Agreeing to Disagree

The sound of the katydids began on Monday; Washington shrilled with their guesses and contradictions. That day on the dot of 4, small and anonymous-looking in an unpressed grey suit, the Prime Minister of Britain walked into the White House and shook hands with the President. A few minutes later, Clement Attlee and Harry Truman strode down the corridor and into the green-draped Cabinet Room where Franklin Roosevelt had consulted with Winston Churchill in other crisis days.

Around the big (20 feet long) table were gathered the advisers. Among them, on Harry Truman's side, were Secretaries Acheson, Marshall, Snyder, General of the Army Omar Bradley; with Attlee were Ambassador Sir Oliver Franks, Field Marshal Slim, Air Force Marshal Tedder. For an hour and 35 minutes, vowing they would come to a "mutual understanding," they laid the groundwork for discussions to come. Intermittently, behind closed doors, they talked for five consecutive days, while the noise of the katydids--planned "leaks" and planted rumors--rose around them.

They talked on Tuesday aboard the presidential yacht after lunch (sea food, soup, roast beef, braised celery, broccoli, beans, chicory salad, cheese & crackers, baked Alaskas, chocolates and assorted nuts). They talked again on Wednesday. At the White House, the Prime Minister passed, twinkling, through the gauntlet of correspondents. In his wake strode towering Ambassador Franks, shortening his ambassadorial step so as not to tread on the ministerial heels. On one occasion Mr. Attlee paused to pose, lighting his pipe. Some photographers missed the action and pleaded with him to light his pipe again. Said the Prime Minister: "I can't. It's lit." A reporter asked him how the talks were going. "O.K."

"We Stand by Our Duty." On Wednesday, Mr. Attlee decided to make himself a little more audible. Armed with a carefully written, studiously undramatic speech, he faced an audience of about 700 in the National Press Club. "Our talks," he read hopefully, "are enabling us to understand each other's point of view." Was there a suspicion that he had come to the U.S. to talk of appeasement? "That word of ill omen . . . That is not true. We know from our own bitter experience that appeasement does not pay." Then he spoke the one emotion-charged passage in his speech: "You may be certain that in fair weather or foul, where the Stars & Stripes fly in Korea, the British flag will fly beside them. We stand by our duty. We stand by our friends."

The Prime Minister went on: "But it is inevitable that with our different geographical conditions . . . there should be some difference of emphasis."

"The Two Governments Differ." The differences were greater than emphasis. There were basic differences of policy and they became clear a few days later when the conferees ended their talks and ceremoniously issued a "joint communique." Throughout the communique ran a brave effort to make the piercing contradictions come out on the same note. "There is no difference between us as to the nature of the threat. . . There can be no thought of apeasement or of rewarding aggression."

But, sometimes stated, sometimes only implied, ran the differences which the katydids had chirped about.

Korea: The only basis of a solution, aid the communique, is a "free and independent Korea," and the conferees hoped that Communist China would "take a similar attitude." "For our part we are ready, as we have always been, to seek an end to the hostilities by means of negotiation," under the principles of the U.N. charter.

What was not said was that the U.S. conferees wanted to take punitive action against the Chinese invaders, e.g., blockade China's ports, bomb Manchurian supply centers, supply and encourage Chiang Kai-shek and anti-Communist guerrillas on China's mainland. The British were against any such "limited war." They doubted that it was possible to limit war, and believed that most of their friends in the U.N. supported this view.

Admitting Communist China to the U.N.: "The two governments differ," said the communique frankly. Britain is for it even in the face of what Red China has done in Korea; the U.S. is opposed.

Formosa: "The issue should be settled by peaceful means to safeguard the interests of the people of Formosa . . . Consideration by the United Nations will contribute to these ends."

Underneath this sonorous note, which covered another discord in the U.S.-British voice, was Britain's known willingness, when the talks began, to give Formosa to the Communists in a peace settlement--an attitude that many Americans labeled appeasement, no matter what protestations the communique made. The U.S. insisted that it would not be blackmailed by Mao into sacrificing Chiang Kai-shek for what it was sure could only be a temporary peace in the Far East. Attlee reluctantly accepted this point of view.

The Atomic Bomb: The President told the Prime Minister that he would let him know whenever he thought the U.S. might have to use the Abomb. This was a part victory for Attlee, who had been shocked by the President's recent remark that the U.S. was considering use of the bomb. He got an assurance that Britain would be notified of any such intention.

Europe: "We are in complete agreement on the need for immediate action by all the North Atlantic Treaty countries ... to strengthen the Atlantic community." This was meant to reassure Europeans that the U.S. would not get so embroiled in Asia that it would be powerless to help other allies.

On strategic materials, which Attlee feared the U.S. was monopolizing: they would be "distributed equitably" in accordance with defense and civilian needs.

When all was said & done, the communique reflected the situation of allies who had agreed to disagree and still remain friends. Harry Truman had not brought Clement Attlee over to his views, although he had reassured him on some points; Attlee had not brought Truman around to his views, although the President had been reassured that Britain wanted to stand by the U.S. The talks and the communique also indicated an apparent disposition on Mr. Truman's part to search for some area of negotiation with Red China, though clearly he was not ready to toss any gifts into Mao's greedy hands.

The Attlee visit had one other effect, which the British perhaps intended. It delayed any more forthright statement of, policy from the White House. While Attlee was in the U.S., the President had deliberately refrained from making any pronouncement which might have pointed up the differences between the two allies. The President had to confine himself to what they could say with one voice. It was probably less than what he himself wanted to say, and certainly less than the clear, firm declaration of U.S. intentions that the country was waiting to hear.

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