THE CABINET: Great Day; Grey Dusk

It was a great and exciting moment. President Roosevelt's office was jammed with newshawks. He held up a mimeographed sheet and owlishly informed them that the State Department insisted that "Commissar" be spelled with one "s." Then he ceased jesting, and blurted out the blunt fact: the United States of America had entered diplomatic relations with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics at ten minutes before midnight the previous day. The historic date was Nov. 16, 1933.

Headlines splashed front pages. Businessmen rejoiced at the big Russian trade that would soon be theirs. Ex-Senator Smith Wildman Brookhart, Russian-trade adviser of AAA, declared that as soon as adequate credits could be arranged, Russia would be in a position to buy $520,000,000 worth of U. S. goods every year. Said Commissar for Foreign Affairs Maxim Litvinoff who traveled from Moscow to Washington to conduct the negotiations that led up to recognition: "Enjoying the lowest foreign indebtedness in the world, the Soviet Union has the greatest capacity for absorbing the raw materials and products of other countries. . . . The U. S. could make use of this capacity to the extent of at least 60 or 70%." Prices advanced cheerfully in U. S. stock-markets. Hope was high. Commented Newsman Walter Duranty: "If one wants to estimate the 'horse trade,' I should say M. Litvinoff has got perhaps a shade the worst of it. . . ."

President Roosevelt, it was generally agreed, had made something of a masterstroke. He had negotiated Soviet recognition exactly in time to blanket with its headlines news of the then ugly farm strike. He had exacted some sort of religious guarantees from the Soviet Union, which on paper made pious U. S. citizens rejoice. And he had picked as his Ambassador to Moscow, keen, dynamic, ambitious William Christian Bullitt of Philadelphia.

If any U. S. citizen could wangle trade and cash out of hard-boiled Bolsheviks, the President thought, Bill Bullitt could. When Ambassador Builitt arrived in Moscow, he was acclaimed as no other envoy from a capitalist land has ever been acclaimed by Reds. From Joseph Stalin down the Bolshevik hierarchy hobnobbed with "Bill." His bright-eyed little daughter was patted on the head, called "Russia's Delight." Soon the Ambassador was on horseback, teaching Bolsheviks to play polo. With experienced, hard-driving Counselor of Embassy John Wiley plugging at his side. Ambassador Bullitt stormed the Kremlin again & again on the issues of credits and debts. Some four months ago Ambassador Bullitt left Moscow by way of the Trans-Siberian Railway, flew extensively up & down China and arrived late last year in Washington where last week he was advising the President.

Following the great day of Nov. 16, 1933, Russia continued to ask of President Roosevelt what she asked of his predecessors, loans so enormous that mere interest payments would more than suffice to pay off the $800,000,000 of outstanding claims of the U. S. Government and citizens against Tsarist, Kerensky and Bolshevik Russia.