Foreign Affairs Now and Then

MR. ELLIOTT ROOSEVELT’S memory may have been good or bad, his notes adequate or trivial. Plainly his book As He Saw It (Duell, Sloan and Pearce, $3.00) is not that of a trained, responsible observer or reporter. It is obviously indiscreet and in dubious taste. Its appeal lies in its “inside” quality — the allusions to Churchill’s intemperance and Stalin’s terrible jocosities, the author’s quotations of his father’s confidential comments, the not very happy atmosphere of keyhole reporting.

The “serious importance” of Elliott Roosevelt’s book is in the charges contained in his Introduction and Conclusion. In the former he writes: —

I shared his [F.D.R.’s] most intimate thoughts and listened to his most cherished aspirations for the world of peace to follow our military victory. I knew what conditions he predicated for the structure of world peace; I knew what aonversations led to them; I knew of the bargains and the promises.

And I have seen the promises violated, and the conditions summarily and cynically disregarded, and the structure of peace disavowed. , . .

Franklin Roosevelt was the wartime architect of the unity of the United Nations . . . [his] ideals and statesmanship would have been sufficient to keep that unity a vital entity during the postwar period . . . the path he eharted has been most grievously — and deliberately — forsaken.

In his Conclusion, he charges that the sabotage of Franklin Roosevelt’s program for peace was the work of “a small group of willful men in London and Washington.” More specifically he says: —

I am thinking of the career men in the State Department whom Father never trusted, including certain men often mistakenly referred to as our “experts” on foreign affairs. I am thinking of the reactionaries of both major parties in Congress. ... I am thinking of our guardians of the “free press.” . . . And I am thinking, too, of the men who have shrunk our foreign policy down to the size of the atom bomb, the Army officers who — considering apparently only their professional futures — are prepared out-of-hand to condemn civilization to a heap of rubble.

These charges, immensely important if true, do indeed merit serious consideration. They are backed by no evidence, specific or general, no documentation, no revelations, eit her personal or official. They represent no more than an opinion, passionately held. But the charges are so ugly, involving as they do, deliberate treachery on the part of F.D.R.’s own party, of his own appointees and liegemen, as well as betrayal by sinister career diplomats, soldiers, and Congressmen, and, of course, by big business men working diabolically behind the scene, that they should not be accepted without sharp question and analysis.

Undoubtedly the majority of Americans approved President Roosevelt’s foreign policy and his program for a post-war world. He earnestly desired anil successfully strove for a wholehearted cooperation between Soviet Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom in the prosecution of the war. And he held it essential that such loyal team play should continue between these powers, in the structure of the United Nations, if peace were to be achieved and maintained. Over a year has passed since V-J Day; that loyal cooperation is a wreck and a ruin, and ihc people of the world, their best hopes deceived, face the chaotic present and the dreadful future with doubt or despair in their hearts.

So much, few will deny. Does it follow, as Elliott Roosevelt charges, that the collapse and destruction of his father’s policies are due to willful sabotage by forces in or behind the American government? I see nothing in his book or in the public record to substantiate such an accusation. On t he other hand, evidence accumulates that the present unhappy situation is due to a combination of three elements: Russian suspicions and ambitions, British Imperial backings and fillings, and American ineptitude. Our “statesmen ” have not denied or betrayed Mr. Roosevelt’s policies. They have simply been incapable of implementing them. At a period which cried aloud for the most competent and careful professional skill in the conduct of our foreign relations, we have seen them fumbled and kicked around by four Senators — amateurs all — former Senator Truman, former Senator Byrnes, and Senators Vandenberg and Connally. The result is deplorable, but it is not, as Elliott Roosevelt charges, treachery.

It is almost a fixed idea in this country that the professional, the thoroughly trained specialist, is ipsofacto suspect, in a democracy where one man is as good as another, or says he is, the average ignoramus fears and resents superior training and accomplishment. This attitude is not consistently maintained. We prefer to have a tooth pulled by a qualified dentist rather than by an itinerant harvest hand. But certain professions in which a lifetime of specialized training is not too much, w’e regard as open fields for enthusiastic amateurs.

Particularly the field of diplomacy has been regarded as an excellent arena in which a former mort ician or cattle breeder, now a Congressman or Senator, may display his God-given talents to the dismay of the effete diplomats of Europe and the delight of the people at home, it AVOLIIII be hard to conceive of a more tragic error. Resolved to its essentials, the business of diplomacy consists in im piemen tmg the practical working out of a poliev or program dealing with foreign nations. For any contracts approaching similar complexity in domestic affairs we would employ the services of the most skilled and experienced lawyers in that particular special! v.

In foreign affairs, one would naturally assume that we would call on the services of our trained and experienced personnel, on men who had devoted their lives to the study and practice of contractual and other relations between sovereign powers. It could hardly have been believed that any administration could enter the immensely complicated field of treatymaking after a global dismemberment such as that of World War II with only a vague, genial theory as a policy, with inadequate preparation, and lacking a clear-cut, definitive, and detailed plan for everv major issue. It is even more inconceivable that the conduct of these negotiations should have been entrusted to men whose experience was limited to the consideration of domestic issues wfith an eve alwavs cocked for the reaction of the American voter.

No one can read Mr. Sumner Welles’s profoundly impressive arraignment of our foreign relations, Where Are We Heading? (Harper, $3.00), without admitting the woeful failure of improvised, empirical diplomacy. One may admire or dislike Air. Welles, approve or oppose his theories of high policy; but no fair-minded man will deny his competency in his profession. We may, at this date, admit the justice of his charges that our treaty-makers approached their immensely difficult problems unprepared, unsure, inexperienced. Furthermore, this reviewer, at least, discounts altogether the cheap retort discourteous that Mr. Welles’s criticisms of men and maneuvers are based on pique or personal chagrin because he was shelved, elbowed out of the picture at a most crucial moment in his own career and in American history. His is the wrath of a trained intelligence which is forced to observe great affairs handled with amateurish trial and error.

In his book, certainly one of the most forceful, hard-hitting documents ever written by an American public servant, Mr. Welles fights with bare knuckles and pulls no punches. He delivers his opinions in phrases, sentences, and paragraphs which have an eighteenth-century roundness and finality, which remind one of the inevitable, comprehensive annihilation of an opponent as practiced by Gibbon or Samuel Johnson. Of the Security Council, he writes: —

To any impartial observer the contrast between the hopes and anticipation, and the reality, was shocking. . . .

The American delegate, Mr. Edward Stettinius, had scarcely demonstrated during his brief career as Secretary of State any of the qualifications required in the position to which he had now been appointed. Of his good intentions there could be no question. Of his wholehearted desire to bend his every effort toward making the Security Council a success there could likewise be no doubt. But, devoid of any knowledge of international relations or even of modern history and lacking the personal qualifications desirable in so high an office, Mr. Stettinius, it was painfully evident from the outset, could play only a meager part.

Of the Americans at Potsdam he says: —

This meeting was held as scheduled in the latter part of July of 1945. It was attended on behalf of the United States by both President Truman and his newly appointed Secretary of State, James F. Byrnes. Neither of these two new directors of American foreign policy possessed the slightest knowledge of international relations. It is no disparagement of President Truman to state that he had neither the familiarity with modern history, the grasp of international affairs, nor the innate flair for foreign relations possessed by his predecessor. Nor did Secretary Byrnes display any of these qualities. . . . good intentions and sincerity under such conditions cannot be sufficient. The stark truth is that the United States was placed at a tragic disadvantage.

At London: —

Mr. Byrnes, who assumed the Secretaryship of State in one of the most critical moments of world history, had only the most tenuous comprehension of the currents and crosscurrents of international affairs.

At Moscow: —

With regard to the Balkan peace treaties, the United States flagrantly reversed the position that she had taken at London. She agreed to the exclusion of France from the negotiation of those treaties. What was far worse, she agreed to recognize the Soviet-installed governments of Rumania and Bulgaria provided those governments took in two representatives of “democratic parties not hitherto participating in them.” Such a face-saving device was counter to the spirit and to the letter of the Yalta agreements. Its acceptance by the United States constituted a cowardly retreat from the position for which Franklin Roosevelt had stood inflexibly at Teheran and at Yalta in behalf of the creation of freely elected and representative governments throughout Europe as an essential safeguard for future peace.

These criticisms are largely concerned with the inadequacy of individuals. There is no flat statement here that the principles announced by President Roosevelt were willfully denied; there is the definite assertion that they were jettisoned through weakness or incompetence.

For President Roosevelt’s wisdom at the point where high policy and military strategy meet, Mr. Welles has the deepest respect. He thoroughly endorses the principles of cooperation in the post-war world which the President outlined at Yalta. “ But,” he warns, “a policy declaration, such as that made at Yalta, unless it is supplemented by agreements of the most detailed character, meticulously phrased, and implemented in every point, is not in itself sufficient to bring about practical results. It cannot too often be emphasized that the mere announcement to the peoples of the world of desirable objectives does not advance them along the road which leads to those objectives.”

The tragedy of recent American diplomacy, he says, lies both in the failure to carry out a policy and in the abandonment of principles.

It is with a certain escapist relief that one turns from Mr. Welles’s jeremiads to a lucid historical review of another crisis in world affairs and of diplomacy as practiced 130 years ago. In the Introduction to The Congress of Vienna: A Study in Allied Unity (Harcourt, Brace, $4.00), Mr. Harold Nicolson — well known both as a diplomat and as a delightful essayist and historian — warns the reader: “The analogies between the events described in this volume and those which we are now experiencing are so frequent that they may mislead. . . . Events are not affected by analogies; they are determined by the combinations of circumstance.” Nevertheless, to most laymen the similarities between the conditions faced by statesmen after the defeat of Napoleon and the dissolution of the French Empire, and those following World War II, are so striking that their study presents a fascinating field for speculation.

The likeness between Napoleon and Hitler has been noted often. The chaos which followed the continental — almost the global — wars of the Napoleonic period has its enlarged counterpart today. And the intrusion of Russia on a grand scale in the European equilibrium was as disturbing then as now. To settle and bring order out of this chaos, the statesmen of Europe met and deliberated at Vienna and labored to create a stable order for the future. The outstanding personalities in the Congress were the spokesmen for the great powers—the unstable autocrat, Alexander of Russia, Metternich of Austria, Talleyrand of France, and Castlereagh representing Great Britain. Although each of these men upheld definite policies and principles, often considerably at variance, the Congress of Vienna was more than the scene of a conflict of ideas; it was also the stage for a conflict of personalities — among them some of the most powerful, intelligent, and, perhaps, unscrupulous of their time.

It became the fashion in later years to belittle the achievements of the Congress of Vienna, to regard with pious horror the casual, horse-trading methods of treating conquered minorities and other helpless and hapless political units, to lament the lack of moral principle governing the public and private conduct of the statesmen of Europe. It is true that by modern standards these statesmen treated ethnic groups as little more than pawns in their game, although the Congress did, for the first time in history, attempt a census and a survey of the peoples of Europe; and it is also true that the chief actors were men whom it would be possible to characterize as scoundrels.

Talleyrand, the brilliant opportunist who turned Ins coat and his creed and lus allegiance whenever the turning was good; Metternieh, who allowed no niceties of honor to interfere with his lifelong pursuit of a Balance of Power; the imperturbable Castlereagh, with his stubborn insistence on the vital interests of his country’s sea power and a peaceful Europe these men represented perhaps the conflict between patriotism and personal uprightness which old Sir Henry Wot ton had in mind when hi; defined an ambassador as “an honest man sent to lie abroad for the commonwealth.”

Yet, between them and in spite of everything, they accomplished a task which we are slowly learning to regard in its true proportion as little short of stupendous. With all its faults, the order they created endured for a hundred years. There were minor, one-campaign wars, but no general involvement, no overturning of the Continental order, between 1815 and 1914.

To us, in this advanced age with its accelerated approach to suicide, that seems a strangely long period of peace and calm. They did create a world in which one could travel from one end to the other without a passport or other papers, without apprehension even of delays — surely a curious world by the standards of today. This peace was the work of experienced diplomats. Alexander was the irresponsible amateur, and there was always danger that his uncontrolled vagaries, however benevolent, might wreck the whole creation. The Congress of Vienna was the greatest laboratory experiment in the usefulness of “career men.”

Mr. Nicolson tells the story, both of the events preceding the Congress and the course of its deliberation, with insight, clarity, a restrained humor, and a very pleasant style. His sense of the dramatic is under complete control. His reticence on the subject of historical analogies is nicely contrived to stimulate the reader’s imagination. And his understanding of the characters on his scene transforms them from historical cardboard figures into credible men and women. His book should be required reading for all commentators on foreign affairs, for all students of diplomatic history—for all men, in fact, who are willing to learn, from experience of the past, lessons which apply most urgently today.

JANE COBB and HELEN DORE BOYLSTON

In November we reported on 140 late spring and early fall juveniles — and were profoundly depressed. The books seemed, on the whole, dull, patronizing, and overinstructive, with very little recognition of the child’s longing for action in Ids stories, or his righi to be amused. Since then we have read 115 books from the late fall list, and have found the experience much happier.

We are glad to report that 35 books were outstanding, and skillfully designed to hold the child’s interest. There were, of course, plenty of books ex machina, more stories of long ago than of todav, and an excess of books with their emphasis on an elaborate foreign background instead of on a warm, human story — always for six to nine year olds!

Marta the Doll, by Eloise Lownsbery, is a happy and notable exception to this last complaint. It is a truly warm and human story, tenderly written, about a little Polish girl and her first; doll. The plot is brisk and dramatic, and the background of Polish farm life is charming and unforced, with a lovely quality of kindliness. The patriotic note is struck rather more constantly than seems necessary in a book for children of this age group, but the story has so much appeal that the somber undertone cannot detract from it.

An exceptional book for this age is Miss Hickory, by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey. Miss Hickory is a doll made from an apple twig and a hickory nut. Her owners move to Boston, leaving her to shift for herself through the long New Hampshire winter. How she managed, what she ate and wore, the highly individual character of her friends, and the Christmas miracle in the barn, are a skillful blending of fact, fantasy, and woodsy detail told in prose as clear and delicate as an etching. The ending is original and entirely unexpected.

In Blue Ridge Billy, by Lois Lenski, we have a splendid bit of Americana. This is a regional story, with customs, manners, speech, and the Blue Ridge Mountains deftly interwoven with the plot. It has adventure, a stilt, a tough father, a happy ending, and music. The music is a vital part of the story, and Miss Lenski has a fine collection of hillbilly ballads. It is a pity that the music couldn’t have been included. Miss Lenski has written other regional stories and every child should have them.

The Monkey with a Notion, by Glenn O. Blough, is another good one. Any child will love this story of a pet shop, its irritable owner, and the pets themselves, whom she could not bear to sell. The plot includes a small boy, a policeman, and a fire.

Animals, of course, always have appeal. Shooting Star Farm, by Anne Molloy, and Some-thing Always Happens, by Mary Graham Bonner, have very satisfying animals. Shooting Star Farm is a lighthearted story, mostly about horses, bul also about a nervous grandmother, little girls, a mean man, and an exceedingly entertaining and thoroughly maddening pair of twins, who hate fresh air and talk a private language which nobody else understands. The hero of Something Always Happens is a fabulously lucky little boy who is given two bear cubs. This statement, plus the title, is all that need be said.

There was some nonfiction, too. We liked Big Tree, by Mary and Conrad Buff. Without undue personalization the Buffs have made their account of a giant sequoia and its centuries of life not only interesting, but very dramatic. The illustrations are beautiful.

South American Zoo, by Victor von Hagen, is a simple, clear account of South American fauna, their habits and customs and why. There are about three pages to each specimen, all carefully and strikingly illustrated.

And speaking of illustrations, Grosset and Dunlap should be congratulated on their superb “Illustrated Junior Library.” Robinson Crusoe, The Arabian Nights, Pinocchio, and Tom Sawyer are all fascinatingly illustrated, and look sturdy enough to stand the beating they will undoubtedly get. There is also a complete Alice with drawings by Tenniel, as they should be, though some of them have been colored with faint pastels to brighten them up — if they need brightening!

Another good religious book has turned up, too — God’s First Children, a retelling of Old Testament stories translated from the Swedish by Esther Salminen, and with lovely, imaginative pictures. The book is clearly and tranquilly written, with direct quotes from Bible verses and psalms, which give the book dignity without detracting from its simplicity.

The ten-year-olds and teen-agers are lucky this time. There are school stories, Boy Scout stories, adventure, biography, and a particularly fine Western.

A Date for Diane, by Elizabeth Headley, gets firsl place as a school story, ll is written with skill, sympathy, and an abundant humor which laughs with, but never at, the fourteen-year-olds. And it’s all there the anxiety about the first dale, the frenzies about clothes, the interminable telephone conversations, the picnics that go haywire, the inexplicable reaction of parents to lipstick and low-cut evening dresses, and the desperately important school activities, all presented from the serious point of view of fourteen. There is no caricaturing of the young in this book, no visible preaching, no patronage. These wholesome, normal kids feel as fourteen has always felt, and always will feel. And ihe boy question is handled wisely and with great understanding. The ending, in which Diane is taken to a junior dance by a “sophisticated older man” of nineteen, is, quite by itself, a very good thing for any youngster to read.

Mountain Pony, by Henry Larom, is a splendid story of a boy in the Wyoming Rockies, and believe it or not, the scene is Wyoming today, with a new kind of rustler—the game rustler — who carries his booty away by airplane. And the young hero’s uncle is game warden! Furthermore, the local color is not vaguely Western, but clearly and crisply Wyoming. We hope Mr. Larom will give us more Americana.

Black Sheep Patrol, by Stanley Pashko, will appeal to every boy, Scout or not. There are fires, rescues, detective work, rivalry with a neighboring Scout Troop — everything, in fact that a boy yearns to be mixed up in.

The Angry Planet, by John Keir Cross, really had us going. We were spellbound. It’s a modern Jules Verne story, involving three children and two scientists and a rocket ship, outward bound for Mars. They were three weeks on the way, and what happened on that peculiar planet after their arrival has us convinced that either Mr. Cross has one of the most inventive minds of this generation, or else he has been there himself. Read it and see; you can give it to the children afterward.

The Wonderful Year, by Nancy Barnes, won a prize, and deserved it. She has written a good, sound book for girls, combining the exigencies of life on a Colorado fruit ranch with the exigencies of beginning adolescence. It’s a story of growing up, well and understanding^ done, with no dull moments and with really delightful humor.

The Hidden Treasure of Glaston, by Eleanore M. Jewett, is a story of the twelfth century, and of lame, thirteon-year-old Hugh, left at the monastery of Glaston by bis father, who is fleeing the country, suspected of conniving at the murder of Thomas a Becket. There are knights, intrigues, miracles, hidden treasure, the Holy Grail, and a great deal of history made very real. The manners and customs of the time will be absorbed happily and painlessly by young readers of either sex.

Christinas Tales for Reading Aloud, compiled by Robert Lohan, should make everybody happy, young or old. It is a collection of 52 Christinas stories by notable writers. The stories are short, and have been chosen, as the title points out, for their suitability for reading aloud. They are vivid, colorful, and fast paced. It is unnecessary to mention their artistic merit.

Among the books for children, we were greatly encouraged to receive several dealing with race problems. Paul Robeson, Citizen of the World, is a biography of the great singer, by Shirley Graham. Miss Graham errs, along with most writers of juvenile biographies, in praising her subject too fulsomely. Robeson’s life speaks for itself. It doesn’t need double bowknots of laurel.

Tradition, by Anne Emery, is a high school story of two young Japanese-Americans in a study small-town school, and of their struggle to win acceptance by their contemporaries.

Bright April, by Marguerite de Angeli, is for the six-to-niners — the charming story of a little colored girl and her Brownie Scout Troop.

But the prize package of the lot is Florence Crannell Means’sGreat Day in the Morning — an extraordinary, beautifully written novel of a young colored girl in high school and later at Tuskegee. Lilv Belle is attractive, intelligent, amusing, and beset with problems of boys, clothes, career, and a too pretty roommate. Life at Tuskegee and the portrait of Dr. Carver are done with warmth and skill, and Lily Belle’s similarity to any witty white girl should do more to promote understanding between the two races than any amount of sermonizing.

Of all the juveniles, however, the merriest are those put out for the very young indeed. It is really unfair to select only a few for review, since nearly all of them are excellent, and it is haul for the adult to go wrong if he consults his own taste and buys something he can stand rereading. So we are recommending those which went over the biggest with our own two guinea pigs, aged two and four.

Baby’s Treasure Book of Words, with pictures by Ethel Hays Simms, despite its forbidding title, is one of the best ABC’s we have come across. The letters are shown in three ways: capitals, small letters, and script, and each letter has a page of pictures scattered all over, without design. We were sure this was a bad idea. We were wrong. Fouryear-old Margaret pores over it by the hour the more pictures the merrier and is rapidly learning her alphabet with no help from anyone.

The Leaky Whale, by Laura and Jack Johnson, is equally loved, and the pictures should amuse oven the most humorless adult. Daddies: What They Do All Day. by Helen Walker Puner, has filled a long-felt want by convincing the children that, their father’s departure for Yew York to work is not just a personal eccentricity. Pancakes for Breakfast. by G. A. Paull. concerned exclusively with animals and food, had the solid success it deserves, and for Loris Coreos’sJonathan Bangs Said No-o-o, we cannot be suflicienlly grateful. It is a book expressly for two-year-olds, with good pictures and a simple, rhythmic text, easily memorized. Margaret “reads” it to her brother and peace reigns.

It must be accepted, of course, that adult taste is not necessarily the child’s taste, and that goes for us as well as the next editor. We were inclined, for example, to dismiss Irena Lorentowicz’sWhat’sin the Trunk as mannered and artsv-craftsy, but Margaret has no such complaint. She will tolerate no fewer than three successive readings at a stretch, and she hopes to work us up to half a dozen. Bv way ol handsome apology we shall bo glad to recite Miss Loren towicz’s book to her from memory — and backward if she prefers.