THE TABLET October 26th, 1957. VOL. 210. No. 6127

THiETABI r A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 184 0

OCTOBER 26th, 1957

NINEPENCE

Forty Years Oil ; The Propaganda Failure and the Technical Achievement of the IJ.S.S.R.

Preparing for the Lourdes Centenary : 1. By n itu d Evans, o p

Italian Renaissance ! The Highest Economic Growth-rate in Europe. By Colin Clark

Lay Apostles in Rome r Impressions of the World Congress. By Margaret M. Feeny Crusaders’ Kingdom : Some Parallels with the State of Israel. By F. C. Anderson

“ Scottish Abbey'’ in Vienna: A Benedictine Anniversary. By F. M. M. Steiner

Critics' Columns : Notebook : Book Reviews : Letters : Chess

COMPELLING UNITY

r PH E British Prime Minister arrives in Washington in the 1 wake of the Queen’s visit, and with the advantage that that visit leaves behind it. Mr. Macmillan is handicapped on the other hand by the communiqué issued after the Bermuda meeting last March — the typical communiqué of noncommital and banal phrases about a wide measure of agreement and an even wider field of topics enumerated. Its chief positive matter was that Britain should draw closer to Europe.

The truth is that the shock administered to AngloAmerican relations just a year ago, when the Americans were kept so very much in the dark about an Anglo-French enterprise so much opposed to their ideas, was so severe that Bermuda represented a considerable step forward towards restoring the minimum essential degree of Anglo-American unity. But this week’s visit, apparently arranged with such precipitation, will be considered by the world to be one of the first results of the Russian success in launching a satellite to circle the earth. One lesson of that success is the importance of concentration. The Americans, in particular, feel as though they had lost an imnortant international sporting event, and one with ugly implications; and a people which takes victory, even in games, so very seriously, can be relied upon to concentrate on success in this new field, which is also one particularly congenial to the American imagination. The presence of Sir Edwin Plowden, of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, in Mr. Macmillan’s party, indicates that part of the conversations will be about a more effective scientific partnership. Following some spectacular treason cases in this country, the Americans expressed their misgivings about British security by legislation to prevent much exchange of vital scientific information, and this is a field in which it is hoped to make a change.

Mr. Macmillan's three days’ talks should be very down to earth and detailed if the agreements are to take root and blossom, and not to be whittled away to nothing by Government Departments on each side of the Atlantic, as has so often happened with high-level political meetings. They will not be able to dwell for long on the larger picture of AngloAmerican relations, as they are excellently analysed in Mr. William Clark’s book, Less than Kin (Hamish Hamilton, 16s.). Mr. Clark brings out very effectively the curious paradox that while the Americans are essentially forwardlooking people—and it was the observation of a very eminent American motor king that “ history is bunk ”—few p’eoples are so much the prisoners emotionally of their historical past. They have carried an instinctive •anti-colonialism into their foreign policy in a way that has often made them lose valuable time in appreciating the current realities with which they have to deal.

In his second part, on the British view of America, Mr. Clark brings out how it is only in this century that the British really began to give their minds to America; that the rise of America to be the chief world Power has come with dramatic suddenness over the last forty years, and that this political pre-eminence has been accompanied by a very disturbing impact on social habits and customs, symbolised by the American domination of the new invention of the cinema. It is not surprising that a wholly new relationship, which the circumstances of the world, and primarily the rise of Soviet Russia, have made imperative, has not been achieved without difficulty. It was a great shock to the British, after the long supremacy of Victorian England, to discover in the two German wars how vitally they needed American soldiers at their side, and in \e second German war the American military contribution in the final stage was decisively preponderant.

Perhaps it is really more remarkable how much was achieved in terms of close partnership, how much common sense there was on both sides at the top levels. President Eisenhower himself was efiosen as Supreme Commander at least as much for his diplomatic as for his military gifts, for his power to make British and American officers work well together all the way down the military hierarchy; and it was in that capacity that he first met Mr. Macmillan, as the Minister Resident in North Africa, ft should be a good augury that these are the two men who in 1957 find