THE WEEK

In this issue we publish two statements on the meaning of Hungary the mere reading of which leaves us, and perhaps our readers, damp with exhaustion, intellectual and spiritual. Great crises bring out the ultimate resources in human beings: in Hungary, from brave men, feats of high courage; in the West, from good men, utterances of rare eloquence and force. There is nothing we wish to add to the statements of Professor Wilhelmsen or Father Parry having to do with the moral challenge that faces the West.

Mr. Kendall reports, elsewhere, on the agonizing reappraisal, by the New York Times, of a foreign policy now proved to be catastrophically inappropriate, national review yields to no one in its respect for the powers of the Liberal machine, and, accordingly, is second to no one in rejoicing at disturbances within it which could lead to a fundamental reorientation. Perhaps the single most arresting statement that appeared last week was by the nation’s leading Protestant theologian, Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr, in the New York Times. Wrote Dr. Niebuhr: it would be well to raise the question whether our new national pacifism—that is our insistence that force is ruled out in every and in all situations—may not be responsible for the desperation with which our democratic allies sought to counter the threats of the new alliance of Egyptian dietatorship and Russian tyranny… may it be that our responsibilities, which once tempted us to hysteria, are now tempting us to a too rigid pacifism?”

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In this issue we publish two statements on the meaning of Hungary the mere reading of which leaves us, and perhaps our readers, damp with exhaustion, intellectual and spiritual. Great crises bring out the ultimate resources in human beings: in Hungary, from brave men, feats of high courage; in the West, from good men, utterances of rare eloquence and force. There is nothing we wish to add to the statements of Professor Wilhelmsen or Father Parry having to do with the moral challenge that faces the West.

Mr. Kendall reports, elsewhere, on the agonizing reappraisal, by the New York Times, of a foreign policy now proved to be catastrophically inappropriate, national review yields to no one in its respect for the powers of the Liberal machine, and, accordingly, is second to no one in rejoicing at disturbances within it which could lead to a fundamental reorientation. Perhaps the single most arresting statement that appeared last week was by the nation’s leading Protestant theologian, Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr, in the New York Times. Wrote Dr. Niebuhr: it would be well to raise the question whether our new national pacifism—that is our insistence that force is ruled out in every and in all situations—may not be responsible for the desperation with which our democratic allies sought to counter the threats of the new alliance of Egyptian dietatorship and Russian tyranny… may it be that our responsibilities, which once tempted us to hysteria, are now tempting us to a too rigid pacifism?”