New Hope in America
It may yet be decided that Senator Vandenberg's recent message assuring Mr. Hoffman of his support marked a turning point in American foreign policy. Already the malaise which has affected all discussion of foreign affairs for months has begun to disappear, and the return of the Republican John Foster Dulles to the State Department in an advisory capacity has shown that the President is willing to accept the support offered by Senator Vandenberg on behalf of all believers in a bi-partisan foreign policy. The recent troubles which have been hampering the State Department have been threefold. The search for Communists within the United States has been pursued to the point of hysteria. At the same time American policy has experienced several set-backs, the worst being the triumph of the Communists in China. And thirdly the fear has grown that the bipartisan foreign policy may have gone for ever. It is this third trouble that Senator Vandenberg has probably managed to put right. The MacCarthy witch-bunt has also passed its most hectic phase. As to the most important point of all—the pulling together of State Department policy—it stands a much better chance of being settled now that the Secretary of State can devote more time to his proper work and less to personal self- defence. But still the most that can be said is that the corner may have been turned. Senator MacCarthy may have been scotched, but the blind isolationism for which he stands has not been. Nor have his powerful supporters within the Republican Party been brought to book. It is also unlikely that Mr. Dulles, who has made a number of mistakes both in internal politics and in foreign affairs, is the man to breathe new life into the bi-partisan policy. And as to the State Department, it is not yet back on the dear path which it followed in the greatest days of Mr_ Marshall's Secretaryship. It simply has another chance.
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