HOW EUROPE SEES US TODAY

...Then things isettled around a few names, familiar to European eyes: one after the other, the American policymakers whose position commanded most respect on the international scene were being charged with Communist leanings by members of Congress and others...

...Acheson would not agree to such a step at a time when he is being called a fellow-traveler, for fear that such action might be interpreted by Sen...

...How Europe Sees Us Today By Lionel Durand Paris AS SPRING returned to Paris bearing the first wave of American tourists, thoughtful observers of the European scene expressed concern over what may prove to be the most gigantic shortcoming of the United States in the cold war—failure to capture the imagination and enlist the support of the peoples of Europe behind its proclaimed policy of "peace through strength...

...3. The military balance between the two blocs is already in favor of the West or will be very shortly, because of the more sinister propensities of hydrogen...

...During his last press conference...

...planes, and by translating literally "Hellcats" and "Helldiv-ers," it has sought to paint a rather grim picture of the satanic plot by an evil power...

...2. The West has not only the power and the spirit, but also the immediate means to create an airtight, water-repellent dam against Communist floods...

...Poverty is still widespread under the sunny skies of Italy...

...This attitude is bound to gain more and more sympathy if American foreign policy continues to be based not on positive aims and affirmative goals but on fear, complexes, and an almost surly unwillingness to keep doors open and direct negotiations going...

...The pact is still considered more a liability than an asset...

...It is little wonder that the feeling of uneasiness has spread throughout Europe...

...Not one was prepared to say, even in the strictest confidence, that war appeared imminent or inevitable...

...This plan, although subsequently rejected, has done the United States a great disservice in reinforcing the current feeling that the whole scheme is "just good business" for AmeriLIONEL DURAND, foreign editor of Paris Presse, roams Europe constantly for the second largest daily in the French capital...

...The majority has happily chosen the West, convinced that it is the right side...

...But it should be seized not simply to discuss the bomb but to examine once again whether there is any possibility of a general accord between the East and the West...

...In the ECA offices in Rome, one sees beautifully balanced accounts of Italian exports and imports, and figures point up to almost unbelievable progress toward recovery...

...ament race...

...The feeling of anxiety is all the more serious now that the West does not seem to possess the unity of purpose nor America the "beef" that were evident during the Berlin crisis...

...The average man—if there is such a common denominator—has watched with mounting amazement the newspaper headlines depicttng strange goings-on in Washington, It appeared for a while that anybody who was not calling somebody a Red was a Red himself...

...The financial effort involved in the implementation of the American-inspired Atlantic Pact makes it far less popular because there is so much to be done in what many regard as more urgent fields...

...Truman that he stop leaning toward capitalism before any talks took place between them...

...It heartily supported UN Secretary Trygve Lie's proposals to that effect, but Mr...

...A friend said to me the other day: "The only way in which I can retain my self-respect and assert myself as a pro-American Frenchman as well, is to drink Coca-Cola conspicuously...

...ships pay "courtesy visits...

...In rejecting all reasonable possibilities for renewing direct negotiations with the Soviet Union, Washington has not only taken a negative approach but has raised grave doubts on this side of the Atlantic whether America is equipped for leadership in the world...

...The conditions Acheson laid down offered little ground for a meeting of minds between the U.S...

...It is, observed a friend, like watching a wonderful athlete go to pieces because he lacks will-power or character...

...We can only hope that Mr...

...The Liberal Economist stresses that the H-bomb makes the avoidance of war even more necessary: "If an agreement with the Russians is to serve its real purpose—the restoration of security—it must deal with the real issue...

...McCarthy and his associates as a surrender to the Communists...

...While Russia, according to authoritative sources, is said to wield the power of at least 175 first-line divisions, 25,000 combat planes, and 250 submarines, the ordinary newspaper reader in Western Europe has finally been impressed with the highly vocal peace propaganda inspired by Moscow...

...Jean-Jacques Servan Schreiber, one of the most competent writers for the conservative French press, has attacked the "anachronism" involved in shipments of Sherman tanks and B29's to Europe at a time when even atomic bombs do not seem good enough in the ghastly light of hydrogenous possibilities...

...But no enthusiasm—and very little that could be called a fighting faith—goes with this position which, one might say, is only a marriage de raison...

...The hydrogen bomb has made this alternative even more urgent...

...Other, non-partisan writers have equally regarded it as fitting for France and England to try and carry the olive-branch...

...Hence the halfhearted attitude that one encounters everywhere in Europe today when it comes to justify the reason why one must side with America against Russia...

...and the U.S.S.R...

...Will you, gentlemen of the Government, let this chance to work for peace go by...

...In a maze of reports of disunity in American politics, of wild charges and witch-hunting, the position taken by Secretary of State Acheson and supported by President Truman appears to be the very manifestation of weakness at a time when the United States is seeking "to negotiate from strength...

...Some of the editorialists engaged in a certain amount of wishful thinking by indicating that, in their view, no such proposals could have been advanced without the President's knowledge, if not consent...

...Even if no friendlier emotion ever stirs the Soviet leaders, surely the possibilities of the H-bomb are horrifying enough to create a comradeship of common funk...

...It was sensational news here when the influential, conservative Le Monde, said to reflect some official French views, published a frontpage editorial advising France to stop taking sides and revert to neutrality as the only means to achieve peace and prosperity...

...cans and nothing but a way of employing the vast resources of the United States to prevent domestic depression...

...I have talked to many of the leading statesmen and military officials in 16 cities recently...

...Charles de Gaulle described America as "a land of inexhaustible riches, terrified at the thought of losing them...

...Several leading European statesmen told me that they would welcome such a meeting between two giants and would help arrange it if they could, "Morality and self-interest alike," wrote a Laborite edi torialist the other day, "should com-pel us to mediate in this fatalist arm...

...No one here questions the difficulties involved in any effort to reach an understanding with Russia, but most people in Paris or London feel there is no harm in trying over and over again, the stakes being what they are...

...II The Marshall Plan, undoubtedly a success as a short-run political expedient, has not thus far proven itself in its primary aim—making the European economy self-sufficient by 1952...

...Much was made in the left press of the name of the fighter planes which constituted the first shipload of U.S...

...In the face of a deadlock within the UN, the reasonable alternative would appear to be direct action between East and West...

...No one, from the Government benches, offered any refutation...

...Eager as they have been to see America assume its role as "the world's spearhead in the quest of dependable peace," most Europeans today are witnessing the deterioration of American prestige because Washington seems to them unable or unwilling to express and effectuate the most fundamental feeling of the vast majority of the human race, the longing for peace...

...There was a definite tendency to give the State Department and the White House more credit for moral positions and dynamic approach to peace than might be justified by the facts...

...Other, non-Communist writers stressed that the seven-point program could jolly well be an ultimate aim of American policy, but certainly not a realistic basis [or renewed contacts...

...But obviously, Washington seems to have passed the word around that no "overtures" were to be made to Russia for the time being...

...As I went through the rich farmland of Beauce recently, I found that there was little else discussed in the granary of France but the proposals then pending before the U.S...

...III French intellectuals have long felt that they want no truck with "power politics," or the policy of "peace through strength," being equally suspicious of slogans in general and of "those who threaten aggression to prove their pacific intentions," in particular...

...Communist L'Humanite asked ironically: "What would people say if Mr...

...Truman will persevere in his determination to reopen negotiations with the Kremlin...

...I had ample opportunity to observe America's efforts to contain the Communist flood...

...Realists agreed that Mr...

...Molotov had suggested to Mr...

...But as you stroll in the streets of the city, you find a quite different picture...

...However, Mr...

...The implication was that the negative American foreign policy has nothing much to offer and ought to be left alone for, the time being...

...it is the risk of war...

...How could such severe demands be met by Russia as a preliminary to more advanced studies in cooperation...

...Congress to force Marshall Plan countries to accept surplus farm products from America...

...If one were to take these proposals seriously, they pointed out, one would have to assume that: 1. The Kremlin is on its last legs and Russia is just about ready to give up her traditional aims and ask for a breather...

...And that is not the hydrogen bomb...

...People here had been led to believe that the Secretary's speech would proclaim major policy, but once more the mountain gave birth to a mouse...

...The bomb does appear to offer a new approach...

...Only miracles can prevent the participating countries from running a deficit of several billion dollars after the deadline for U.S...

...As Winston Churchill put it: "There has never been a time when deterrents against war were so strong, the penalties so immense, and the old incentives so inconsiderable...

...The French Foreign Office thought that by removing the cause of the Soviet boycott, in admitting Mao Tse Tung's representatives without thereby officially extending recognition to the Communist regime, a great step could be taken in the right direction...

...If there is any sword-rattling, skillful leftist propaganda points out, it is across the Atlantic or in Indo-China waters, where U.S...

...One cannot disregard another factor in the attitude of Europeans toward the "peace through strength" policy...

...Proposals put forward by Sens...

...Government has been subjected to attacks which may well destroy not only his prestige at home but his standing and authority abroad...

...The results so far achieved by the Marshall Plan provide a foundation for the building of a more permanent structure, in America's good time, if the crying need of Europe were not, first and uppermost, security...

...In the fellow-traveling Liberation, Marcel Fourrier writes...

...Durand was that paper's correspondent in Washington and New York for several years...

...The British people know that even if America and Russia might survive an atomic war, Britain and Western Europe could not...

...It would be futile to convince a Frenchman or an Italian that these conditions exist...

...Every day people who read their newspaper find that a large section of American public opinion is in favor of a new approach...

...Russia's gigantic war effort is little publicized and makes little impression compared with the fuss raised over the American war material sent to Europe, or alleged plans to include Franco Spain in the Atlantic system...

...There is at present," wrote the London Economist, "a stronger under-current of anxiety about the precarious balance between peace and war—which is a truer definition of what is usually called foreign affairs—than at any time since the early days of the Berlin blockade...

...It is difficult to expect that men will be content to be eternally "against" something, be it a dreaded threat like Communism, and call it a policy...

...Secretary Acheson, who is coming our way, to London and Paris, soon, will surely find that the moment has arrived for the United States to strike more constructively for peace negotiations than has been the case up to now...

...McMahon and Tydings, calling for a more broad-gauged foreign policy, have been widely praised by persons of diverse political background...

...As far as we know," writes the Socialist New Statesman and Nation of London, "there is no feverish demand in England for better and bigger bombs...

...Acheson was politely closing the door...

...even skilled workers have failed to achieve a standard of living worthy of human dignity...

...In France-Soir, veteran foreign affairs analyst Pertinax wrote: "The ranking Cabinet member of the U.S...

...Assuming that a policy of peace through strength demands the command of such military and economic power as is needed to deter or stop aggression, European opinion has not been impressed by recent developments in the Atlantic alliance system...

...Recently I had an exceptional chance to study public opinion in eight European countries...

...When the House of Commons recently discussed England's share of the burden, a member rose and said that the United Kingdom could not afford the defense effort which she is already making...

...It seems pretty obvious that the UN, while performing a number of useful functions, cannot be expected to discharge its primary one—that of maintaining peace and security— without the active cooperation of Russia, which is presently boycotting all meetings in which delegates of nationalist China sit...

...Just as they are convinced that something must be done to prevent the further drifting apart of the two great "blocs," most European diplomatic observers believe that the United Nations organization affords little hope for such an achievement...

...Acheson's Berkeley speech listing the seven commandments of the "Peace through Strength" policy was received with bitter disappointment...

...Furthermore, few Europeans are given to the sporadic waves of jitters that seem to sweep over and whip America so easily so often...

...The people of Europe, my observations emphasize, will welcome that kind of affirmative, hope-inspiring leadership from mighty America...