STATE DEPT POLICY, NOT PERSONNEL, MAIN CONCERN OF SENATE COMMITTEE

...THE OBVIOUS QUESTIONS which should have been asked three years ago—and which still should be asked today—is: why were those barges given up by the United States without a direct and worthwhile return...

...Was there any good reason why we should give those barges to the Soviet Union...

...Possession of these barges was almost the sole ace in our hand...

...Who suggested the United States should do this...

...About three years ago there was a conference between the United States and the Soviet Union and its eastern European satellites over navigation rights on the Danube River, one of the main arteries of commerce in that part of Europe...

...SENATOR CONNALLY'S PLAN is part of the renewed effort to restore bipartisanship in our foreign policy...

...The Administration, whether or not it feels kindly on principle toward .having Congress encroach on what has been traditionally an executive responsibility, is sufficiently responsive to public dissatisfaction with the failures of our foreign policy, especially in an election year, to be in a mood to accept the plan...

...In what way did that advance the interests of the United States...

...If the situation should then reveal that there is more involved than a question of competence . . . if, for instance, the examination turned up an Alger Hiss, the inquiry could then properly turn its attention to the question of conspiracy on a more solid basis of factual deeds that would be provable, instead of McCarthy's nebulous and unproved basis of inference, rumor and conjecture...

...From now on, Congress —through the agency of the Senate—will exercise a closer supervision over the making of foreign policy by the State Department, Chairman Tom Connally of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has made public his plan of dividing his committee into eight subcommittees, each to specialize in and deal with the job of each of the State Department's main divisions — United Nations Affairs, European Affairs, Far Eastern Affairs, American Republics Affairs, Near Eastern and African Affairs, economic and social policy affairs, public affairs and departmental organization affairs...

...Through this expediency, publicopinion for the first time in several years will be afforded an opportunity to exert its influence on the making of foreign policy, and perhaps to checkmate the kind of disastrous policies initiated in secret in the past which have resulted in a long series of defeats for democracy throughout the world...

...And it is hardly conceivable that any group of Senators who have to face their constituents in November will acquiesce easily to policies that will raise embarrassing questions...

...There is an important difference between what this reform will do and what Senator McCarthy tried to do...

...Where McCarthy has vainly and awkwardly attempted to put the spotlight on individuals by attacking them as Communists, this new reform will shift the spotlight back where it has belonged all along—on policies...

...and if the responsibility for them were to be fixed on one individual or a group of individuals, it "might then become appropriate to examine other policy recommendations by that individual or group with a view to ascertaining their competence to serve and protect the interests of the United States...

...If the McCarthy farce did nothing else, it certainly brought that fact out in bold relief...

...Before we had obtained any worthwhile concessions from the Soviet Union on the Danubian navigation problem, Secretary of State Byrnes signed an order returning the barges in our possession to the Soviet satellite countries which claimed them...

...If the hand of the Kremlin is creeping through the State Department, as McCarthy has said, and some still think, the close examination of policies and, as a natural consequence, their makers, must inevitably expose and frustrate any conspiracies that exist in actual fact...

...It would have been almost sufficient just to ask the one test question—where is China today, on the side of democracy or of the Soviet Union...

...Whether the State Department will influence the Senators, or whether the Senators will make the views felt in the State Department—who will influence whom— remains to be seen...

...There may be the further calculation that by sharing some responsibility with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary Acheson will acquire a vocal group of powerful men to defend the State Department's policies...

...Was the rather obvious point considered that giving those barges to Rumania, for instance, was really giving them to the Soviet Union...

...At the time of the conference, the United States had in its possession a majority of the Danube River barges, some 800 in number...

...The order signed by Byrnes appeared to ignore the realistic fact that giving the barges to the Soviet satellites was the same as giving them to the Soviet Union and that, therefore, our bargaining with the Soviet Union at Vienna was not unrelated to the specific question of the return of the barges...

...and the Senate is perfectly aware of public tjissatisfaction with the failures of outforeign policy...

...A good example of what is possible through the new reform sponsored by Senator Connally is at hand in the announcement a few days ago that the Soviet Union has taken over all the Danube River barges owned by Rumania...

...When that happens, the Senators can relax their vigilance...

...D. C. THE FINAL DEFLATION of the blunderbuss method of attacking State Department policies—as exemplified by Senator Joseph R. McCarthy—has led now to an expedient reform in the making of American foreign policy which gives promise of supplying what the situation at the present time seems urgently to require...

...As for how long this new reform will continue—that will depend on how long it takes for a new, clean broom in the State Department to start producing successful results in our foreign policies in place of the failures of the past...

...What were the reasons he gave for such a policy...

...It is an election year for Senators, too...

...And if the test of the diplomats in the State Department's Far Eastern Division, who have shaped our Chinese policy, had been on the basis of whether their policies were competent and successful instead of whether they were communist influenced, it would not have been necessary for the nation to go through McCarthy's ridiculous performance...

...And the State Department certainly feels in the need of epeuiring some friends in the Senate...

...It would seem almost certain of adoption...

...INCOMPETENCE is easier proved than communist affiliation or influence...

...As it was, we gave up the barges without getting anything worthwhile in return...

...And, it may be, by focussing attention on policies instead of individuals, the individual architects of disaster will thereby stand revealed...

...A move that defies understanding then took place...

...This may bring about, objectively, the successful accomplishment of what McCarthy's ill-prepared ineptness failed to accomplish...

...If these questions were to turn up unsatisfactory answers...