U.S.-BRITISH UNITY

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 28002, 23 June 1956, Page 9

U.S.-BRITISH UNITY

Truman Urges Retention LONDON, June 21. The former President of the United States, Mr Harry Truman, said tonight that the “common danger” has rarely been greater, and he warned the Western allies not to get careless about their strength or unity. He was speaking at a dinner given in his honour by the Pilgrims, the BritishAmerican friendship organisation. He said that Britain and the United States, like most other nations, were more impelled to unity by common danger than by common aspirations. “But this presents no problem today,” he added. “Those who look candidly and honestly at the world about us must see that the common danger has rarely been greater, though it has often been more spectacular. “A great, serene, and peaceful future can slip from us quite as irrevocably by neglect, division and inaction,, as by specatcular disaster.” Mr Truman, who is on the last stage of his European tour, said on Monday that he was sceptical about the apparent policy changes in Russia. On this subject tonight, he said: “I am not prepared to throw away all that we have learned by hard experience—to believe that all who claim to have been converted have, in fact, cast out the old Adam.

“Even when we are moonstruck by the silvery illusions of election years, we ought to bear in mind that if we consume most of what we produce, we

will not be able to stand up against those nations which work incessantly to increase their power to threaten, their power to resist, to overawe and absorb their neighbours, and their power to strike with force of arms. “So I would urge that—out of common prudence—you and we. and all our friends and associates, should not get careless about our strength or our unity. I would hope that both our countries would continue to produce men who would keep our views and acts in close harmony.”

Mr Truman said that the peace and happiness of the world demanded that British and American policy should be conceived and conducted “in the closest concert.”