Between Two Dictators

The U.S. press showed last week that it found the attack by hated Hitler on hated Stalin just as confusing and emotionally disturbing as it was to most ordinary citizens. The effect was to make the press considerably less interventionist.

Last spring James S. Twohey Associates, analysts of newspaper opinion, calculated that upwards of 65% of the U.S. press plumped for more aid to Britain and attacked isolationists. Last week, presumably upset by the spectacle of Germany fighting Russia, some 20% of the press had not changed sides but gone to sit on the fence. This left only 53% of the press interventionist, against 27% definitely isolationist.

Equally striking was the indirect evidence of a new trend of press feeling. Also by the Twohey figures, the editorial comment on Secretary Knox's rip-roaring speech for using the Navy to clear the seas was 53% against to 25% for. But ex-President Hoover's speech saying that Germany's attack on Russia made the whole argument for the U.S. going to war a "Gargantuan jest" (TIME, July 7) won applause from 58% of the press--more than has applauded him in years--and criticism from only 26%.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.