Will U. S. Join the Imperialist Grab?
STOUT, JONATHAN
Will U. S. Join the Imperialist Grab? By JONATHAN STOUT WASHINGTON, D. C—In the office of the Secretary of SUte there hangs on the wall a huge framed document. It proclaim* itself "The Atlantic...
...The fact is that the Atlantic Charter ceased in all reality to be the guiding principle* of the United Nations more than a year and • half ago...
...It proclaim* itself "The Atlantic Charter...
...But that means a return to isolationism, which the American people have just renounced to a whooping big way...
...Racial Characteristics The German teacher asked, "What are the racial characteristics of the Nordic matter race...
...It is not easy to discover, after fighting three bloody years of war, that one has been misled as to the objectives for which that war is being waged...
...That realities did not accord with these fine phrases The New Leader said over and over again...
...The Polish boy answered: "Blonde, like Hitler...
...The real import of Mr...
...And there is no chance of anyone's getting anything good unless Roosevelt spsaks up in a voice that has behind it all the men and tanks and guns and planes and ships that we have contributed to all the fronts...
...As if the Polish government or people Hi *ver agreed to any of the changes which are now accepted under pressure by the overshadowing great powers...
...Winston Churchill was carefully notifying Joseph Stalin that Britain is carrying out her part of the pledge...
...But it would be a mistake to waste any sympathy on Churchill in hi* plight...
...Churchill's Writing, some in his own, some in the handwriting of Sir Alexander Cadogan, British Permanent Under-Secretary of SUte for Foreign Affairs, and some writ-Un bjr 8umner Welles, then Under-Secretary of State...
...And if I w«ra Mr...
...Constant readers will recall that a year and four months ago it was Arst revealed in this rolumn that Stalin and Churchill had ronrluded a secret deal without even consulting the United States by •vim b they had made an imperialistic division of eastern Kurope into separate Russian and British hegemonies...
...That is—at least— the way it looks...
...The Century of the Common Man" has not yet begun...
...The upshot of it all is that the world is being divided up in advance of the peace settlement, and—though our part in the war is so immensely greater than It was last time—we are mere onlookers...
...Aa leMorial— The Division of Europe Tni differences between this war and the last are constantly being whittled down...
...We are no better than other peoples, arrd we have been fighting, not only to defeat fascism, but alao to savs our own skins, to advance our own national interests...
...Item by item, and paragraph by paragraph it sets forth the terms and agreements of that great document...
...At Moscow, ( airo •Jul Teheran we had fine statements proclaiming continued unity and the determination of the great powers to act always on the principle of "the sovereign equality •f *H peace-loving States...
...And according to Daniell's account of the business, the outright character of the Churchill address on Friday was an effort to allay Stalin's impatlsnce...
...Roosevelt said, would be these scribbled pieces of paper which were given to radio operators aboard the American and British warships, Augusta and Prince of Wales, on Aug...
...But the people here —as well as those in Britain and those in Russia, too —desire and deserve something better than they arc getting...
...Two years ago 35 nations, including the three great powers, agreed upon the Atlantic Charter as our war aims...
...In return Great Britain was to hsve an equally free hand in the Mediterranean area...
...On the contrary, the President's words are very serious...
...Roosevelt told them that there was not and never had been a formal, complete Atlantic ''hatter signed by him and Mr...
...It is imporUnt to recall that story of a year and a half ago in order to point out that Mr...
...And it would he impossible to exaggerate their im porta nee...
...If the game is going to be a grab-hag, well play grab-bag...
...Daniell states that the President was not present when the bilateral division of Europe was agreed upon...
...Roosevelt's part in all this history has thus far been left dubious...
...Smaller reproductions suitably framed also hang on the walls of the offices of most of the Assistant Secretaries of SUte...
...We are for a "strong, free and independent Polish state," but we are not averse to a "mutual agreement...
...Monday's declaration by Stettiniua leaves our position in its original twilight of uncertainty...
...But there **T be exceptions in the case of "changes mutually •fwd upon...
...It is obvious from what Churchill said that there was concluded at Teheran an agreement thus far unannounced...
...Roosevelt's revelations of the non-existence of the Atlantic Charter is to prepare the American people to undersUnd why it is now necessary for American foreign policy to abandon even the fiction of a war fought for Ideals and to embark frankly on a court* of American imperialism to match that of Rua»ian imperialism and BritUh imperialism...
...The terms of that deal were later incorporated into the Teheran agreement...
...On Friday Winston Churchill told much ¦M implied more...
...A* It is w* are spending 100 billions a year on a war over European boundaries...
...Roosevelt revealed, was merely a memorandum to the press and radio...
...And Pepper una nis supporters were forced to give up the fiction that Roosevelt did not know what he was doing...
...In Monday's Timer Raymond Daniell gives us the outline of this arrangement in clear terms...
...It illumines the moment at which the war ideals of the American and British people were tossed overboard and the ruthless, cynical game of power politics took over...
...And, no doubt, he is glad the lid stayed on that unsavory cesspool until after the election...
...And it is a dead certainty that no matter bow much the American people sympathize with the duped people of Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece aad Ethiopia, they are not prepared to spend any more of their blood and treasure overseas than they can help...
...slender, like Goering...
...He •cknowledged that agreements about such matters •hould be postponed till the end of the war...
...The New Leader is not inclined to boast a boot the purity of our national idealism...
...This week and last speeches by Prime Minister Churchill in the House of Common* finally admitted the truth of the revelations in this column almost a year and a half ago...
...For almost two years, in almost daily visits to the State Department (not to speak of other government tAoss), I hare seen those framed reproductions of The Atlantic Charter...
...and tall, like Goebbels...
...Nevertheless, it is only fair to note that Churchill agreed to the betrayal of his oldest and most faithful allies, forsook the principles of the Atlantic Charter and entered into the cynical game of power politics duress by Stalin, These revelations before November 7 would have been fatal to Roosevelt's re-election chances...
...Woodrow Wilson went t* Versailles and uncovered a mare's-nest of secret agreements...
...That is, we are practically back where we started...
...And this week the President of the United States told a press conference that those framed reproductions are a fraud...
...He gave his approval to a boundary •hich Russia is forcing unilaterally upon Poland...
...For the American people generally they came as a great shock...
...Russia was to have freedom of action along her western boundary from Bulgaria northward...
...The nearest thing one could get to an Atlantic Charter, Mr...
...We were justified in thinking that everything was in the open, that decisions would be arrived by the Allied powers acting in concert «nd with due regard to the fine principles which had »**n proclaimed...
...For, in effect, Stalin and Churchill in their power politics have »aid in answer to our complaints: "And what are you going to do about it ? " And after mulling that over for a year and a half, ws have answered: "At most, utter a few platitudes...
...The explanation undoubtedly will be thai the President's statement was merely a technical exposition and did not imply repudiation of the principles of the Atlantic Charter...
...It gives them a chance to say, as the Newt does on Tuesday: "If we were to mind our own business...
...We plainly are going to match Stalin's and Churchill'* imperialism with an American imperialism...
...I believe this to be the unpalatable truth of what America faces...
...Where the mutuality comes in no one has yet pointed out...
...Hut for constant readers of The New leader there ran be no such shork of surprise...
...The two imperialists were Stalin and Churchill...
...The upshot of all this is that the isolationists ar* sending up whoops of joy...
...For the practical alternatives are all unpalatable...
...He said there wasn't any copy of the Atlantic Charter, as far as he knew...
...Churchill...
...Roosevelt has stripped his decks for the hard boiled game that lies ahead by appointing the talent for that kind of game...
...Hut by that time only children—and only very young children, at that—will pay much attention to such an explanation...
...Conceivably, the U.S.A...
...14, 1941, with instructions to put their contents on the air...
...Newspapermen found it difficult to believe tljeir esrs ej lfr...
...For Churchill betrayed Poland and Jugoslavia, both of which were fighting shoulder to shoulder with the British against the Nazis at a time when Stalin was an ally of Hitler...
...And now the cynical beating down and carving up of little European nations fits in with their picture...
...This time things promised to be different...
...The famed Atlantic Charter which has buoyed up the hopes of all the despairing of the earth for three years and four months, Mr...
...Actually, we're going to do nothing...
...And the last excuse for kidding ourselves about it was cleared away when Senator Pepper, Who was going to "save the President from being imposed on" in the State Department appointments, was told very plainly by the President himself that II Pepper should succeed in stopping the appointments now, he will simply renominate the same men as soon as the new Congress convenes...
...Rooatrelt, I don't know what else there would remain for me to do...
...Russia is to be allowed her way in certain areas and Great Britain will hold sway in others...
...we would be much better off...
...Roosevelt said that nobody ever signed it...
...We still have hopes—* but they are dwindling...
...could withdraw from the whole stinking mesa...
...And we are being consulted, underwritten and guaranteed into future European boundary wars...
...Roosevelt's explanation is very belated...
...The treaty drawn up there amidst the ckak of imperialistic interests was so crassly opposed to the needs of Europe's populations and so opposite to Wilson'* Fourteen Points "Wat it gave us only a twenty-year respite from war...
...The Russian dictator had expected a straight acknowledgement of his privileges at an earlier date...
...This amounted to giving her a free hand to manhandle some eight or ten small countries...
...Nor is it clear how Poland can be independent or free within the orbit of a totalitarian power...
...And that, he said, was all there is of anything resembling an Atlantic Charter...
...It had been scribbled on pieces of paper, he said, with many correction*, some in Mr...
...But in the subtle minds behind Tht New York Doily Newt and The Chicago Tribune the Pearl Harbor attack was nothing more than a cunning ruse on the part of Winston Churchill...
...The federation of peace-loving, democratic nations to ensure collective security is afar off...
...This is where Woodrow Wilson came in...
...At that point it became silly to hail Roosevelt and rail at his appointees, to drape bunting on the President and drape crape on the State Department...
...Since then, Stalin has doublecrossed hia fellow-imperialist Churchill in Ureece and in Iuly...
...And palatable or unpalatable, I believe you might as well have it without any sugar-coating, and without hysterics...
...But aueh a course might easily mean lending American armie* into Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece, Ethiopia, etc., to chase out the Russian and British armies...
...Or this nation conceivably could get tough and insist an holding Stalin and Churchill to the ideals of the Atlantic Charter...
...Unless he speaks in tones that compel attention we are in for another age of let-down and sour cynicism —and a return to isolationism...
...And that, plainly, is also the real meaning In-kind the new appointments in the State Department...
...It is true that if we had not entered the war Hitler would probably have conquered Europe and perhaps dominated the world...
...Churchill says that the President was kept informed of every step and never offered any objection...
...There would be no profit in belaboring the cynicism of these words of the President's They ran be explained away, and probably will be when the American people are heard from on the subject...
...The three great leaders gave us beautiful words about democracy and the common welfare...
...Under it is appended the signatures of the signatoriea of all the United Nations...
...But during thia past week the whole idwardness of international Power politics has been exposed so plainly that not all cleverness of professional diplomacy can longer «to*i it over...
...And Churchill found it necessary to strike back...
Vol. 27 • December 1944 • No. 52
