Clamor in the Mailbag

A new sign appeared last week on the long mail-sorting tables in the executive office building next door to the White House. It was labeled "Clark." Under it piled the blizzard of communications to the White House about Harry Truman's nomination of General Mark Clark as the first U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican.* By week's end 21,000 letters and telegrams had arrived, the biggest and most clamorous bag of mail delivered to the White House on any issue in recent years, except the firing of Douglas MacArthur. Score: 6 to 1 against the Clark nomination.

In New York, the general board of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. met and issued a statement: sending an ambassador to the head of a church would be "an alarming threat to basic American principles." After approving the statement, the board authorized the Council head, Bishop Henry Knox Sherrill, to coordinate the nationwide Protestant opposition. The goal: get Harry Truman to withdraw the nomination, or Congress to reject it.

* Thirty-six nations have representatives at the Vatican. Eighteen predominantly Catholic countries (e.g., Brazil) send ambassadors. But 18 other countries (e.g., Great Britain) send only ministers.

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