The Wilmington morning star., 1947-10-20
The Diarists
BY ARTHUR KROCK

WASHINGTON,-The flood of memoirs
on events of the past epochal decade has
barely begun. Hence the inevitable phase
of controversy has not been reached. But
those books which have been published
thus far, or are in process of publication,
include accounts of conversations and in
cidents which will certainly be challenged
as to truth and accuracy by persons who
appear %unfavorably in the chronicles.
Where the words spoken on historical
occasions lave been set Town in short
hand, as James F. Byrnes did, challenge
on either ground will be very difficult to
sustain. The umpire, the public reader,
will accept the transcript unless the rep
ortorial int gritty or competence Of the
transcriber is successfully attacked.
But the same Difference will not e paid
to some official documents and diary rec
ords of personal conversations. The rea-
son is obvious. Not for years-and, with
respect to certain persons and episodes,
not ever-will historians be certain that
all the pertinent documents nave been dis
closed. And diary entries have a special
flaw in that most of them are made from
memory at various lengths of time after
the speech or action they describe. Also,
even when they are accurate the positions
they attribute to other persons may be re-
futed by the contemporary records.
These are the types of memoirs. in the
spate about to reach flood stage, that will
be challenged. This generation and the
next will hardly be able to form an en-
during estimate of what the real facts are.
But men in office have so generally ac-
cepted the view that copies, at least, of
official documents and records may prop
erly be taken with them when they retire
that history should be able to make that
enduring estimate much earlier than in
the past.
There must be hundreds of thousands
Of these copies in what are now private
hands. The provocation of current
memoirs will probably bring some of them
withheld until the public appetite for this
literature can recover again after the
large meal of the next few years; and the
rest will be reserved for the objective his
torians who will come much later.
Recent diary entries about President
Roosevelt at the time of the Munich settle
ment, in September, 1893, illustrate one
of the flaws in that method that invite and
usually receive effective challenge. Mr..
Roosevelt, well in advance of the meeting
at which the Sudetenland of Czechoslo-
vakia was surrendered to Hitler by Cham
b%erlain, Daladier and Mussolini. the Prime
Ministers of Great Britain, France and
italy, was quoted as highly critical of any
agreement he thought the "slippery"
Neville Chamberlain was likely to make.
1t was also reported, and no doubt with
sharply criticized the United States Am
bassador to Great Britain for proposing
to say to a foreign audience in effect that
the grievance of the Czechs was not worth
going to war about.
But if you turn back to the new &C
! cunts of the days before and after Munich
this is what is disclosed: President Roo
sevelt himself, in two appeals to Hitler,
told the Chancellor in an open telegram
the following:
Continued negotiations remanin the
only way by which the immediate
problem can be disposed of upon any
lasting basis. Should you agree to a
solution in this peaceful manner j am
convinced that hundreds of millions
throughout the world would recognize
your action as an outstanding historic
service to all humanity.
The President added that negotiations
should continue without interruption until
a fair and constructive solution is
reached" Hitler yielded to the second ap-
peal; the meetine was held at Munich;
and Czechoslovakia was brutallv partj-
toned. No one, as the Ambassador had
proposed to say, including the United
States, was willing to shed any blood to
prevent it.
But after the settlement, which Mr.. Roo
sevelt is quoted in the diary as disap-
proving in advance because Chamberlain
was a man who "would make peace at
any price, what was the reaction of Of
fetal Washington? Was the settlement de-
nounced by anyone in the government?
This is IN extract from a Washington
dispatch to this newspaper after the terms
were known and the President had asked
everyone on the following Sunday to pray
with him for tcontinued peace":
The greatest qualification was
evident here over the peaceful out
come of the Munich conference. Sec
rotary Hull went home at S o'clock
the earliest he has left the State De-
partment in years. The Czech
suggestion that President Roosevelt
mediate any differences of interpreta-
ton that might arise fell on deaf ears.
Such offices are held to be p%recluded
by the terms of his final appeal to
Hitler.
The contrast between the diary entry
and this record seems even more likely
to produce a challenging memoir If any
one should ever turn up with a copy Of
the congratulatory telegram which Mr..
Roosevelt was said to have sent to Prime
Minister Chamber1ain-New York Times.
We have not kept the DEVELOPMENT of our
human relations in industry in pace with
the development of our production techno-
loev. Henry Ford, II.
Our prisons are filled with individuals
who enjoved freedom of expression without
self-discipline.-FBI Director J. Edgar
Hoover.
I believe that the greatest need of the
world today, fundamental to all else. is
a renewal of faith.-President Truman.