The Great Tempest

A great storm arose over the Atlantic last week and the waves were ink black with controversy. In the midst of it, Britain and the U.S. uncovered depths of incompatibility that had often been charted without ever being plumbed. Onlookers were reminded of Joseph Stalin's prediction that the capitalist alliance would inevitably fall apart, and at Panmunjom, Communist truce negotiators profited.

It was Sir Winston Churchill, the Briton most admired by Americans, who brewed the Great Tempest. His demand for a sovereign conference of the world's leading powers (TIME, May 18) had fired his countrymen's imaginations, and in domestic terms at least, it was well timed to appeal to coronation-time sentiments about a second Elizabethan Age. Behind well-phrased compliments, Churchill had adroitly sniped at the U.S., berated the truce negotiators for dillydallying, taunted Washington for its unwillingness to meet the Russians face to face. He was on popular ground and he knew it, for Britons are fed up with playing second fiddle to the U.S.--in world affairs. Said a Tory M.P.: "What appealed to us all in the Prime Minister's speech was the thought that at last we are to have a British policy." Words of No Offense. After the first flushes of British nationalism came colder second thoughts. "Magnificent," said the Economist of the speech, "but was it policy?" Tories--who seemed to respond happily only to Churchill's truculence over Egypt and not to his soft hints to Moscow--reminded their friends that Sir Winston, at 78, is determined to be known to history as Winston the Peacemaker, as well as Winston the Warrior. The old man, they say, is consumed with curiosity and eager to cross swords with "the new boy in the Kremlin" like Franklin D. Roosevelt, he is convinced that his personal authority is enough to overawe the inscrutable Russians.

The Labor Opposition was delighted.

"A great speech, a massive speech," said weepy old Manny Shinwell. "The Tories didn't like it a bit." The Bevanites quoted Churchill as authority for the view that peace is at hand, harped on their favorite theme that the U.S. is chiefly responsible for keeping the world at war.

On the second day of debate, ex-Prime Minister Clement Attlee, the man who sent the vanguard of the British Commonwealth Division to Korea in 1950, quietly announced that he had a few words to say about the U.S. Obviously he could not let Churchill monopolize so popular a cause. "I hope they will cause no offense," he said. "I merely want to state some facts." Attlee, who once taught history and law at London University, can state facts in the manner of Mr. Squeers informing one of Nicholas Nickleby's pupils that a thrashing will hurt you more than it does me. His "words of no offense" transformed Churchill's thunderclap into a transatlantic whirlwind.

Facts to Face. "One of the facts of the world situation is that the American Constitution was framed for an isolationist state . . . I do not think that situation is particularly well suited to a time when America has become the strongest state in the world." Attlee argued that "the American Government [is] not really master in [its] own house . . . It is sometimes hard to find where effective power lies. One sometimes wonders who is more powerful, the President or Senator McCarthy."

Because of this, Attlee said professorially, it would be difficult for President

Eisenhower to attend an international conference with "full authority." He might "be thrown over, as President Wilson was after Versailles." Korea was another example. "All my information is, though I may be wrong, that the Chinese want a settlement. I believe that the U.S. Administration wants a settlement. But there are elements in the U.S. that do not want a settlement. There are people who want an all-out war with China, and against Communism in general, and there is the strong influence of the Chiang Kai-shek lobby. It is just as well to face that fact." Attlee saw little chance of a peace in the Far East until Red China is in the U.N. Peking, he said, "is evolving as a pretty effective power. She is entitled to be one of the Big Five, and I do not think that her place should be denied her."

Winston Churchill interrupted: "Not while the fighting is going on." Attlee said: "No, soon after the armistice," and Churchill subsided. "Gift to Communism." Through most of the rest of Attlee's speech, Churchill nodded and grunted approval. So did most of the House. The violence of Senator McCarthy's subsequent response to- Attlee's inept remarks (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS) only seemed to confirm the British --at least the left-wing British--in their worst suspicions of the U.S. Tom O'Brien, president of 8,000,000 British trade unionists and capable of violent utterance too, called the Wisconsin Senator "a greater gift to Communism than Judas Iscariot was to the Pharisees." In the welter of angry words, Churchill's call for a big-power conference got half lost--his frank appeal for a return to Britain's ancient and discredited balance-of-power approach to Europe got less discussion than it deserved. Paris approved the idea of a parley at the summit, providing of course that the French were invited (as Churchill had carefully not said they would be); Pope Pius hoped for "frank and loyal discussions." Germany's Konrad Adenauer and Italy's Alcide de Gasperi were less enthusiastic.

Both seemed to feel, as Washington did, that Churchill had embarrassed the west by proposing a parley at a time when delicate issues--the European army, truce talks in Korea--hang in the balance. By advertising Anglo-American differences and creating a few new ones, Churchill and Attlee had pinpointed areas of friction which the Reds could best exploit. Before sitting down with the Russians, there seemed to be good reason for the British and Americans to sit down with each other.

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