Campaigns & Crises

Just in case anybody got the wrong ideas, Secretary of State Christian A. Herter last week explained the curiosities of U.S. politics to the rest of the world. "An illusion is current in some quarters abroad," said Herter, "that in foreign policy the U.S. becomes paralyzed or semi-paralyzed during a presidential election period. It is well that our friends and our opponents should fully realize that nothing could be further from the truth." He cited past occasions on which the U.S. has not hesitated to act during a presidential campaign: the 50-destroyers-to-Britain deal in 1940; the Berlin airlift in 1948; the U.S. intervention against friends Britain, France and Israel in the Suez invasion of 1956. Concluded Herter: "Let no one mistake for a sign of weakness and seek to profit therefrom what is instead a sign of strength--that we Americans, as citizens of a free country, can unhesitatingly and openly debate our policies so as to arrive at the best political decisions for our nation."

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