The Atlantic Report on the World Today: Washington

EXPERIMENTS in carrying first-class mail by air are only one indication of the changes being wrought by Postmaster General Arthur E. Summerfield. In contrast with the political role usually expected of a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, Summerfield has ignored politics in order to concentrate on sprucing up the mail service with business methods. He was bitterly disappointed at the failure of Congress to raise mail rates to help reduce the postal deficit, but he has proceeded with the consolidation of small post offices and similar measures to bring greater efficiency. In the process he has won admiration in a city accustomed to look to the Postmaster General for partisan speeches and not much else.

In promoting the first-class-mail-by-air plan, Summerfield naturally has run into resistance from the railroads, and there is much dispute over the meaning of comparative rates. His thought has been, however, to employ unused plane capacity at far lower cost than the usual air mail charges, and in this he has had the coöperation of the air lines.

Summerfield also figures that with the average person who sends a letter, say, from New York to Chicago, the time of delivery rather than the time of collection is what is important. On this theory it may be possible to bunch mail for next-morning delivery instead of dispatching it by driblets every hour.

Better relationships within the Post Office itself are largely the work of the youthful Deputy Postmaster General, Charles R. Hook, Jr. Hook, an expert on labor relations and a member of the War Labor Board, was most recently vice president for personnel of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. Summerfield came to know him when Hook helped out on the Eisenhower campaign.

Summerfield and Hook together busied themselves with modernizing the antiquated procedures of the Post Office. One of their first concerns was to improve the use of transportation. Asking themselves who in private business would have the most experience in expediting mass shipments, they concluded that it would be the transportation director for Sears, Roebuck. Accordingly they went to the Sears head, Robert E. Wood, and persuaded him to release John C. Allen to become the Assistant Postmaster General in charge of transportation.

Hook’s railroad background also helped him fend off railroad protests about the air mail plan. When a group of railroad representatives descended on him to ask how he, a railroad man, could do this to them, he replied coolly that he was working for the government and that he was sure that everyone would support efforts to improve the mail service.

What Durkin tried do

The departure of Labor Secretary Martin P. Durkin wrote failure to the efforts of the Administration to enlist the help of organized labor in revision of the Taft-Hartley Law. The real difficulty was not a split between Durkin and President Eisenhower, but the inability to agree on amendments that would be acceptable to the Labor Committees on Capitol Hill.

At best the appointment of a Democrat from the ranks of labor was a gamble. Yet Durkin was loyal to the President and made every effort to frame workable modifications in the law. Durkin’s implication that pledges to him had been broken seemed to stem from misunderstanding and naïveté on his part. Proposals for labor legislation revision have been in the hands of a committee composed of the Secretaries of Labor and Commerce, the chairmen of the Senate and House Labor Committees, and the special counsel to the President. It is this broad group that must pass on whatever program is evolved.

Thus the elaborate nineteen-point plan for TaftHartley revision, which leaked to the press and caused great consternation on Capitol Hill because of its concessions to the union position, actually was a draft initiated by the Labor Department rather than a proposal that had final White House approval. The impasse that brought Durkin’s resignation arose from the failure to agree on two principal points he regarded as essential: relaxation of the present total ban on secondary boycotts, and the restoration of Federal paramountcy over union shop regulation. The AFL in particular is concerned over laws which prohibit the union shop in twelve states.

The Administration faces a rocky road in relations with labor. The problem is complicated by the fact that Senator Taft was perhaps the most sympathetic majority member of the Congressional Labor Committees, and that almost any revision of the Taft-Hartley Law would now be regarded as New Dealish.

A good neighbor goes visiting

Favorable reactions are still coming in from Milton Eisenhower’s tour of Latin America. The sore spots remain — particularly communism in Guatemala, authoritarianism in Venezuela, and tangled economic relations in Chile. Dr. Eisenhower’s efforts to promote more favorable conditions for United States investments could not be expected to yield immediate tangible results. But on the intangible side the visit of the President’s brother was regarded as a great courtesy, and it did much to diminish the feeling that the United States has neglected Latin America at the top level.

Nowhere was the reception more dramatic than in Perón’s Argentina. The Eisenhower group found Perón eager to promise better relations and a more favorable climate for American investment without any major concessions from this country.

Perón called at the American Embassy, entertained the group at receptions and sports events, and even showed up at the airport after a farewell visit. Almost immediately anti-American attacks in the Perón-dominated press moderated and some restrictions on American news agencies were lifted. Perón seemed anxious to blame his troubles on the Truman Administration. “We generals understand each other,” he remarked in referring to President Eisenhower.

The State Department views this sudden warmth as the pay-off of the policy of strict correctness pursued by Ambassador Albert F. Nufer. The recommendation that Ambassador Nufer be retained in Buenos Aires actually had been decided upon before Perón requested it, but it pleased the Argentine dictator. While hoping for genuinely better relations the State Department is aware, however, that Perón’s obsequiousness can be turned off as quickly as it was turned on.

Our strength in Korea

American military forces will remain in Korea at substantially their present strength until there is definite evidence of lessened tension. Of the seven American divisions now in Korea, one or two may be pulled back in reserve to augment the three divisions (the Third Marine Division recently rejoined the Far East Command) in Japan. But no large reductions in manpower are imminent.

Exclusive of South Korean troops, United Nations strength in the Far East has been about 400,000 men, counting supply and service units. Apart from air and sea power, the other fifteen participating UN members have furnished about 45,000 ground troops. The expectation is that these contributions will be maintained at approximately present strength.

The need for new American troops will be somewhat reduced, however, by the longer period of service now required before GIs are eligible for rotation. Previously a soldier qualified for rotation after 9 months of combat service. In practice, because of rest periods out of the lines, the rotation time varied from 10 to 12 months. With the cessation of hostilities the period was raised to 16 months.

This compares with the average of 16 to 17 months of service for draftees stationed in Germany. To cut down on the turnover, there has been a strong effort to compose the forces in Europe as much as possible of Regular Army men with three-year enlistments. Seventeen months of actual duty is about all that has been obtainable from men inducted for two years, in view of the time consumed in training and in “pipelines” to and from overseas theaters.

Part of the problem in Korea is uncertainly over what President Syngman Rhee may do. Training of South Koreans is continuing, and the plan is to turn over more and more of the defense job to Korean forces. However, there has been some fear — just as there was apprehension before the Communist aggression in June, 1950 — that without restraining influence Dr. Rhee might launch a military adventure of his own.

Even though Administration officials hold little hope that the political conference on Korea will soon produce a permanent settlement, they believe that the absence of actual fighting may reduce tension. If the atmosphere improves, it may be possible gradually to cut the number of United Nations troops in Korea.

Respecting the political conference itself, the State Department has made some progress in assuaging the resentment caused by the American “victory” in the vote to exclude India. What looked like a breach among the Western Allies at the special session of the United Nations was more a tactical misunderstanding than an open conflict. British diplomats in particular felt that if Ambassador Lodge had explained privately in advance the American difficulties with Syngman Rhee, the fight could have been avoided.

Korea and Indo-China

Meanwhile, there is reason to think that another purpose in maintaining strong forces in Korea is to pin down Chinese Communist troops so that they cannot be used for aggression elsewhere. The French have been leery of direct Chinese intervention in Indo-China when the fight against the Communist Viet Minh is stepped up. The Indo-Chinese war is immensely unpopular in France, and there is widespread demand for abandonment of the campaign.

Yet prevention of Communist conquest of Indo-China is regarded in Washington as strategically as important as the stand in Korea. The Administration has been walking a tightrope, balancing the need to keep France in the war against the need to end corruption in colonial administration and to encourage the reforms necessary to win popular allegiance in Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Laos. Secretary Dulles’s clear warning to Communist China, and the grant of $385 million in additional American aid to France for the defense of IndoChina, were designed to buck up the French government. The hope is that greater real independence for the Indo-China states will result in genuine local support of French troops. There is no thought of sending American ground forces in the event of Chinese intervention, but the Administration has implied that it will not hesitate to use sea and air power against China proper if that should become necessary.

Mood of the Capital

The selection of Governor Earl Warren to succeed the late Chief Justice Vinson was greeted in Washington as a happy solution. It brings to the Supreme Court a liberal Republican of impressive popular appeal. The pressure of important cases, particularly the issue of racial segregation in the schools, outweighed the break of precedent in the nomination of the Chief Justice while the Senate was in recess.

When considering Warren’s lack of judicial experience, the President was faced with the fact that most of the eligible Republican judges were in their late sixties — the result of twenty years during which Republican judicial appointments could be counted almost on one hand.

For a time the President and Attorney General Brownell reportedly toyed with elevating Associate Justice Robert H. Jackson to the top spot and appointing Warren to the post Jackson would have vacated. In the final choice the administrative ability and physical fitness of the 62-year-old Warren counted for more than his legal background. As in the case of Vinson, his challenge will be to bring cohesion to the Court.

Washington is also watching the Democrats’ struggle for a united front in the Congressional campaigns next year. Declining farm prices and higher interest rates have afforded preliminary issues on which to attack the Administration. But the impression of harmony produced at the September rally in Chicago was more apparent than real, because the split between the New Deal group and some of the Southern leaders over the party loyalty pledge was glossed over rather than healed.