Duty Done

The first duty of Republican leaders of House and Senate last week was to go over to the White House, at the President's invitation, to hear Mr. Truman inform them (and their Democratic colleagues) that he was planning to proclaim a national emergency, and to tell them why. For the first time in a long while, the invitation included Robert Taft. It marked the beginning of White House overtures to the man who will probably take over leadership of G.O.P. foreign policy from ailing Arthur Vandenberg.

The members of Congress, 18 of them in all, marched into the presence of the President and Secretaries Marshall and Acheson. Nebraska's Wherry greeted Acheson with a hearty, "You are looking square at your opposition." Acheson colored, and some of Wherry's colleagues squirmed. "I mean your constructive opposition," Wherry hawed.

The President and his two Cabinet officers outlined the shape of the crisis. Taft and his colleagues promised to support any military preparations that the Administration proposed. But why a national emergency? What executive powers were needed that the Administration did not possess already? Taft wanted to know.

Leaving the conference, Taft read to newsmen a scribbled statement which gave qualified Republican approval to Administration plans. Then, remarking that he had to catch a plane, he strode out of the White House and plumped down in a G.O.P. limousine, waited impatiently while other Republicans posed for newsreel cameras. After a few minutes, Taft spotted Alben Barkley getting into the vice-presidential limousine and asked him for a lift. Barkley grinned and nodded. Taft leaped in beside him and rode back to Capitol Hill.

"Our Fullest Cooperation." Taft and his Republicans still had another job ahead: to frame a demand that the Secretary of State be sacked. New York's Irving Ives had already drawn an Acheson-must-go ultimatum (TIME, Dec. 18). Other Republicans wanted something which sounded less like an ultimatum but was still strong enough to express their opinion of Dean Acheson as the No. 1 framer of U.S. foreign policy. A few wanted to forget the whole business. The G.O.P. Senators were still arguing when Congressman Joe Martin brought in news that forced them to a decision: he gave the Senators a resolution which had just won the overwhelming approval of House Republicans.

The Martin resolution said in part: "It is completely obvious that Secretary Acheson and the State Department . . . have lost the confidence of the American people and cannot regain it"; therefore Acheson should be "replaced" and the State Department given a "thorough house-cleaning." Jarred by the action of the House Republicans, but aware that they would be accused of spreading disunity in an hour of crisis, the Senate Republicans added a paragraph pledging "our fullest cooperation with Mr. Truman." Then, by a vote of 23 to 5,* the G.O.P. Senators approved the document.

The Symbolic Role. Seldom had a Secretary of State been so spectacularly denounced by the minority party./- The Republican action served notice to the world that the U.S. Secretary of State no longer spoke for a large segment of Congress or of the nation. Its effect, as many signers agreed, was that his prestige abroad was seriously damaged at a critical moment in diplomatic affairs. This week, dragging the G.O.P.'s clattering repudiation behind him, Acheson flew off to the Brussels conference aboard Truman's personal plane, the Independence. Alben Barkley and George Marshall were on hand to see him off, and Harry Truman sent word that Acheson has "my complete confidence."

Had the Republicans considered the consequences of their denunciation? The answer was that they had. A few hotheads had solved their problem on a "to hell with it" basis. Others had decided that as long as Acheson must go, it might as well be now as ever; the U.S. was obviously going to go from one crisis to another for as long as man could look ahead. The U.S. people, New York's Irving Ives was convinced, were fed up with Acheson. "It all stems from the tragic mistakes made in Asia. Acheson is not entirely responsible for what happened. But he has acquired a symbolic role. It's probably unfair to him in some ways."

The Republican majority in Congress had made its position clear. But not all Republicans applauded. The Scripps-Howard New York World-Telegram and Sun, long a trenchant critic of Acheson's Asiatic policy, objected: "The Republican caucuses give the impression that our country is divided. As a matter of fact, on matters important, our country is united. Our country is more important than the Administration's face, or Mr. Acheson's face, or the Republican Party's face . . . We're dealing now in terms of blood & iron."

*The five: Vermont's Aiken, North Dakota's Langer, Oregon's Morse, Maine's Mrs. Smith and New Jersey's Alexander Smith. Five others abstained from voting; ten were absent.

/-At midpoint in the Civil War, some of Abraham Lincoln's fellow Republicans wanted him to dump Secretary of State Seward, as the "unseen hand" and "evil genius" who would not press for the immediate abolition of slavery. The dissidents, all congressional extremists, met secretly so as not to broadcast their lack of confidence in the Government at a perilous moment. Lincoln found out about the plot, maneuvered the extremists into backing down.

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