The Hoover Touch
When Mr. Herbert Hoover pronounces on issues of state he has a method all his own. It is simply to resurrect the great programmes of the past and state them as if they were entirely new. His broad- cast address last week, in which he argued that the defence policy of the United States should be based on sea and air power and that no more aid should be given to the countries of Western Europe until they had " organised and equipped combat divisions of such large numbers as would erect a sure dam against the Red flood," was intended to start the great American debate on the future of aid to Europe. It seems to have done that quite effectively. It is therefore unfortunate that Mr. Hoover's contribution should have been a re-statement of the purest isolationism—which misguided Europeans thought had been adequately debated, and rejected, ten years ago—and that he prejudged the issue by arguing that Europe should not be given any aid until it did not need it. Nevertheless, however badly the debate has started, it most certainly should be carried through to the end. The American people must not under- take the vast commitment of full participation in the defence of Western Europe without knowing exactly what they are doing. Even the critics who had thought that that obligation was already finally accepted, particularly since it had been solemnly embodied in ttui Atlantic Treaty which runs until 1969, had better stand aside, fof the past week has made it clear that Mr. Hoover has vast numbers, of supporters in the United States, and if their memory for treaty obligations is as short as his then they must be given every oppor- tunity to find out where they stand. This latest demonstration of the Hoover touch may also be a salutary reminder to the peoples of Europe that American foreign and defence policies are highly volatile—though the Korean war should have driven that point home. If debate really can make it more stable, then all the better for the world. Even Mr. Hoover can hardly come back to isola- tionism yet a third time. And if anything more can be done mean- while to show that the peoples of Europe are as keen on saving themselves as any American is on saving them, so much the better.
