Chorus of Approval

In Britain, according to the latest Gallup Poll, the Attlee tour was popular. In favor: 43%; against: 20%; don't know or don't care: 37%. Conservative voters disapproved of the tour, but only by a margin of 37% to 28%. Laborites gave their leader a rousing 63% to 8% cheer. The poll had been taken at the tour's outset, and perhaps subsequent events had changed a few minds: the British press, at least, was developing serious objections. "Not since Marco Polo," observed Lord Beaverbrook's breezy Daily Express, "has there been a more astonishing pilgrimage to China."

Chou En-lai's brazen attempt to separate Britain from the U.S. shocked many. "The Chinese are showing their hand," said the Manchester Guardian, "with almost insulting frankness." The conservative Time and Tide reminded its readers of the British tradition that M.P.s traveling abroad "should say nothing, do nothing and allow themselves to be involved in no situations which would be likely to cause embarrassment to the Government of their own country . . . This makes the conduct of Mr. Attlee and his colleagues the more amazing and reprehensible." The Economist called Attlee & Co. the "Chiltern Set," drawing a parallel with the famed pre-World War II appeasing "Cliveden Set." The tabloid Daily Sketch called the Laborites "The Yellow Travelers."

But the qualms of a minority in Britain were a long way back from the shock felt by most Americans. In fact, much of the British criticism was based on the adverse effect it might have on U.S. opinion. Generally, Britain's approving majority seemed to feel that 1) if Britain wants coexistence with the Communists, it will have to deal with Communist leaders; 2) if Britain's friends, the Americans, will not talk to the Communist Chinese, then someone like Socialist Clem Attlee must serve as go-between. The Times defended Attlee as a man of sense; the Liberal News Chronicle reminded its readers that the Socialists "have been fighting Communism all their lives." The Socialist Daily Herald brushed off the criticism as a "circus of spite."

Against the majority's chorus rang the voice of Lord Vansittart, permanent Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs during the Hitler-appeasement era, a man who cried havoc then and was now crying havoc again. In a letter to the Times of London he wrote: "The second World War was fought precisely because it was thought that we would swallow anything. And precisely the same process is being repeated before our eyes today. There are even more ominous symptoms and similarities. Whenever the Nazis were ready for another expansion, they charged their opponents with provocations . . . The Communists adopt the same tactics and accuse our American allies of 'provocation' off the Chinese coast. Again the tactic is to gauge the prospect of adventure by the amount that we will swallow . . . A new war may arise from the old impression of British gullibility. Untimely affabilities increase that impression, and are therefore hard on the rest of us . . . "

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