UNSCOP: Feb. 27, 1947

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Monday, Mar. 10, 1947 On a quiet afternoon last week, 171 years after the American Colonies broke away from the Crown, the terrible responsibilities (and the equally awesome opportunities) of the British Empire were delivered to Washington, addressed to the American people, c/o George C. Marshall.

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On a quiet afternoon last week, 171 years after the American Colonies broke away from the Crown, the terrible responsibilities (and the equally awesome opportunities) of the British Empire were delivered to Washington, addressed to the American people, c/o George C. Marshall. Secretary of State for only five weeks, Marshall had been cramming for the Moscow Conference on the German peace when the British note arrived and he learned that after March 31 Britain would be unable to continue help to Greece and Turkey. Marshall understood that that meant a great deal more than it said. If Britain could no longer hold (at a relatively small cost) the key position in both the European and Middle Eastern conflict with Russia, then Britain could hold no key positions. If Greece and Turkey went, Italy and France, India and Indonesia might all be lost in a chain reaction. One Senator who heard the news at the White House said: "It's the biggest thing since the declaration of war." Like the attack on Pearl Harbor, the British note only made concrete and inescapable a situation long apparent to those who looked hard enough. Like Pearl Harbor, it imposed upon the U.S. Government the duty of leading the nation and the world forward toward safety.

"We Are Losing Ground." The British note of Feb. 27, 1947 (a day that may live in history as the beginning of a new and more vigorous U.S. policy) did not find Marshall wholly unprepared. From the first he had regarded his mission to Moscow not merely as a diplomatic negotiation over Germany, but as part of a worldwide struggle in which the U.S. led the forces attempting to contain the aggressive drive of the Soviet Union.

A man who knows what has been going on in the State Department for the past month gave (just before the news broke) this analysis of the current position of the U.S. in world affairs: "The Moscow meeting is not going to decide the peace of the world. The intensive briefing which Secretary Marshall is getting is merely intended to enable him to participate fully, for the first time, in the planning of diplomatic grand strategy. The Moscow meeting is only one episode in that strategy.

"Nothing could be more harmful today than to give the American people the impression that there is a German problem. There is no German problem. There is a Russian problem.

"What's happening is that, while we are preparing to go to Moscow to deal with one of our problems with the Russians, there continues to be what I call a war which is going on everywhere—in Greece, in France, in Korea and in many other places. In that war we are losing ground.

"There are still people who argue that the Communist Party in any country is not necessarily working exclusively for the Russians. Nothing is more silly than that. We are playing the Russian game when our press gives the impression that we ignore the Big War, and when we talk about 'negotiating' with the Russians. Our experience with them has proved by now that it is impossible to negotiate with them. It is either to yield to them or to tell them 'No.'

" This man (who is not George Marshall) was asked whether a firm stand against Russia might provoke renewed charges of "Western aggressive designs." He replied: "It won't change a damned thing. They are saying that anyhow. But it would help us to make people understand that we have to gather all our strength and resources for whatever is in store for us. Otherwise the Russians will continue to thrive on division. There is no country in the world where they have not attempted to exploit for their own benefit any political or economic confusion."