OPINION: The Traveler

U.S. hands across the sea, recently warmly grasped by Britain's Queen Elizabeth and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, got a nettle when they welcomed a third visiting British dignitary last week. He was Aneurin ("Nye") Bevan, 59, Welsh-born foreign-affairs expert of Britain's opposition Labor Party, most advertised Foreign Secretary prospect in any future socialist government.

As he toured from New York to Cambridge, Mass. to Washington, Nye Bevan scolded Americans for not seeking compromises with Communist powers. He urged the U.S. to break down misunderstanding with the men in the Kremlin—"They are not nurturing world revolution"—and to recognize a Russian presence in the Middle East: "The Eisenhower-Macmillan talks were sterile." Before the Harvard Law School forum he criticized U.S. diplomacy for "utter stupidity" and the U.S. public for "group behavior far too primitive for the modern world." He added: "The techniques of modern warfare have rendered democratic institutions obsolete."

Nye Bevan reached a high point at a dinner of the Economic Club of New York. There he told an audience of about 1,100 businessmen that the U.S. ought to recognize Red China. The U.S. should not snub Red China simply because it had been set up irregularly, he said, asking, "How was the American nation established?" There was a murmur of disapproval. Minutes later Nye Bevan paid his respects to his audience. "Khrushchev," he said, "is a simple sort of chap. We know he is ruthless, but I shook hands with a number of persons here tonight who I also thought were ruthless."

American newspapers kept Nye on their inside pages and had few editorial comments—but not so the British back home. "In this country we are getting used to Mr. Bevan's blunders," said Tory Party Chairman Lord Hailsham. "It is particularly unfortunate that he should choose America as the platform from which to demonstrate his total unsuitability to become Foreign Secretary of this country." Summed up the London Daily Mail: "The impact of Mr. Bevan's opinions on the U.S. must be disastrous. Already diehards over there had been opposing the sharing of atomic secrets with Britain—and Bevan himself was cited as a reason."