THE NATION: Learn To Shoot Straight

Nothing in 1943’s news more clearly illustrated the vast change in the U.S. climate than the report made by the five globe-circling Senators in last week’s secret session of the Senate. Their main point was that the British were outsmarting Americans all over the world.

But they were not bitter, angry or even notably anti-British. They seemed more to envy the smooth, experienced job the British are doing for Britain, and wondered why Americans, once famed as Yankee traders, could not do as well. They complained of American “stupidity” in dealings abroad.

Months and months ago observers had noted that American isolationism was dead as an important force; but still many intellectuals and interventionist worrywarts had gone on whacking away at the dead dog. For the five Senators were not complaining against U.S. participation abroad—they were complaining that such participation was not shrewd enough, or wise enough, or big enough.

Thus the glee with which the furious little fringe of isolationists seized on the Senatorial remarks as anti-Allied was as misplaced as was the Administration’s feeble efforts to keep the lid on their criticisms, or as beside the point as the shock felt in London.

For what had long been inevitable, what had long been clear to some, was now clear to all: the question about U.S. participation, in the world is not if, but how?

In To Stay. The Senators’ other points, as gathered secondhand by the probing press:

>The U.S. must keep its foreign air bases after the war.

> The U.S. is putting up more than its share of oil to fight World War > The U.S. should have Siberian air bases to attack Japan.

Each member of the Senatorial junket seemed to have one major concern. Massachusetts’ Henry Cabot Lodge was most insistent on the subject of Siberian air bases, was acridly criticized by his fellow travelers. Said they: Lodge’s statement that possession of Siberian air bases would save a million American lives was both inaccurate and unfortunate; Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall had requested that the question not be raised.

Maine’s Ralph Owen Brewster was most concerned about Lend-Lease, charged that it was being mismanaged, cited as an example of mismanagement the fact that Australia got 30,000 new trucks for civilian use as compared to 15,000 for the U.S., said he would ask the Truman Committee to investigate.

Kentucky’s Albert Benjamin (“Happy”) Chandler reiterated his contention that the Jap was U.S. enemy No. 1. that a major offensive should be launched in the Pacific, that the Administration should give General Douglas MacArthur more support “or get rid of him.”

Georgia’s Richard Brevard Russell was most worried about the extensive promises being made by the U.S.

When the little group of professional isolationists tried to capitalize on the ammunition passed them by the Senators, Maine’s Brewster stepped in to do some scotching. Said he: “I can serve as Exhibit A for isolationists on our difficulties around the world. Yet I am convinced that we are in the game to stay, and rather than pull out our marbles we had better put more in and learn to shoot straight.”

Pilgrims’ Progress. Senator Brewster’s point, that the U.S. was “in the game to stay,” was backed up everywhere by evidence that the U.S. was already hip-deep in world affairs.

> James Landis, Middle East Economic Operations Director, turned up in Cairo.

> The U.S. Government began negotiations to go into the oil business in Saudi Arabia.

> Rear Admiral Howard L. Vickery served notice to the world that the U.S. would henceforth be a maritime nation. > The U.S. Treasury announced a tentative plan for a $10 billion United Nations World Bank.

But overshadowing in importance any of these far-flung details was the long-awaited tripartite conference in Moscow between the diplomatic chiefs of Russia, Britain and the U.S.. Age-brittle, tough Cordell Hull, wha will represent the U.S. at the meeting, will personalize the U.S. to Russians. And to Americans his long journey symbolizes the great lengths to which America has gone, is now going, and must yet go in the field of international relations—a long road whose end no man can see.