The Week

We choose to write off as inherently improbable the alleged invitation by the President to Marshal Tito, to come to this country to chew over mutually vexatious problems. The rumored invitation was publicized on the front pages on the very same day that Milovan Djilas was sentenced, in Yugoslavia, to three years in prison for criticizing Tito publicly. Just in case the rumor is true, we hope the President will demonstrate his disposition to give as well as take by—in return for Tito’s advice on how to defend the West against the Soviet Uni on—offering freely of his advice on how to defend Yugoslavia against future Djilases. Let it never be said that we got more from Tito than we gave. That would be selfish.

The bright idea of organizing a committee of twenty to guide the fortunes of the Democratic Party appears to have fallen flat. This is due in part to its undisguised motivation: to muscle in on the acknowledged prerogatives of the congressional leaders of the Party, who, in turn, don’t quite see why they need all that much advice from men and women responsible for so spectacular a failure in 1956. In part, then, the repudiation of the committee is due merely to commonplace human and organizational factors. But in part, also, it is a repudiation, however gentle, of the ideological motivations of the ADA-Walter Reuther branch of the Party with which, notoriously, Southern leaders are out of sympathy. As we predicted after the election, the important political struggles of the ensuing two years will take place within, not between, the political parties.

Featured Tags

We choose to write off as inherently improbable the alleged invitation by the President to Marshal Tito, to come to this country to chew over mutually vexatious problems. The rumored invitation was publicized on the front pages on the very same day that Milovan Djilas was sentenced, in Yugoslavia, to three years in prison for criticizing Tito publicly. Just in case the rumor is true, we hope the President will demonstrate his disposition to give as well as take by—in return for Tito’s advice on how to defend the West against the Soviet Uni on—offering freely of his advice on how to defend Yugoslavia against future Djilases. Let it never be said that we got more from Tito than we gave. That would be selfish.

The bright idea of organizing a committee of twenty to guide the fortunes of the Democratic Party appears to have fallen flat. This is due in part to its undisguised motivation: to muscle in on the acknowledged prerogatives of the congressional leaders of the Party, who, in turn, don’t quite see why they need all that much advice from men and women responsible for so spectacular a failure in 1956. In part, then, the repudiation of the committee is due merely to commonplace human and organizational factors. But in part, also, it is a repudiation, however gentle, of the ideological motivations of the ADA-Walter Reuther branch of the Party with which, notoriously, Southern leaders are out of sympathy. As we predicted after the election, the important political struggles of the ensuing two years will take place within, not between, the political parties.