The World Views the U.S.

The British press continues to give evidence that it now counts “victories” in overcoming American restrictions on trading with the enemy as more important than the Cold War against the Soviet Empire in Europe and Asia. Thus the Spectator said in its issue of February 10 that at the Eden-Eisenhower conference “a minor victory for the British balance of payments was scored by the promise of a review of embargoes on trade with China.”

Similarly, the Statesman of India remarked on February 3 that “the American agreement to review trade restrictions on Communist China is a victory for the British team.” Our own very “liberal” Richard Rovere, who is the Washington correspondent of the one-time conservative Spectator, happily reported that “there is something very reassuring” in the thought that Sir Anthony Eden could “address the American people with banalities similar in spirit and tone and phrasing to those they are accustomed to hearing from their own President.” To Americans this phenomenon may be less “reassuring” in view of Rovere’s further comment that although “the Administration stuck to its guns on China trade,” no one in America is now “much offended by the thought that the matter is now negotiable” — in contrast to a year or two ago when “an important section of the press and important congressional blocs would have been moved to near-hysteria by the knowledge that the Prime Minister and the President were considering a relaxation of restrictions.”

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Freda Utley

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The British press continues to give evidence that it now counts “victories” in overcoming American restrictions on trading with the enemy as more important than the Cold War against the Soviet Empire in Europe and Asia. Thus the Spectator said in its issue of February 10 that at the Eden-Eisenhower conference “a minor victory for the British balance of payments was scored by the promise of a review of embargoes on trade with China.”

Similarly, the Statesman of India remarked on February 3 that “the American agreement to review trade restrictions on Communist China is a victory for the British team.” Our own very “liberal” Richard Rovere, who is the Washington correspondent of the one-time conservative Spectator, happily reported that “there is something very reassuring” in the thought that Sir Anthony Eden could “address the American people with banalities similar in spirit and tone and phrasing to those they are accustomed to hearing from their own President.” To Americans this phenomenon may be less “reassuring” in view of Rovere’s further comment that although “the Administration stuck to its guns on China trade,” no one in America is now “much offended by the thought that the matter is now negotiable” — in contrast to a year or two ago when “an important section of the press and important congressional blocs would have been moved to near-hysteria by the knowledge that the Prime Minister and the President were considering a relaxation of restrictions.”