15 MARCH 1940, Page 22

AMERICA AND THE WAR

SrR,—The American Ambassador, on his arrival in this country, is reported (according to The Times) to have said : " If isolation means a desire to keep out of war, I should say it is definitely stronger. It is not that Americans do not want to support the Allies or that they are selfish; but there is not a single thought running through the American mind that did not run through the English mind before the war."

Does Mr. Kennedy realise that one of the thoughts running through the English mind before the war was this : however great may be our desire for peace, whatever our efforts to preserve it, once Germany has thrown down the challenge we shall have to take it up?

Is that running through America's mind?—Yours, JOHN EVANS.