Feb. 27, 1947

On a quiet afternoon last week, 171 years after the American Colonies broke away from the Crown, the terrible responsibilities (and the equally awesome opportunities) of the British Empire were delivered to Washington, addressed to the American people, c/o George C. Marshall (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS). Secretary of State for only five weeks, Marshall had been cramming for the Moscow Conference on the German peace when the British note arrived and he learned that after March 31 Britain would be unable to continue help to Greece and Turkey. Marshall understood that that meant a great deal more than it said. If Britain could no longer hold (at a relatively small cost) the key position in both the European and Middle Eastern conflict with Russia, then Britain could hold no key positions. If Greece and Turkey went, Italy and France, India and Indonesia might all be lost in a chain reaction. One Senator who heard the news at the White House said: "It's the biggest thing since the declaration of war." Like the attack on Pearl Harbor, the British note only made concrete and inescapable a situation long apparent to those who looked hard enough. Like Pearl Harbor, it imposed upon the U.S. Government the duty of leading the nation and the world forward toward safety.

"We Are Losing Ground." The British note of Feb. 27, 1947 (a day that may live in history as the beginning of a new and more vigorous U.S. policy) did not find Marshall wholly unprepared. From the first he had regarded his mission to Moscow not merely as a diplomatic negotiation over Germany, but as part of a worldwide struggle in which the U.S. led the forces attempting to contain the aggressive drive of the Soviet Union.

A man who knows what has been going on in the State Department for the past month gave (just before the news broke) this analysis of the current position of the U.S. in world affairs:

"The Moscow meeting is not going to decide the peace of the world. The intensive briefing which Secretary Marshall is getting is merely intended to enable him to participate fully, for the first time, in the planning of diplomatic grand strategy. The Moscow meeting is only one episode in that strategy.

"Nothing could be more harmful today than to give the American people the impression that there is a German problem. There is no German problem. There is a Russian problem.

"What's happening is that, while we are preparing to go to Moscow to deal with one of our problems with the Russians, there continues to be what I call a war which is going on everywhere--in Greece, in France, in Korea and in many other places. In that war we are losing ground.

"There are still people who argue that the Communist Party in any country is not necessarily working exclusively for the Russians. Nothing is more silly than that. We are playing the Russian game when our press gives the impression that we ignore the Big War, and when we talk about 'negotiating' with the Russians. Our experience with them has proved by now that it is impossible to negotiate with them. It is either to yield to them or to tell them 'No.'"

This man (who is not George Marshall) was asked whether a firm stand against Russia might provoke renewed charges of "Western aggressive designs." He replied: "It won't change a damned thing. They are saying that anyhow. But it would help us to make people understand that we have to gather all our strength and resources for whatever is in store for us. Otherwise the Russians will continue to thrive on division. There is no country in the world where they have not attempted to exploit for their own benefit any political or economic confusion."

"Forget the British." In most regions of the world (except the Western Hemisphere, the Far East and Germany), the job of combatting the exploitation of confusion had fallen primarily upon Britain. That Britain could not carry this burden had been apparent for months to some Americans and some Britons. A little over a year ago the late Lord Keynes had lashed out at "Foreign Office frivolities," i.e., political commitments that Britain could no longer afford (TIME, Feb. 3). Last week Lord Halifax, speaking to the House of Lords on India (see FOREIGN NEWS), summed it up in a way that applied to many other British-dominated areas. Said he: "The British Government ... is in the most distasteful position ... in which its responsibility is greater than its power."

Yet only last December British diplomats were trying to discourage Greek Premier Tsaldaris from seeking help in Washington. Just as some U.S. leaders had not caught up with the implications of expanded U.S. responsibility, so some British officials had not caught up with the implications of contracted British power.

Others had. One outspoken Briton in Washington viewed with impatience the shock which followed London's note. He said: "You had your men in Greece. They have been sending you reports and figures. By now you should have made up your minds. When will you at last abandon your gabble about pulling British chestnuts out of the fire? To hell with the British. Forget the British. Can't you finally understand that this is your problem?"

The first step in the problem was how to keep Greece from going Communist. In immediate terms, that meant shoring up the stupid and reactionary Greek Government (TIME, Feb. 24) until a better, more democratic substitute could be found. Britain had poured over $250 million into Greece since Liberation. The money had gone to rebuild harbors, pay the Government's expenses and the maintenance of British forces. Since Britain could not pay, the U.S. must either do so or the Iron Curtain would be moved down to the Mediterranean.

If Greece fell, Turkey was outflanked.

For almost eight years, Turkey had kept an army of some 600,000 men on war footing at an average cost of $150 million a year. Only Britain's economic and political assistance had enabled the country to keep up its costly, nerve-racking resistance against Communist demands on the Dardanelles. With Britain unable to furnish assistance, Turkey would crack up under the cost of continued mobilization. The Russians could accomplish by mere threat of invasion all that they could hope to achieve by invasion. If Turkey and the Dardanelles went, the whole Middle East might slide into the Russian orbit.

"I Hate Failure." The U.S. would probably start by putting up $250,000,000 for Greece, an unspecified but probably smaller sum for Turkey. At some point it would have to help Italy, now on the verge of collapse. The occupation costs for Germany were a part of the same battle; if they were pared too far, misery and confusion in Germany would play into Russia's hands.

China was an even more urgent claimant for the attention of an invigorated U.S. foreign policy. Marshall himself had helped create the policy vacuum there by a stiff-necked insistence that the Nationalist Government must be purified before the U.S. would give it decisive help in putting down a Communist revolution. As a result, China was in crisis; its pro-U.S. Premier had resigned (see FOREIGN NEWS), and the U.S. State Department was about ready (privately) to admit that the U.S. could not wash its hands of China on the ground that some of its leaders were crooks.

When in China George Marshall had told a friend: "I hate failure." If he could not develop an active, progressive, effective and positive U.S. policy in China, in Europe, in South America, his name would be linked with one of the most colossal failures in history. Failure might take either of two forms: 1) the cynical assumption that any anti-Communist group, however corrupt or undemocratic, kept indefinitely on U.S. subsidy, would hold the line against Russian expansion; or 2) the holier-than-thou attitude that the U.S. could only associate itself with simon-pure, double-distilled democrats conforming to the strictest tenets of the Anglo-Saxon moral code. In practice, the path between those two pitfalls is narrow and difficult. In important political and moral questions, the path is usually difficult.

"He Wants to Operate Them." George Catlett Marshall is clearly a bigger man than his predecessor, Jimmy Byrnes. But is Marshall big enough for the gigantic task ahead of him?

He has many of the earmarks of real greatness. People who talk about "the small-bore military mind" are not talking about Marshall. He knows enough about war to know that it issues from and is conditioned by economics, politics and philosophy. His interest is as broad as the farthest ramifications of his job; his mind is restless, cautiously but persistently building hypotheses capable of bearing the weight of action.

He understands leadership, not as "follow me, boys" histrionics, but as the art of permeating large groups of men with a sense of mutual effort carefully directed toward specific goals. A military associate watching him feel his way around the administrative intricacies of the State Department reported: "The General seems delighted with the high quality of the personnel as individuals. But I think he feels that the various units lack sufficient experience in intensive joint maneuvers. He wants to operate them."

He handles the English language superbly, with a more or less unconscious flexibility, relapsing into a drawl when telling anecdotes, snapping back into crisp, rich expression to drive home a point.

He is humble. He has a good administrator's horror of drying up his subordinates' ideas by overbearing expression of his own views. He has a keen sense of hierarchy (i.e., what decisions should be made at what levels), but is dazzled by no rank, including his own. A classmate at Virginia Military Institute treasures a picture of Marshall as a cadet, ostentatiously displaying his corporal's chevrons (see cut). The classmate says Marshall "was prouder of his rank as corporal than of any honor he has won since."

At 66 Marshall still has the V.M.I. corporal's broad, convex, stubborn upper lip, the vigor, the resiliency, the ability to learn. His step is quick, almost panther-ish, his shoulders unmilitarily stooped. Both his appearance and his talk have an academic flavor, as if he had followed one of his heroes, Robert E. Lee, into semi-retirement as head of a college. Instead, George Marshall has to teach the world that the U.S. democracy can be relied upon for decent and decisive leadership.

"Don't Give Way." How much the world had to learn on that subject was made clear in various places last week as British, French and U.S. delegates prepared to leave for Moscow. One of the clearest demonstrations of imperfect confidence in the U.S. came from Paris. At an eleventh-hour session of the French Assembly, deputy after deputy rose to remind Foreign Minister Georges Bidault that France insisted upon a peace that would leave Germany impotent. From the rostrum, old Right-Winger Louis Marin, his wing collar jerking and-his mustache bristling, warned Foreign Minister Bidault: "Monsieur le Ministre, don't give way. If you give way, don't bother to come back!"

A Carthaginian peace for Germany made sense to nine Frenchmen out of ten, simply because they did not trust the United Nations or the United States or any other entity to protect them from the Germans. Yet the Germany France wanted would be so weak economically, so mangled territorially, that it would preclude Europe's reconstruction. In a highly useless sense, the French had been "right" not to trust the Germans after World War I. But France's insistence upon security based on her insecure mistrust of all other nations had helped pave the way for the debacle of 1940. The U.S. had offered the other Big Three a 25- or even 40-year iron-clad guarantee of German disarmament and control. Until Marshall could get the French to believe that offer meant what it said, France would not consent to a sane peace for Germany.

"Germany Is Starving." Ernest Bevin, dragging his vast, sick body Moscow-ward, planned to stop off at Dunkirk to sign with Bidault an Anglo-French alliance which would not add much to the security of either nation. Britain and the U.S. were not far apart in their attitude on the German peace terms. If the Russians continued to stall, the U.S. and British zones of Germany would be knit even more closely together.

As for Germany, another vitally interested party, its people were stirred out of almost complete political apathy by the Moscow Conference. They wanted a revision of the tentative award of 40,000 square miles of German territory to Poland and, more urgently, trade between the occupation zones.

Said a Ruhr coal miner, flexing his thinning muscles: "Where should we get the strength to mine more coal? They've given our breadbasket to Poland." In his now shabby office, a former I. G. Farben manager declared: "Germany is slowly starving, and it is illusory to discuss the situation on any other basis."

Drafting of a German treaty was highly unlikely. The dreariest argument in prospect was whether Germany should be a federalized union of self-governing states or a nation with a strong central government. The arguments would be legal and historical, but the real issue was political and strategic--the kind George Marshall understands well. The Russians opposed decentralization mainly because the most important section of Germany, the Ruhr, lies far to the West; if Germany should split, the Ruhr would not fall to Russia.

"I Have Met a Superman." Marshall had been briefed on the German problem by men who understood the relationship between treaty clauses, operative in the distant future, and immediate policy in & out of Germany. He understood that the peace terms were less urgent than adequate funds and vigorous U.S. support of the U.S.-British occupation.

At Marshall's invitation, owl-wise John Foster Dulles dropped in to emphasize the point that the U.S. must not adopt a piecemeal approach to the world's problems; all of them from France to Korea fitted a pattern. As Dulles was putting on his coat after the chat, Marshall without any preliminaries said: "I want you to go to Moscow with me." When Dulles hesitated, Marshall pressed him: "Senator Vandenberg wants you to go, too." Dulles finally accepted. Stalin, Molotov, Vishinsky & Co. would not be delighted at his presence; Pravda recently called him an arch-exploiter. But Dulles at Moscow would underline the fact that the U.S. was still unified in its foreign policy.

Systematically, Marshall picked Ben Cohen's deep but none too lucid brain, listened to separate, and probably contradictory, reports from the team of German experts, Riddleberger & Kindleberger (James W., Chief, Division of Central European Affairs; Charles P., Chief, Division of German & Austrian Economic Affairs). The Secretary called for maps, charts and graphs; he wanted "presentations" in the good old Pentagon Building style. (He even selected his wardrobe, including his flying jacket and long woolen underwear, after having a table drawn up of Moscow spring temperatures.) At the end of the month of preparation his new subordinates were sunk in fatigue and admiration. "At last," sighed one, "I have met a superman."

"Man Is Born to Act." How super was he? Since becoming Secretary of State, Marshall has made one speech, a Washington's Birthday address at Princeton University; it left wide-open the question of his stature in his new job. He passed on a wholesome reminder that "peace is yet to be secured." In a pungent passage (which might be applied critically to the U.S. hands-off policy in China) he deplored the spectator attitude of many Americans. He quoted Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: "Man is born to act. To act is to affirm the worth of an end, and to affirm the worth of an end is to create an ideal." And Marshall added: "So I say to you as earnestly as I can that the attitude of the spectator is the culminating frustration of man's nature."

Marshall applied this warning to the U.S. public today, noting "a natural tendency to relax and to return to business as usual, politics as usual, pleasure as usual. Many of our people have become indifferent to what I might term the long-term dangers to the nation's security."

Had the people, in fact, become indifferent? Signs pointed to a contrary conclusion. One sign was the active and widespread confidence in and support of Secretary George Marshall. Another was the Gallup poll which showed only 5% of the opinion that the U.S. went too far in opposing Russian aims.

What did Marshall expect the people to do? In the field of foreign policy they seemed to be rising to every clear appeal their leaders made. George Marshall's prestige with Congress and the people was probably higher than that of any living American. If he used that prestige boldly to ask support for a bold foreign policy, the people would probably back him to the limit. If they did not, George Marshall, facing the greatest responsibilities of any U.S. Secretary of State, would then--and not till then--be entitled to complain of public indifference. Meanwhile, the people would look to Marshall, the statesman, for the vigorous leadership Marshall, the soldier, had given them.

In the same speech at Princeton, Marshall said: "I doubt seriously whether a man can think with full wisdom and with deep conviction regarding certain of the basic international issues today who has not at least reviewed in his mind the period of the Peloponnesian War and the fall of Athens."

Athenian democracy had been exhausted in the struggle with the hard and sterile tyranny of Sparta. One lesson rose from the ruin of Athens: democracies need leaders who, trusting the people, have the courage to tell them what they must sacrifice to remain free. Secretary Marshall has never made a major speech on foreign policy. His fellow citizens, far from indifferent to his views, would listen avidly to what he had to say about their responsibilities in the light of the U.S.'s newly emphasized world leadership.

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