THE TEST OF LEADERSHIP

...What the official advocates of our diplomacy proudly hail as tough, appear to Europeans as further proof of our business - conditioned unwillingness to compromise in the interest of a settlement...

...Many a listener in West Germany questioned me closely on American attitudes towards Germany: "Why should American diplomacy go all out for Konrad Adenauer who, in order to keep himself and his party in power, tries to perpetuate the division of Germany...

...Ill Their feeling does not end with their economic evaluation...

...The version I heard in Vienna, from a teacher in a preparatory school, went this way: "Can you really expect that shrewd American business men would pursue a foreign policy of eliminating all dangers of war and by this hurt their profits and the prosperity of their country...

...I soon discovered that this was a widely shared fear, for I was confronted with the same approach in every discussion after my speeches in Germany and in some of the conversations in Austria...

...People in Europe are still impressed by and base their hopes on our achievements of the past twenty years...

...In Switzerland as well as in Western Germany and Austria I was asked: "Could the Point Four Program be considered as an effective method of combating a recession...

...economic expansion in my lectures to Europeans, I was invariably challenged with the question: "Can this dynamic expansion of the past three years be maintained if the Cold War should subside...

...In Wilhelmshaven, in Northern Germany, where I spoke to a group of older people, a Social Democratic functionary who had watched Hitler come to power asked me the following crucial question: "In the case of an American depression—-would McCarthy become an American Hitler...

...Many an influential Social Democrat in Bonn, after having seen what had happened to American employes who had incurred the wrath of McCarthy's Cohn-Shine team of Keystone Cops, wanted to know: "How fearful of McCarthy are the men in the State Department...

...Here in Germany, you have the proof that the rigid American policy is devised by men who want to keep American industry busy with armament production...

...People did not object when I said that millions of American women and men voted for Eisenhower because he had promised peace in Korea...

...But even before Schumacher died, this approach had been abandoned for the simple reason that the fear of a Russian attack has declined sharply...

...The Russians are not winning the propaganda war by any positive act of their own...

...Has McCarthy become the instrument of some influential behind-the-scene people—as Hitler before 1933 was the tool of the German Industrialists...

...There I was queried about the economic background of the shift in the importance attached by the State Department to Asia...

...IV A keen observer of German party politics and discussions drew my attention to a significant shift in the intra-German discussion about the German Army, the European Defense Community, and the so-called European integration...

...I refer to the growing conviction that the United States cannot under present conservative leadership manage to keep on an even keel of full employment...

...Does this mean that everything is lost for us...

...They go on to criticize U.S...

...Confidence in America has not been blacked out...

...We have to prove by facts and actions that we are willing and able to combine peaceful goals with the welfare and the prosperity of our country and the rest of the world...

...foreign policy itself...

...These were some of the recurring queries on McCarthy's power in the realm of foreign affairs...

...The Test of Leadership By Otto Leichter IT WAS in Vienna during a lecture I gave on American economic development to Austrian municipal employees that I experienced the strongest reaction to a display of statistics on the growth of U.S...

...Europeans, usually inclined to consider men in government as representatives of their respective social groups rather than as individuals, think of the men of Big Business in the Eisenhower Administration as a strictly disciplined caucus—or even conspiracy...

...To these people, who obviously had never yielded to Nazism, the relentless increase in our national wealth furnished the post-mortem proof of their never-shaken conviction that Hitler was doomed the moment he took on the American colossus...

...The inquiries were not confined to generalities...

...They are winning it by American default...

...This comment was unusual only for its abruptness...

...Many of my listeners wanted to know whether there is a parallel between the reign of Big Business in the Weimar Republic under General Hindenburg and present-day America under Gen...

...It is not alone resentment against OTTO LEICHTER, American correspondent for three Swiss dailies and German and Austrian publications, has just returned from a four-months lecture trip through Western Europe...

...Once this strictly economic rationalization of many of our irrational policies in Europe and Asia is adopted, it can be easily applied to each of its details...

...A teacher brought up the possibility of a depression and formulated his query: "Do you expect a speedier downward trend now that a party standing for complete economic freedom is back in power and the law of the economic jungle is to be restored...

...I spent four months traveling all over Western Europe...

...Although I admitted doubt that the present Administration would follow such a course of its own initiative, I pointed out that there were forces in this country whose political power could greatly influence the direction of even the Big Business crowd in control of the present administration...

...Apparently, many Europeans take the American stock market more seriously than we do...

...I gave thirty lectures to a wide variety of audiences, and listened to many sharp, anxious, probing questions, heavy with doubt and suspicion, of our manners and motives...

...I met many men and women on the continent who have not forgotten the crash in October 1929, nor the depression, mass unemployment, Hitler, and the war that followed...

...At the beginning of these discussions, the leader of the Social Democratic opposition to Chancellor Adenauer— the late Kurt Schumacher—challenged the Americans to guarantee to Western Germany she would not have to be "liberated" after a Russian occupation, and that the Western Allies would carry the attack to the East, beyond the present West German Republic, once the Reds started it...

...By no means...

...Does the downturn of the stocks in April and May and the caution displayed ever since indicate that American business is afraid of a recession or even a depression if there is peace in Korea...

...Nor does McCarthyism alone account for the loss of U.S...

...national income over the past half-century...

...But if we want to regain our lost stature, we shall have to prove that we are not leading the world toward economic disaster and war...

...Whenever I cited figures showing U.S...

...In Vienna a young law graduate asked: "Do you think that what is still left of the New Deal and the Fair Deal would contribute towards maintaining full employment...

...Many of my listeners interpreted our Far Eastern policy in this vein...

...stature abroad ¦— although the respect for American democracy has been profoundly shaken by the shameful antics of McCarthy and their seeming acceptance by the leadership of the Republican Party...

...Eisenhower...

...Even in the comments and queries on McCarthy the emphasis was economic...

...A triumphant smile would appear on their faces when they grasped the figures...

...A down-to-earth question this, for what happens in far-away Detroit will have a direct bearing on the manufacturing plant in Eastern Switzerland where this man earns his livelihood...

...There is a complete change in the evaluation of the two camps...

...A recurring question was: "Is it the interest in investments...

...This reaction was coupled with a ready recognition of America's present leadership of the world economy...

...This approach created great interest even if agreement was far from whole-hearted...

...II All these causes contributed to the decline in American stock—but there was another reason more important than any of these factors...

...How does McCarthyism influence American foreign policy...

...Nor does it result exclusively from the change of party in power, although as a candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower lost most of his great popularity in Europe and has not regained it since entering the White House...

...In Hamburg, where people always have been alert to the issues of international trade and world affairs, I was asked by a smart young girl, an office worker: "Are the business circles in America truly interested in settling all international differences —even if this would mean the slackening of business activities...

...A most impressive one usually came from older people in the audience...

...In Austria, just a stone's throw from the Iron Curtain, people are wary of any shift in world policies...

...But for this very reason, they, too, asked me: "How will economic developments in America affect us here in Europe...

...The experience convinced me that the reasons for the great decline in American prestige run deeper than many returning travelers suspect...

...When I referred to the boom after World War II, I drew the answer: "The Cold War, rearmament, and finally the Korean War were responsible...

...the ostentatious rich—although this feeling clearly creeps into European thinking...

...I emphasize for my European audiences the fact that depressions are man-made and not inevitable...

...The sober statistics on our national income evoked all sorts of emotions...

...Although we had agreed to have a question period later on, a young man in the back row, upon seeing the figures on the board, burst out before I was well along: "Here you see that the American economy has been thriving on wars only...

...People would then retort:" Of course, we have not the slightest illusion about Russia's intentions...

...I was amazed at the regularity with which I was asked, after each of my Swiss lectures, about the adverse reaction of the New York Stock Market to the resumption of the Korean truce talks last spring...

...Many questions proved that...

...Forward-looking economic policies, based on the goal of full employment and combined with democratic planning, could again overcome downward trends in the economy and help prevent depression...

...This is the true test of American leadership in Western Europe...

...And my listeners were typical Europeans, of every walk of life and political persuasion...

...In Arbon, delightfully situated at Lake Constance, near the center of the Swiss metal-manufacturing industries, a typical skilled worker asked me: "How is the end of the Korean war going to influence the Swiss metal industry...

...In the discussion which followed the outburst of that young man in Vienna, I was told: "Every economic expansion of the American economy during the 20th Century occurred during a war and each was followed by a depression...

...In Hanover I met with a lively group to discuss the impact of the recent change in Washington...

...Many of my listeners were afraid that the dominance of the profit motive of American Big Business would bode ill for their hopes for peace...

...Is his violent anti-Communism the expression of America's unwillingness to arrive at a compromise in world affairs...

...He is the author of several books, including "America in World Politics," published in Vienna, and "Austria," a history of the Austrian republic and Austrian labor, published under the pseudonym Pertinax...

...Just at the opposite corner of Germany, in Kochel, Southern Bavaria, a man who was one of the first to be shipped to a concentration camp in 1933, asked in a serious manner: "Would the unemployed in a depression-stricken America support McCarthy as the desperate masses in Germany helped Hitler to power...

...This was then regarded as a valid position that impressed people in Europe...

...Nor is it solely the decrease in funds for economic aid to Europe— although the way Congress decreed the cuts shook Europe's confidence in the leadership of American diplomacy...

...In my first speech in Western Germany I was shaken when I found myself obliged to answer arguments implying that the threat of war was greater from America than Russia, and these arguments came from Germans whose anti-Communism is unassailable...

...Both in Switzerland and West Germany I was asked: "For what other but economic reasons should the American attitude towards China be so different from that of the Churchill Government...

...They are fearful lest history repeat itself, and because of this fear they watch us closely—and mistrust us...

...But from what we have seen ourselves and we hear from the East Zone of Germany, the Russians are so poor and beset with internal difficulties that they could not take the risk of starting or provoking a war...

...But you Americans are so rich and so frantic about the danger of losing some of it in a depression that we are fearful of a global explosion in the case of an economic crisis in America...