FOREIGN RELATIONS: Half a League

This week in Moscow the foreign ministers of Russia, Britain and the U.S. will meet again, will try to pick up the threads broken by disagreements last September.

Before the United Nations Organization could take over, there were many touchy issues on which Big Three consultation was needed. Washington put the atomic bomb at the top of the agenda (see INTERNATIONAL). On Thanksgiving Day, after a big dinner, Secretary of State James F. Byrnes had pondered the issues, had decided to take the initiative in arranging the meeting.

Thus, for better or worse, the Big Three machinery was back in motion. There was other important action on the U.S.-International front. The U.S. reaffirmed its policy toward Iran (see FOREIGN NEWS). U.S. loans to Britain were set for approval (see INTERNATIONAL). Special Envoy George Marshall would soon be off to China, armed with a U.S. policy that had been put in order (see The Congress).

On Capitol Hill a cardinal point was made in implementing U.S. participation in UNO. The Senate voted (65-10-7) to give the President's delegate to the Security Council authority to vote the use of U.S. troops—without recourse to Congress—if UNO needs them to enforce the peace. To this the nationalistic New York Daily News, always suspicious of international cooperation, screamed: "The passing of the Republic!"

But if many U.S. citizens felt that way, they did not say so. To internationalists, the week had a hopeful look.