The Daily Alaska Empire

The Washington Merry-Go-Round
By DREW PEARSON

WASHINGTON - For the past two weeks President Truman and his advisers have been giving a lot of thought to ways and means of getting the dynamite-laden Russo-American crisis out of the hands of the diplomats and putting it on a people-to-people basis.

In brief, it is proposed that Truman make an appeal direct to Stalin in which he would emphasize that the world can never have peace if one nation refuses to let its people make friends with the rest of the world.

Stalin would be reminded of the great hopes for peace which all the world cherished, of the comradeship and common goal of the American and Soviet armies, of the great friendship which the American people once felt for the people of Russia, and their present disappointment at the way that friendship has been rebuffed and kicked around until the two nations are near the brink of war.

Behind the idea for such an appeal is the belief that our Russian problems must be lifted above the heads of the diplomats if they are to get anywhere.

The diplomats can keep on arguing about Russian currency, zones of Germany, and bizonal problems for weeks and months. And, with each passing week, the world's hope for peace sinks deeper into the slough of world despair.

The military may be able to keep up their miraculous job of flying food into Berlin all winter; and yet when the winter is over we still won't be any nearer an understanding with Russia.

We can also keep on pouring money into Western Europe under the Marshall Plan. Yet at the end of five years we will still be in a dangerous stalemate with the Kremlin if there continues to be an airtight, ironclad curtain preventing all friendship between the American and Russian people.

ROAD TO BANKRUPTCY
Take for instance, the new lend-lease military budget for Western Europe revealed in this column on Monday. U. S. National Defense chiefs are now planning to ask Congress for about five billions to arm England, France and the Benelux countries against attack by the Red Army.

This five billion is for one year alone. And it will be on top of five billion for the Marshall Plan, plus twelve billion for U. S. military defense, plus all domestic expenditures, making a budget which must eventually throw American economy dangerously out of balance.

This, of course, is just what the Russians are aiming at. A depression, a bankrupt USA is just as good to them as an American defeat in war. In fact, better, because in a depression Russia would not have to do any fighting.

All of which is why White House advisers at long last are warning that the country has reached a diplomatic dead-end, and that somehow or other we must penetrate the Iron Curtain to win a permanent safeguard for peace: friendship with the Russian people.

REAL U. S. FRIENDSHIP
In the past the American people have sent the Friendship Train to Europe, mailed millions of democracy letters to the people of West Europe, given millions of dollars in CARE packages, and shown their genuine friendship in all sorts of ways. But they have never been able to register that friendship with the Russian people.

The Iron Curtain has been too frigid.

Nor has the U. S. Government, except by the voice of America, taken any important step to convince the Russian people that we are a friendly, peace-loving country and the last people in the world to want war.

While Mr. Truman's appeal to Stalin-if made-may fall on barren ground, nothing worth while in life is accomplished without trying. And when the world faces the tragic spectacle of another world war, then we should probe every possible avenue of peace until the very end.