FOREIGN RELATIONS: Statesman & Reformer

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Elder Statesman Bernard Baruch, who is a stickler for accuracy and integrity, was in an unwanted public row last week. His opponent was ex-Commerce Secretary Henry Wallace. The row was vital: it brought U.S. atomic policy into sharp debate, and it cast some highly interesting light on the character of Henry Wallace.

It began with publication of Wallace's now famous letter to the President, in which he not only deplored the Administration's foreign policy, but also criticized the U.S. plan for setting up international control of atomic power.

Bernard Baruch, in the midst of "delicate" negotiations to get the U.N. to agree to that plan, was profoundly disturbed. The Wallace criticisms were based either on ignorance, or on distortion of the facts. Despite the fact that Harry Truman meanwhile had thrown Wallace out of his Cabinet, Baruch insisted that Wallace come to him and talk things over. Baruch had in mind Wallace's many earnest followers, to whom Wallace was a man of great and sincere ideals, who believed in Henry Wallace and everything he said. Baruch wanted to nail the errors before they did any more harm.

The Vanishing Man. The friendly conference, in Baruch's Manhattan office, lasted three hours. On one side were Wallace and his adviser, alert Philip Hauser of the Census Bureau. On the other: Baruch and his associates, ex-Editorialist Herbert Bayard Swope, Banker John Hancock, Wall Streeter Ferd Eberstadt. Wai. lace, it developed, had based his criticism largely on the advice of a friend of his in UNRRA, who was now abroad. Baruch showed him, point by point, where he was wrong. The upshot of the conference: Hauser and Swope would draft a retraction for Wallace to sign.

The statement, as finally drafted, included the words: "I was not fully posted ... I am in full agreement . . . with Mr. Baruch." But when they looked around for Wallace to get him to sign it, Wallace could not be found. He had left the conference to have lunch with Henry Morgenthau Jr. They telephoned Mr. Morgenthau. Wallace had left him after lunch, and Mr. Morgenthau did not know where he was. They telephoned around New York hotels. No Henry Wallace.

That was Friday. Saturday and Sunday went by. They telephoned Mrs. Wallace. They telephoned Henry's North Salem, N. Y. farm. No one knew where he had gone.

Second Thought. On Monday Baruch got a telephone call. It was Wallace. In place of the letter which Hauser and Swope had drafted, he had written a statement which he read over the phone with the remark: "You won't like this." He was right. In it he said that he was glad to discover that "many points of the [Baruch] policies are identical with my proposals." But Baruch, the statement saidt overlooked the "major thesis of my letter to the President—the absence of an attitude of mutual trust and confidence between the United States and Russia." Baruch, incredulous and angry, demanded that Wallace try again.

Wallace drafted another statement which stubbornly said the same things. And when Baruch learned, furthermore, that Wallace was going to publish the original letter in pamphlet form, his patience ran out. Baruch then made the whole affair public.