Turning Inward?

That word again. Isolationism. Speaking at N.Y.U. last week, Lyndon Johnson denounced a "new coalition of isolationists, conservatives and liberals, who seek to diminish America's role in the world--for entirely different reasons." At another point he said: "We cannot just get up and go home. Telling a man to go to hell and making him go there are two different propositions."

Quite a few Americans these days seem inclined to tell the rest of the world to go to hell. It is not isolationism in the old sense, but rather a turning inward to urgent domestic concerns, a somewhat naive disillusionment over the fact that America is neither omnipotent nor universally loved, and a confusion about just what the U.S. role in the world henceforth should be. On Capitol Hill, Administration operatives were still fighting last week to revive the foreign aid bill, which had been killed by the Senate. They achieved partial success when Congress agreed to extend aid until Dec. 8. But then the Senate upset the White House all over again when the Appropriations Committee adopted an amendment requiring the withdrawal of 60,000 troops from Europe by next June. That would reduce U.S. forces in NATO by one-fifth.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield has favored even greater reductions, but he sounded a monitory note. "Notwithstanding the diminution of the U.S. military presence abroad," he said, "the U.S. is not about to disappear from the international scene. This nation's weight is immense and it will continue to be felt in many ways and in many places." It was a timely reminder.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.