Six Dangerous Months

Presidential elections are an attractive nuisance, says the author, an invitation to the enemy to act when our will to resist is weakest

Between May and November, 1960, the international power and prestige of the United States are likely to be tested as never before, yet nobody in America seems to have noted the peculiar and unprecedented nature of the approaching crisis. But we may be sure that in Moscow and Peiping, and perhaps in Baghdad, Cairo and Potsdam, the strategists of dynamic diplomacy are planning hard to take advantage of the period of domestic infantilism which the American Constitution schedules so conveniently far ahead and which the American party bosses drag out for six months of bluster and brag and recrimination. An American Presidential election is, no doubt, a great sporting event, almost as exciting as the World’s Series, but the fun may prove to be too costly in 1960, and it is worth considering the possibility for once of having a quick, sober election.

RE

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Raymond English

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Presidential Election

Presidential elections are an attractive nuisance, says the author, an invitation to the enemy to act when our will to resist is weakest

Between May and November, 1960, the international power and prestige of the United States are likely to be tested as never before, yet nobody in America seems to have noted the peculiar and unprecedented nature of the approaching crisis. But we may be sure that in Moscow and Peiping, and perhaps in Baghdad, Cairo and Potsdam, the strategists of dynamic diplomacy are planning hard to take advantage of the period of domestic infantilism which the American Constitution schedules so conveniently far ahead and which the American party bosses drag out for six months of bluster and brag and recrimination. An American Presidential election is, no doubt, a great sporting event, almost as exciting as the World’s Series, but the fun may prove to be too costly in 1960, and it is worth considering the possibility for once of having a quick, sober election.