AMERICAN POLICY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20259, 29 May 1940, Page 5

AMERICAN POLICY

ATTITUDE TO THE WAR MORE CANDOUR URGED LEADERS CRITICISED NEW YORK, April 30. In an exceptionally outspoken despatch the chief Washington correspondent of the New York Times, Mr. Arthur Krock, takes to task United States political leaders, including President Roosevelt, for “their failure to take the people of the United States into their confidence about the European situation." “While evasion or concealment of personal views and national necessities fits s political _ materialism," , says Mr. Krock, “it represents tb many observers of the world situation one of the greatest perils the nation has ever had to face.” Mr. Krock alleges that Mr. Roosevelt indirectly made known “views which j-eveal , a fear, that there is a fifty-fifty chance of United States involvement as far as aids of money and credit arid naval and air support to the Allies are concerned.’’ Dictators’ Early Rounds “Nearly all leading politicians are waitipg for events to move them safely into position, which, most of them believe, must be assumed eventually,” he says. ..“This belief is growing with daily proof that the dictators are winning the early rounds of the European war, but the politicians are not taking the public into their confidence, and if the people accept their, assurances that involvement of the United States can easily be prevented, whatever the fate of the Allies, they may be fated for a shock, against which candour and courageous leadership could shield them. .“All this is happening while the State Department is receiving despatches which bring to the foreground official thought of growing threats to happy American isolation,” says Mr. Krock. “In the War and Navy Departments plans for dealing with potential perils are constantly being revised, but in the speeches of politicians this realism fails to emerge. This lack of candour is the more regrettable because frank dealing with the public would help to produce far better protection against involvement, and perhaps would revise the.future plans and hopes of certain dictators.”