THROUGH BRITISH EYES
Hanighen, Frank C.
Through British Eyes By FRANK C. HANIGHEN Washington, D. C. THE "common man" in the United States these days is enveloped in a fog of wartime propaganda (some of it generated by his great patron,...
...Churchill's statement in 1942 that he did not intend to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire...
...But if they are stilled by propaganda, people here, if they read these lines, may adopt a more understanding attitude, such as Lord Ponsonby described in his famous book, Falsehood In Wartime: "When the people «f one country understand how the people in another country are duped, like themselves, in wartime, they will be more disposed to sympathize with them as victims than condemn them as criminals...
...5, 1943 a pastoral letter condemning Benes' Russian policy was read, by order of the Catholic hierarchy, in the Coeeh churches of the country on the occasion of Benes' journey to Moscow...
...I scent the approach of a new formulation of British imperialism in leftist terms...
...Suppression Of A Book Helen Lombard, who conducts a Washington column, distributed by the Bell Syndicate, and occasionally published by the Washington Evening Star, reveals a chapter of book suppression in this country, quite unknown to the mass of the intelligentsia...
...15, 1943, the League of Czech Youth, which has about 400000 members, held a meeting in the Lucerna Hall at Parasgae to condemn "the efforts of the Ceech emigres to sacrifice the fate of the Csech nation to the disintegrating force of Bolshevism...
...But the Library of Congress is even chary of letting it go freely and without strings into the hands of members of Congress...
...Benes recently made a compact...
...He has no time for the revealing qualifying clauses...
...American newsapers have been filled with praise of the gallant Tito, the Communist head of the Partisan movement in Jugoslavia and with stories claiming that his opponent, Gen...
...And Laborite Dugdale says that "Our new empire is Socialist and the other part is rapidly becoming so...
...It has been the despair, for instance, of Dorothy Thompson that the masses just won't believe a lot of these atrocity stories...
...AH the news about Jugoslavia is relayed by London from Moscow...
...He can't remember enough of the news, busy as he is with private affairs, to recall news items which "throw down" a whole stream of daily propaganda...
...A "Leftist' Imperialism...
...These are right-wing journals, but we find the Left-wing Laborite Tribune inveighing as strongly against the Russian policy towards Poland as the right-wing...
...But generally the common man wasn't well trained enough by the anti-propagan-da specialists of the 1980's (some of whom are doubtless working feverish-I ly in OWI to dupe their former read- ers...
...Mihkailovitch by contrast is not only a real person, a Jugoslav regular, a member of the Jugoslav Government recognized by Britain, but for two and a "half years has commanded a large force of Jugoslav regulars against the German invader and has done heroic work in that sense...
...She cannot cease to be a part of it even if she tries...
...Hitler started the struggle because he believed Britain would not go to war...
...There are times when he obviously gags at some particularly heavy "pea-soupers"—such as atrocity stories...
...Dissent In England Also, the common man in this country, with some vague memories in his mind about "Munich" and "Li-kdice" probably looks on Czechoslovakia as a eoimtry in which the populace is constantly yearning for the arrival of the liberating Russians with whom "their leader" Dr...
...and that on Dec...
...Mihkailovitch, for the support of anti-German elements in that country, is a nonentity and possibly even pro-German...
...This journal says that on Dec...
...The book suppressed is Stalin, An Appraisal Of The Man And His-Influence, by the late Leon Trotsky...
...It cannot be a wise policy which divided in the flesh what is united in the spirit...
...He can't see the little facts, down at the end of the dispatch, which contradict the lead and the headline...
...It was not uncommon in pre-war democratic Europe, even in England, for publishers to suppress books because of Foreign Office pressure or suggestion, and this practice was vigorously criticized by civil libertarians there...
...At least, it shows that Britons are resistant to a monolithic propaganda line...
...If it is to live, it must have a spiritual content based on deep and common roots and re-embodying the European ideas which date from Roman and Christian mediaeval unity...
...The Contemporary Review directs a warning to the ebullient Stalin, saying that the example of Hitler "reveals once more how important it is in international affairs to avoid psychological errors...
...Lombard, and "the Library of Congress, in compliance with the publisher's request, withdrew from public circulation the two copyright copies which had been deposited with it...
...In the same weekly a writer talks of the "Byzantine" tradition of Russia in a critical vein, reminding his readers that "few things are more characteristically Byzantine than a planned economy and a monopoly of foreign trade...
...Turning to the continent of Europe as viewed by sharp British eyes, we find a somewhat different picture than that presented by OWI propaganda...
...But I note more and more the refrain of the importance of "European culture" (presumably as opposed to the "Asiatic culture" of the "colossus" Russia...
...Moreover, even when the Associated Press and United Press give a rather complete report of, say, British news, the copy desk cuts a lot of pertinent items...
...The substance of this review differs considerably from the impressions gained from reading the utterances of British statesmen...
...Indeed, when the balance of power in Europe is endangered, or the Empire is really imperiled, these doughty champions of the masses on the Left show a curious identity with the members on the other side of the House...
...It would seem that some protest from similar groups here is in order against this example of a dangerous policy...
...But the Nineteenth Century, after pointing out that even before the war Benes by his own admission had no status as official leader of Caechs, not to mention Slovaks, reveals that Benes' dealings with the Soviets does mot seem to sit well with his countrymen, at home...
...State Department officials have made informal suggestions that any quotation from the book would be harmful to Soviet-American relations because the Russian dictator does not understand the fact 'that the American Congress and press can act independently of the executive branch...
...I now note that a number of journals in England have responded...
...It was nrinted by its publishers, Harper and Brothers, but withdrawn by them prior to public sale late in 1941...
...British statesmen have recently sounded the note of "European unity," although they rarely define it in practical terms...
...It is to be hooed that censorship in the coming critical months will not stifle them and that we in the United States can still hear them...
...The Daily Mail (right wing), reporting on the coal strikes, says the following is a view "widely held" by the striking South Wales miners: "The Government is trying to get out of the promises Churchill made at Teheran...
...The publishers gave as the reason for withdrawal "a concern for the work's adverse effect on international relations," says Mrs...
...When the book is delivered in compliance with a Congressional demand," says Mrs...
...Of this 2,000-year-old Europe, Britain has always been a part...
...Also we know what the Poles want, whereas our knowledge of the real aims and intentions of the Russian states is much less reliable and appearances may be deceptive...
...Thus the London Observer: "Europe cannot be the result of a mere formula of power mathematics...
...It is trying to sabotage the Second Front and put the blame on us...
...Things have come to a pretty pass when we must regulate our democracy in accordance with what a foreign dictator "does not understand...
...Views On Soviet-Polish Clash Some months ago, I noted how F. A. Voigt of *he London Nineteenth Century sounded the tnsin about the danger of Russia to Poland and the European balance of power...
...Carte blanche is given to Russian propaganda...
...Thus Emanuel Shinwell, left-wing Laborite, expressed "hearty accord" with Mr...
...In view of this situation, I thought it might be useful to give a review of what some periodicals are saying in one foreign country where there is a comparatively free press...
...Meanwhile, I note a growl from the inarticulate "lower depths" which may provide some indication of the why and wherefore of the present unrest in Britain...
...He committed a psychological error by taking the gentlemanly attitude and tone of speeches delivered by British statesmen as a sign of weakness and they committed this error because they could not understand any but their own brutal language...
...The New English Weekly is even blunter: "The Poles are, of course, rather difficult politically, but after all we are committed in honor to their cause, as we cannot be committed to the cause of the Soviets...
...The Contemporary Review tells how Marshal Tito has "been swallowed whole" by British official spokesmen -and the "same of General Mihkailovitch is never heard by British listeners nor British readers...
...Lombard, "the letter that accompanies it requests that it be returned to a particular official of the library and states that the State Department is interested in the matter...
...Through British Eyes By FRANK C. HANIGHEN Washington, D. C. THE "common man" in the United States these days is enveloped in a fog of wartime propaganda (some of it generated by his great patron, Henry A. Wallace...
...The Review goes on to emphasize that the Russian attitude toward Poland is raising against Stalin the same flood of apprehensive criticism that in the end engulfed Hitler, noting that not only in England but even in "South America this phenomenon appears, as in the Rio de Janeiro Diario Da Noite: "We-cannot agree to measures taken by a Government on grounds similar to those which pushed Hitler to dismember his weaker neighbors and to annex the territory in the name of military security...
...One member of Congress was asked not to let the book get out of his hands nor to permit it to be examined by any other person...
...It is gratifying that dissenting voices can be raised in Britain...
Vol. 8 • May 1944 • No. 18
