Dangerous Precedent

As the big Army C-54 Crescent Caravan swooped down on Washington's National Airport, a picked escort of 50 white-gloved soldiers snapped to attention. Down a long steel ramp came the flag-draped coffins of five U.S. airmen, past an honor guard at present arms. Five hearses were waiting. From a common burial ground in the mountain village of Koprivnik, the U.S. flyers shot down over Tito's Yugoslavia (TIME, Sept. 2) had come back to the U.S. They were taken to a chapel at Arlington Cemetery to await final funeral services later this month.

But the diplomatic furor which blazed up with the flyers' death last month raged on. A ban by A.F.L. longshoremen on ships loading UNRRA supplies for Yugoslavia swelled from an impromptu wildcat walkout to an official statement of union policy. Cried the longshoremen's Joe Ryan: "None of those ships will be loaded until proper action is taken against those who are responsible for shooting down our planes." Veterans' posts, Congressmen, many a fierce U.S. citizen chimed in.*

Acting Secretary of State Will Clayton tried hard to quench the flames. Yugoslavia, he pointed out, had tentatively agreed to pay indemnities to the families of the dead airmen. (Probable amount: between $300,000 and $400,000.) U.S. indemnity for the planes was still being discussed. Cautiously he skirted another, more compelling issue. To the suggestions that relief to Yugoslavia be stopped, he replied that that was a matter for UNRRA to decide; a U.S. embargo would be a violation of an international commitment, in which the U.S. is bound by the decisions of a nine-nation UNRRA central committee.

The New York Times put it more bluntly: "The action of the International Longshoremen's Association . . . sets a precedent with dangerous implications. . . . The fact that many will applaud this action without thinking does not make it right. ... It will be a bad day for all of us when we allow our foreign relations to be directed by longshoremen, or any other group, instead of by responsible Government authorities."

* Last week the State Department admitted sending a note of apology to Belgrade after two former G.I.s had stoned the Yugoslav Embassy in Washington last month.

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