Walter Lippmann: Defeatist

Walter Lippmann, avoiding debate on the platform or in print, has set himself up as a permanent nonpartisan counsellor to the nation, on national and international affairs. He knows everything, understands everything, foresees everything. No, Lippmann is not the kind of person who would sign a Communist-front manifesto or share a platform with the Dean of Canterbury. From the Fabian socialism of his Harvard student days he has evolved, in his thinking on public affairs, into a very diluted and ultra-moderate conservatism. But on the biggest international issue of our time, he has been a consistent defeatist-on the issue of the Communist grand design to conquer the world by a mixture of force and subversive propaganda.

Lippmann is by no means consistent. He has been known to oscillate between extremes of optimism and pessimism after trips to Europe. (A Washington hostess with a gift of tossing off epigrams once referred to The Pundit as “Operation Cross-eyed.” One of her. other designations was “The hillbilly Polonius” for Cordell Hull.) But on not being beastly to the Kremlin, and on taking a very dim view of those who believe that there ought to be a fighting spirit even in a cold war, his line has been straight and undeviating. One need only look up the record.

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William Henry Chamberlin

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Walter Lippmann, avoiding debate on the platform or in print, has set himself up as a permanent nonpartisan counsellor to the nation, on national and international affairs. He knows everything, understands everything, foresees everything. No, Lippmann is not the kind of person who would sign a Communist-front manifesto or share a platform with the Dean of Canterbury. From the Fabian socialism of his Harvard student days he has evolved, in his thinking on public affairs, into a very diluted and ultra-moderate conservatism. But on the biggest international issue of our time, he has been a consistent defeatist-on the issue of the Communist grand design to conquer the world by a mixture of force and subversive propaganda.

Lippmann is by no means consistent. He has been known to oscillate between extremes of optimism and pessimism after trips to Europe. (A Washington hostess with a gift of tossing off epigrams once referred to The Pundit as “Operation Cross-eyed.” One of her. other designations was “The hillbilly Polonius” for Cordell Hull.) But on not being beastly to the Kremlin, and on taking a very dim view of those who believe that there ought to be a fighting spirit even in a cold war, his line has been straight and undeviating. One need only look up the record.