Brussels—The Watergate affair would have provided Europeans the occasion, I more or less assumed, for an anti-American field day. And many professional anti-Americans have certainly been having the time of their lives.
What has surprised me, though, is the larger number, even among Europeans not known for friendliness toward America, who, if I extrapolate accurately from what I have been hearing and reading, are in no wise happy at our sorrows. I think I had been unduly impressed by Peregrine Worsthorne’s bitter (“sordid,” “banana republic”) attack that the New York Times reprinted on its Op Ed page. I should have allowed more for the fact that Worsthorne’s is not a “typical European” opinion. He has been a steadfast friend and defender of America; even in the midst of the worst Cuban and Vietnam storms; he had a right to feel betrayed; and to say so in public.
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