The Time for Decision

THE measure of Sumner Welles, about whom so much speculation arose last year, is now available in Mr. Welles’s own words. His book, The Time for Decision, takes the reader behind the scenes of many of the events in which Mr. Welles played a notable part. Writing with an earnestness which manages to shine through the prolixity of his language, he is intent to inculcate in the American people an awareness of their responsibilities of world leadership.

Mr. Welles’s blueprint of a world order is founded on the Wilsonian concept of a “community of power" expressed in a world organization which shall operate at the bottom level in regional councils. There is enough moral underpinning in Mr. Welles’s “Grand Design" to enlist the American liberal. Surprisingly in a career diplomatist, Mr. Welles demands “the recognition by all nations of the inalienable rights of every people on earth to enjoy freedom of religion, of information, and of speech.” His other desideratum will not sit well with some of our allies. The basic principle must be established that “no nation has an interest or unlimited right to govern subject peoples.”

The memoirist in Mr. Welles is inhibited by his personal relations and his continuing career. This is most noticeable in the handling of the two high spots in his diplomatic life: his mission to Europe in 1940. and his work in helping to draft the Atlantic Charter. Mr. Welles’s trip to Europe was a mission of inquiry. But his record of his conversations, while frank in relation to Axis leaders, is meager in respect of Allied leaders.

Mr. Welles’s staunch defense of the Atlantic Charter is refreshing at a time when the British Prime Minister is putting a discount on ideology. Mr. Welles sees no discrepancy in a realistic reshaping of frontiers — notably Poland’s — provided the populations agree. In recounting the history of the document, Mr. Welles is skimpy. The President, it turns out, did not put the Charter over on the Prime Minister. Mr. Churchill himself suggested it, though the idea of the Charter had already taken shape in the President’s mind.

A significant entry concerns the famous Fourth Article. As at first drafted, this would have attached the Hull doctrine of equality in trade dealings to the banner of the brave new world. .Mr. Churchill objected, not on the grounds of personal opposition, but because he felt he could not commit the Dominions to a declaration which would have pronounced the death knell of the Ottawa preferences. Thus the Fourth Article included the reservation, with due regard for their existing obligations,” which virtually killed the pledge to end economic discrimination. However, it was fully understood, says Mr. Welles, “that this reservation was inserted solely to take care of what it was hoped would he merely temporary impediments to the more far-reaching commitment originally envisaged in that article.”

What Mr. Welles has to say about the Good Neighbor policy is of absorbing interest. No other American except the President himself has a higher standing below the Rio Grande. The chapters on the Americas open with an account of Mr. Welles’s expert job as Ambassador to Cuba; they wind up with the Rio Conference of 1942.

In order to win Argentina over, Mr. Welles, as head of the American delegation, felt impelled to agree to a watered-down anti-Axis declaration. Here he fell foul of Secretary Hull. Little of the inner history of this feud appears in Mr. Welles’s pages. Some who were present at Rio feel that, in the battle of wits over the declaration, Mr. Welles could easily have outmaneuvered the Argentines. Certainly it cannot be regarded as a triumph of our diplomacy always to give way to Argentine demands. Mr. Welles’s criticism of our non-recognition policy is, it seems to me, well taken. He pleads for acceptance of the Estrada doctrine of automatic recognition of any change of government in the Americas. Non-recognition as an end in itself is, as lie says, a foolish weapon, because it makes matters worse, as in Argentina.

It was to be expected that Mr. Welles would give full credit to Mr. Roosevelt, as a world statesman. But while he is a fervent admirer of the Chief Executive, he is no idolater. He thinks, for instance, that “no more cardinal error has been made by the Roosevelt administration than our course during the Spanish Civil War. But he muffles his pen over what seem to more objective observers equally egregious mistakes, such as the Presidential attitude toward the London Economic Conference of 1933, toward the neutrality legislation, toward stockpiling or the lack of it, and, of late, toward France. Mr. Welles pins an accolade on the President for such acts of brilliant improvisation as the dcstroyers-bases deal and the LendLease Act. The accolade is richly deserved. But the world statesmanship of Mr. Roosevelt still awaits the verdict of history. He still has to do his part in leading the country to the assumption of those responsibilities at which it balked after the last war. Harper, $3.00.

HERBERT B. ELLISTION