Optimism Again

As it had on the issues of war, the pendulum of U.S. public feeling now shifted swiftly on the issues of peace. Last week it swung to optimism over U.S. relations with Europe.

The confident man in the White House, cool in a blue seersucker suit and soft-collared white shirt, was optimistic. The Russians, he said, are just as anxious to get along with the U.S. as the U.S. is to get along with them, and he thought they had shown it very conclusively. He enumerated: P:Harry Hopkins' successful mission to Moscow.

P:Russian yielding on the Security Council veto impasse (TIME, June 18) and the Polish situation.

Moreover, the Big Three meeting was

now definite (around mid-July), and its

major task would be to plan the peace

inference, in advance of Japan's defeat.

Harry Truman, it was clear, wanted to get an early start on the tangled problems of Europe, lay the foundations of final settlements.

Home with the Bacon. At his press conference, a surge of searching questions was unloosed. The President acknowledged that there were still many "ifs." But the arrangements had been made for solution of the Polish Government problem. There was progress, and he hoped for results. He hoped the apple cart would not be upset. He cautioned the press not to muddy the waters.

Next day came news that muddied some of the public's optimism: Russia announced that it would try the 16 imprisoned London Poles (see INTERNATIONAL).

But the Big Three meeting was the main fact to Harry Truman--"to meet and talk and trust each other." He had his plans ready, his team picked (Stettinius, Hopkins, Jimmy Byrnes and the Combined Chiefs of Staff).

The President also made known his desire to take with him the strongest possible evidence of U.S. leadership in a world organization. He would fly out ftiis week for the charter's completion at San Francisco and will fly back with the bacon at once. He would like Senate ratification in a hurry, so that be could pack a TT.S.approved world charter into his overseas luggage.

But many Senators were not willing to jump on the speed wagon. The Truman Administration could count on most of the Democrats, but the key to a two-thirds vote was held by such Republican backers of world organization as Michigan's Arthur Vandenberg and Ohio's Harold Hitz Burton. Said Delegate-Senator Vandenberg last week: "This will not be the battle of the century." But he would oppose any clubbing of the Senate into approval. And last week when trim, grey Harold Burton delivered a scholarly, three-hour defense of San Francisco, only three Senators were present to hear him.

Potsdam the Place? There was no doubt about Mr. Truman's confidence over the forthcoming meeting in the Russian-occupied area near Berlin. The best guess was that it would be held at Germany's "imitation Versailles"--wooded, gardened Potsdam. There Frederick the Great* had plotted strategy to divide his enemies; there he had built his quadrangular Sanssouci. Potsdam's rococo palaces were just what the Russians, British and Americans needed for separate quarters. Whether or not Harry Truman could there present a U.S.-approved world security charter, he had apparently made up his mind on the key points of his Big Three dealings: i) he would be a, leader, not a mediator; 2) the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. are the top powers, and must get along.

*This week U.S. soldiers found the bodies of Frederick the Great and Frederick Wilhelm I in a salt mine near Bernterode. They had been removed from Potsdam in coffins decorated with swastikas.

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