Judgments & Prophecies, Nov. 22, 1954

GERMAN ABOUT-FACE WILL DOOM EUROPE

PAUL REYNAUD, former French Premier and EDC backer, who opposes the London agreements, in La Revue des Deux Mondes:

GERMANY is not a peril in itself. But should she turn to the East, we are lost. For, although there is widespread resentment in Germany over the treatment Russians have inflicted upon deported populations, it is Russia which holds in its hands all that Germany wants : its reunification first, which neither President Eisenhower, nor Sir Winston Churchill, nor M. Mendès-France can give her. One word from the Kremlin, however, could. Germany needs to export towards Eastern Europe, towards Russia, towards China. What would she not do to secure these markets? And even this isn't all, for Russia can offer to Germany, as the supreme gift, the restitution of all or a part of the territories which she holds. If Germany is once again dominated by her great general staff, can one be sure that she won't accept to change camps for a price like this?

DAVIES FIRING A BLOW AT U.S. FOREIGN SERVICE

COLUMNIST ROSCOE DRUMMOND, Washington bureau chief of the Republican New York Herald Tribune : THE more the Administration's explainers explain the dismissal of John Paton Davies as a "security risk" on the ground that he showed bad "judgment," principally while serving in China ten years ago, the less it satisfies many in Washington who listen to it. Mr. Davies has devoted his whole adult life to the Foreign Service. The latest security board to hear the evidence — eight previous security boards having cleared him — found Mr. Davies completely loyal, completely devoted to the United States and never imprudent with government secrets. It did find that in its judgment Mr. Davies exercised "lack of judgment." What was the judgment which Mr. Davies exercised and which incited the charges against him? That since the Chinese Communists were on the way to winning control of China, it would be more in America's interests to try to keep the Chinese Communists friendly to us than to drive them more into Moscow's hands.

Davies' judgments were not accepted in Washington. They did not become policy. If they had, it is entirely probable that they would not have averted a pro-Soviet Chinese regime. But neither did any policy which the United States did pursue. America is not going to develop a mature, resourceful, intellectually honest Foreign Service by firing a veteran Foreign Service officer as a security risk principally because of differences of policy judgment.

DEMOCRATS ALREADY BATTLING IKE

PUNDIT ARTHUR KROCK.