THE NATION: Patience, Not Weakness

Getting back to work after a fine autumn weekend, the U.S. people read the big black headlines. The U.S. and its Western allies had broken off the Berlin negotiations with Russia. An American white paper set forth the long and dreary record of Russian stubbornness, stalling and duplicity. Was war really imminent? The answer was somewhere between no and maybe (see INTERNATIONAL).

But on one question there was no longer any maybe. That was the question of U.S. intentions. Speaking to the U.N. in Paris, Secretary of State George Marshall said: “The United States does not wish to increase the existing tension. It is its wholehearted desire to alleviate that tension . . . [But] it would be a tragic error if … patience . . . should be mistaken for weakness.”

Did the Russians realize that the U.S., if pushed, would fight? Washington was sure they did. But, according to the best information in Washington, the Russians thought that, even if the U.S. went to war, it would not use the atomic bomb. If so, the Russians were dreadfully mistaken.