Byrnes's people feel?

The Simple Life. Although Jimmy Byrnes told France that she could have an Export-Import Bank loan, the Senate had debated for three weeks the British loan which the Administration considered the keystone of its credit program. Did the Senate's mood (sometimes willful and irresponsible) mirror the nation's mood? By their tactics Senators also jeopardized the draft, which is a second keystone of U.S. participation in world affairs.

Last week President Truman hailed the long awaited report of the Anglo-American Committee on Palestine (see INTERNATIONAL). But the reluctance of U.S. political leaders to assume any responsibility in carrying out the Committee's plan was all too evident. Was this a measure of the nation's attitude?

Was the U.S. really ready to take on all the onerous and hazardous chores of world participation? In Paris, after a particularly sour session of the Big Four "peace conference," Senator Arthur Vandenberg wryly remarked: "Life was simple for me when I was an isolationist. Another couple of days of this and I'll be more isolationist than ever."

Actually such a reversal would be inconceivable to Vandenberg, who understands the impossibility of withdrawal. Did the people also understand?

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