* * * MR. R. H. S. CROSSMAN, NIP, asked
his Sunday newspaper readers last week whether we should be represented at high-level talks by Sir Anthony Eden, `the expert diplomatist whom Americans trust,' or by Clement Attlee, who stopped 'the Americans launching atom warfare in Korea'; a rather blatantly loaded question, since whatever else Mr. Attlee has stopped in his time he did not stop the Americans launching atom warfare in Korea, and I am surprised that Mr. Crossman, however much he disagrees with Mr. Attlee, should when desiring to extol his achievements have to fall back on an entirely imaginary triumph. Garbled press reports had said that President Truman was ready to atom-bomb the Chinese and Mr. Attlee dashed off to Washington. (At the last election Transport House pro- duced a strip cartoon showing Mr. Attlee scurrying into an aeroplane for Washington and returning full of smiles. With praiseworthy respect for the conventions of the medium, it called its strip 'The Flight that Saved the World.') The reports were, of course, false and Richard Rovere and Arthur Schles- inger, Jr., have described the Attlee-Truman meeting as 'the most pointless conference of its sort ever held.' It was said at the time that Mr. Attlee mumbled so much that poor President Truman, although very anxious to be helpful, found this diffi- cult. as he could not hear what Mr. Attlee was talking about.
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