Plain Talk from Britain

Last week the respected London Times purported to summarize Britain's European policy. The essence of that policy, as the Times saw it, was that Britain and Soviet Russia shared "joint responsibility" for the postwar security of Europe. They hoped that the U.S. would also see fit to share the responsibility; if not, Britain and Russia would have to proceed with their own arrangements.

The Times published this blunt declaration and appeal on the eve of Anthony Eden's visit to the U.S. (see p. 9) and two days after Ambassador Standley spoke up for the U.S. in Russia (see col. 3). The Times may have spoken out of turn, but London's one-great "Thunderer" does speak the mind of a potent section of British opinion. Its editorial was no more nor less than an extension of the point of view implicit in the Anglo-Russian pact which Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin arranged in 1941.

Foggy Future. British policy, said the Times, is motivated by the belief that the divided Continental nations can never be a match for Germany, especially if she manages to enlist the sympathy of Russia, the U.S., or Britain. The British answer: close cooperation between the same three powers "if an end is now to be made of the German menace and Europe is to be resettled on a lasting basis."

In this British view, Russia's military strength is a bulwark of European stability; Russia's part in the war gives her the right to boundary settlements consistent with Russian conceptions of national security.

Said the Times: "There can be no security in western Europe unless there is also security in eastern Europe, and security in eastern Europe is unattainable unless it is buttressed by the military power of Russia. . . . To suppose that Britain and the U.S. with the aid of some lesser European powers could maintain permanent security in Europe through a policy which alienated Russia and induced her to disinterest herself in Continental affairs would be sheer madness." This conception was a slap at the reported desire of the Vatican and of some circles in Washington to establish a buffer of anti-Russian states in Eastern Europe.

Cloudy Past. Reviewing the diplomatic failures which preceded World War II, the Times noted a parallel between American isolationism, Russia's withdrawal into nationalism and Britain's desire to be left alone. Basically. Britain had always relied on playing one European nation against another, a policy now "irrevocably destroyed by the inexorable march of military and economic developments toward larger and more complex forms of organization."

Said the Times: "Both Britain and America have paid dearly for past indulgence in ignorant and wishful thinking about Europe; and if Britain has paid for it more dearly than America--in the humiliation of prewar years and in the disasters of the war--this priority gives her both the duty and the right to speak out freely against the repetition of such errors."

The Times had spoken out freely. Its readers were bound to wonder whether Anthony Eden was speaking as freely and to the point in Washington this week.

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