How Safe?

Ailing Ernest Bevin set off on the Queen Mary last week to be present in Washington at the solemn signing of the North Atlantic pact. Before he left Britain, speaking in the House of Commons, Bevin reviewed the position of the Western community in its struggle with world Communism. His incautious conclusion: in Western Europe, at least, the cold war has been won.

Said Bevin: "It has been suggested to us that we have been losing this cold war . . . that time is running out, that we have been beaten back . . . Just over two years ago when the cold war really began to get hot, it looked as if Russia would succeed in forcing us back in Germany. It looked as if Italy would be completely disrupted. In France, facing the tremendous strikes and maneuvers of the Communist Party, it looked as if the government might fall and chaos might ensue. The real purpose behind it all was to drive a wedge between Western Europe and the Western world and to create a situation where the West could never unite . . ."

But, said Bevin, things have turned out differently.

P: "Western Germany, with the majority of the population, is saved. I do not believe they will ever go Communist now. P: "France has got over the disruption. Her economy is well on the way to restoration. P: "Italy has been saved. [She] has overcome the strikes. She has produced a very firm government . . ."

Bevin was justified in calling attention to the achievement of the past two years, but the picture he drew was both exaggerated and incomplete. In Germany the Western nations had blocked open Communist thrusts, but they had not even begun to build a firm structure to withstand future Communist efforts (see FOREIGN NEWS). Progress in Italy and France had been marked; but neither nation was out of the woods, politically or economically.

The same two years which had seen gains in Europe had brought catastrophic losses in Asia. Worse, the West had no apparent immediate plans for recouping or even halting the Asiatic damage.

All that had been proved in the last two years was that where the anti-Communist forces took a joint, positive line, they could make headway against Communism. Where they did not take such a line, the Communists made headway against them. Western Europe was, in fact, the only area of substantial anti-Communist progress.

Elsewhere last week there were signs (see below) that the Kremlin, acting on the experience of the last two years, was probing at weak spots where Western strength could not easily be brought to bear.

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