OPINION: Europe on the Campaign

"You don't really mean you're still for Eisenhower," a young British writer said to a U.S. correspondent last week at a London cocktail party. "My God, seriously, old boy, I must convince you."

The remark summarized the feelings of the Western European press on the U.S. campaign. Last July, the victor over Hitler and the boss of SHAPE was the unquestioned favorite. By last week, if Ike had to run in Europe, he would lose hands down—at least in the press.

This is particularly true in Britain, where Adlai Stevenson has made a tremendous hit. Reports one U.S. correspondent: "The British can't understand how a man who didn't go to Eton could have such facility with words, but they love it." The Daily Mail's Don Iddon called Stevenson "dazzling and delightful," adding: "His manner is more British than American, and this could be a handicap [in the U.S.]. Already his harassed enemies are suggesting that Stevenson has an English accent—a most shameful sin." Reported the Daily Telegraph's Malcolm Muggeridge: "He derives from the tradition of Henry Adams, and a century ago might well have preferred to transfer himself across the Atlantic to survey the New World from the Old." Said the Sunday Times: Stevenson "already has much of the clean-cut loneliness of the great."

The man in the street and in the pub still seems to like Ike and wonder who this chap Stevenson is. But the Laborite Daily Herald says: "Ike has become a pitiful pawn." The thoughtful Economist, which backed Eisenhower a few months ago, last week worried about Ike's association with Taft, wondered whether "Eisenhower, the politician, is a different man from Eisenhower, the architect of a united victory." But, added the Economist, "may the best man win."

Reaction in other capitals is similar. The conservative Paris Figaro recently said (in a headline): "Stevenson appeals to the voters' reason; Eisenhower to their emotions." Writes Germany's Der Spiegel of Stevenson: "A gentleman." Vienna's Socialist Arbeiter-Zeitung summed up Socialist opinion last week when it described Truman's campaign as blowing "like a whirlwind of fresh air through the press, television and statistics."

Greatest tribute to both candidates came from the Communist press, which condemned them both as capitalist lackeys.