THE NATION: Out of the Grave

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Isolationism had been pronounced dead by many competent doctors. But it was not dead, just shamming. Last week it was ripping off its winding sheet and making loud speeches—and attracting crowds of listeners. The question it posed: Should the U.S. continue its attempts to shore up allies in Europe and Asia, or should it make itself as strong as possible at home and prepare to stand alone?

Across the Rainbow. The answers at hand formed a rainbow of passionate opinion. On one edge of the spectrum were the old isolationists—the Colonel McCormicks who would defend the U.S. (and possibly Canada) but let the rest of the world go hang. In the next sector were men like ex-Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, who would add South America to the area they would defend. Then came others who would include some Atlantic and Pacific bases as well. Over on the other side of the particolored band were the backers of the policy that (with some disastrous lapses in Asia) had dominated America's conduct in the world since 1940: that the U.S. should seek friends in the world, and pledge them that an attack on them would be considered an attack on the U.S. Beyond that was an even bolder position espoused by such men as Republican Harold Stassen and Democratic Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois—the position that at the next aggressive move by Communists, Russian or satellite, wherever it came, the U.S. should go to war with Russia. In this view the U.S. should stay in Europe, wage an air and sea blockade on Communist China, and take allies where they could be found—Nationalist China's Chiang Kai-shek and his army on Formosa, Generalissimo Francisco Franco and his strategic Spain, Tito and Yugoslavia.

A powerful voice joined in the argument last week; it was the voice of the only living ex-President.

Watchful Waiting. The U.S., said 76-year-old Herbert Hoover in a radio speech to the nation, should, in effect, be prepared to abandon Asia and Europe to Communism, and to build the Western Hemisphere into "the Gibraltar of civilization." It should cut its world commitments down to a cordon of ocean bases—Formosa, the Philippines and Japan in the Pacific, and Britain, "if she wishes to cooperate," in the Atlantic.

"We Americans alone, with sea and air power, can so control the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans that there can be no possible invasion of the Western Hemisphere by Communist armies," said he. In Europe, "our policy . . . should be confined to a period of watchful waiting."

The West, he concluded, can never beat Russia on the ground in Europe or Asia. "Any attempt to make war on the Communist mass by land invasion, through the quicksands of China, India or Western Europe, is sheer folly. That would be the graveyard of millions of American boys."

No Appeasement. Mr. Hoover was convinced that the U.S. should get out of Korea, should stiffen its hold on Formosa and the Philippines and give the Japanese independence and arms for defense. It should cut off Western European allies without another dollar or U.S. soldier until they organize and equip combat divisions "of such large numbers as would erect a sure dam against the Red flood."