The Wilmington morning star., 1946-06-14
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LIPPMANN
FROM PAGE ONE

FROM PAGE ONE
But it does, 1 believe, mean that
our policy has been shaped much
too much by taking sides in con-
flicts which have been posed and
defined elsewhere, and has been
animated much too little by the
conviction that the power and in
fluence of the United States must
be identified with constructive So
lutions designed to liquidate the
conflicts in a better European
order.
The American people will never
deeply accept a foreign policy
which seems to them a mere en-
tanglement in the rivalries of the
Old World. For while American
foreign policy can and m u t
change, the tradition and in
stinct of u people will continue
to be in essence what Washington
meant when he said that Europe
has a set of primary interests
which to us have none Or a very
remote relation" Whoever forgets
this enduring truth in conducting
our affairs, will in the end be re
minded of it sharply. This is not
isolationism, though isolationists
like to quote it, and Washing
ton and his contemporaries were
not in u sense of the word iso-
lationists at all. But Washing
toms statement is a recognition of
the fact that Americas relation
to the Old World is different from
that of any of the powers in the
Old World. And whenever this
difference is lost 6 h t of by
American statesmen, they risk
offending the C of tine
people, and SO they lose their
support.
A striking example of a partisan
and entangling policy, as distln-
guished from a d e t a C h e d and
constructive one, is afforded by
the manner in which Secretary
Byrnes' proposals for Austria are
being presented here and to the
world. The Alsop brothers report
that what MI. Byrnes wants most
of all in Paris "is a peace settle
ment for Austria. His reasons are
simple. Austria is the most i'm
portant key point in the frontier
between Western Europe and the
Soviet area to the East. And the
presence of Soviet troops in Aus
tria provides the excuse for main
tanning Soviet 'line-of-communi-
cation troops in Hungary, Ro-
mania and throughout the Bal
)kans. -"
l am afraid that this is not an
incorrect report of the reasons
which animate our Austrian policy.
Could any reasons be more obvi-
ously and inevitably self-defeat-
ing than to tell the Russians that
the reason we want an Austrian
peace treaty is that we wish to
make them get out of Eastern
Europe? Even if this were our
reason, the naivete of announcing
it as a prelude to the negotiations
is astounding. 1t shows how a
policy, which is negatively anti
Soviet instead Of being positively
European, can get to a point where
it defies elementary common sense.
A positive Austrian policy would
be concerned primarily with the
fact that unles Austria can be
~neutralized like Switzerland, it will
become a principal arena of con-
flict. Austria under Russian dom
ination would be the means of
dominating southern Germany
and Italy. Austria under the dom
ination of a revived Germany
would become again what it has
always been-the main spring
board of Pan-Germanism into tine
Danube valley and the Balkans.
Nothing could be more superficial.
or historically more untrue. than
the notion that Austria is a tame
little liberated country which
needs no treatment except to be
evacuated and fed. We shall be de-
ceiving ourselves if we do not real
ize that the Austrians are a minor
ity who really accept the idea of
Austria as a small independent
state, or fail to remember that DR..
Renner, the President of Austria,
is a lifelong adherent of Pan
Germanism.
Certainly we must work for the
evacuation of Austria, and the re-
lief of the burdens of the occupy
ing armies. But that should not be
our primary aim. Our primary aim
should be the reconstruction of
Austria as a neutralized state
under international supervision
until it is certain that the roots
of Pan-Germanism, which are
deep in Austria, have withe~ed,
and a new and re-oriented Aus
trian generation has come for
ward.
If we make that our real objec-
tive, and demonstrate persistently
and concretely that we mean it,
we shall have an Austrian policy.
We shall have a policy which not
only gives us the right to negoti-
ate with the Russians about evacu-
alton but also a means of gaining
positive support among the nigh
boring peoples of the Danube Val
Lev. For These nenple have not