The Wilmington Morning Star

Churchill's Address

Mr. Winston Churchill remains a world figure. He still exercises tremendous influence despite his demotion to leader of the opposition in Commons. It is doubtful if he has lost an iota of his power to sway public opinion in the British-speaking world, outside England's Labor party inner circle, that he possessed as Prime Minister.

What he says, therefore, concerning great affairs, whatever warning he may give of possible trouble ahead, commands the close attention, not only in the capitals of the great powers, but among the peoples of the world where a free press may transpose his spoken word into type without elision or misinterpretation.

He issued a warning on Tuesday, from a platform at Westminster College, in Fulton, Missouri, where he had traveled with President Truman to receive an honorary degree. "Nobody knows what Soviet Russia and its communist international organization intends to do in the immediate future," he declared, "or what are the limits, if any, to their expansive or proselyting tendencies."

However greatly this may appear to unsheath the sword, it is to be admitted that Russia's policy since the fighting war ended, and long before, has been to expand and proselyte, to the very verge of aggression.

Mr. Churchill's position is easily understood when it is noted that Russia is offering a definite threat to Britain's "life line" by demanding a voice in the disposition of the Dodecanese islands, by holding troops in northern Iran, by seeking the trusteeship over Italian Tripolitania, by sedulously cultivating the friendship, which, by the Russian interpretation, means support, of the Arab tribes in Syria and Palestine, not to mention Moscow's attitude toward the Baltic states and in the Balkans.

His call for closer relationship between Britain and the United States is equally easy to understand. The recent war demonstrated more clearly than ever that British and American interests are too closely allied to permit any misunderstanding to separate them.

The United States cannot consent to some of Britain's policies, particularly as they affect world trade and communication, but these things must be settled by Washington and London, as family quarrels are settled under the family rooftree, with the two nations standing shoulder to shoulder, like brothers formerly at odds, in any emergency created by outside, particularly by what Mr. Churchill calls neo-fascist, activities.

In principle, Mr. Churchill's Fulton address was on the beam. If it is subject to criticism, it is not in the terms of Senator Pepper or other members of the upper house of Congress, in effect that he proclaimed British imperialism as the highest objective. It is that he took occasion to dwell on the possibility of war, for which no major power, certainly not Russia, is prepared, instead of preaching the gospel of peace.

His psychology was wrong. Moscow is all too liable to accept his address as a threat of war, rather than an appeal for better understanding and cooperation in creating world security.

If the (atom) bomb is as powerful and as cataclysmic as it has been said, I believe you will find the soldier more than anyone else yelling for international machinery to protect the peace and to make it work. -General Eisenhower.