The Pilgrims

As they had ever since the end of World War II, a steady stream of visitors flowed into the U.S. last week, each headed hopefully for his own kind of Mecca, each revealing something of the part the nation was playing in the world.

Ernest Reuter, the Lord Mayor of blockaded Berlin, came to Washington to attend the U.S. Conference of Mayors and was cordially greeted by Vice President Alben Barkley. Britain's wartime Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, stepped ashore from the Cunard liner Queen Elizabeth, looking pale and tired but still smoking a big cigar, and still eyeing the world with lively attention. He was picketed by left-wingers in Manhattan, but to most U.S. citizens he was still a brave and oaklike figure--the man who, in Fulton, Mo. on his last visit to the U.S., had called-dramatic attention to the strategy of the U.S.S.R. and given the Iron Curtain its name. He was saluted everywhere with instant, affectionate and reminiscent applause.

The most tragic visitor of the week was Russia's famed Composer Dmitri Shostakovich. He came to New York to attend the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace (see below). A symbol of the harshness of the police state, he spoke like a Communist politician and acted as though he were impelled by hidden clock work rather than the mind which had composed resounding music.

All of the visitors demonstrated that the U.S. is not only the economic and military leader of the world, but also the world's soapbox. To sell, to influence, to confuse, or to divide the U.S. people--those are among the driving forces in the world today.

At week's end another group of travelers was on its way to the U.S. Representatives of Britain, Belgium and Luxembourg--Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, Premier Paul-Henri Spaak and Foreign Minister Joseph Bech--were heading west on the Queen Mary to sign the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington. France's Foreign Minister Robert Schuman was about to leave on the same mission. They would be here to endorse an affirmative act on which the U.S. people, except for a noisy minority, were no longer divided --an act of determination which was the best answer to the fulminations of the "Conference for World Peace."

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