Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1956-04-22

be received here with something
more positive than derision.
III seem to recall q slogan
It's time for a change. :"
| I seem to recall a slogan from
l952-something about Its
time for change" 1t is in
deed time for a change--in a
number of ways-especially in
foreign policy. Our old policies
are no longer adequate in the
new situation. At least they are
not if reports from all around
the world are to be believed,
and think they are. From
every corner of the globe your
reporters are saying what has
been apparent for a long time
that United States policy is rig
id. unimaginative and fails to
take advantage of new oppor-
tunities. And the realities of our
situation bear little resemblance
to the press releases.
I do not propose to chronicle
here the whole long list of ten
sion points in the world today.
We know their names: Israel,
Algeria, FormoSa. Indo-C China
and IndoneSia, Kashmir. Cyprus
and now the whole NATO area.
What is more basic and omi-
nous and infinitely harder for
us to accept is that in these
last three years the United
States has come dangerously
close to losing, if indeed it has
not lost, its leadership in the
world-economically, militarily
and worst of all, morally. On
all three of these fronts we have
manifestly lost the initiative
and that is the prelude to the
loss Of leadership.
1t is tragic irony that it Is
not we. the people Of America,
who believe more firmly and
fervently in peace and human
freedom than anyone. who are
recognized as the sympathetic
friend of the one-third of man
kind which is struggling out of
the poverty and squalor and CO.
lonial bondage of ages. Instead
it is communist imperialism
which has enslaved scores of
millions in a decade which is
uSurping the role.
"OnIy a few years back we
seemed the hope Of the
eorth.
And only a few years back we
seemed to those people the hope
Of the earth. America had
gained freedom itself through
revolution against European CO.
lonialism. Our great documents,
from the Declaration of indie
pendence to the Atlantic Char
ter, had spoken the aspirations
of independence and growth.
Our own colonial policies had
been generous and forbearing
Our great leaders had affirmed
the ideal of freedom with an
eloquence that had won the
allegiance of men and women
everywhere. 1t was to us that
new nations instinctively looked
for sympathy, for support ano
for guidance.
; Yet today in the great arc
. from North Africa through
/ Southeast Asia the Russian chal-
lenge is developing rapidly ano
with great flexibility and force
|; Everywhere people seeking q
short cut to raise their oWr
standards of life are told that
the Soviet Union alone has mas
tered the secret of converting q
, peasant economy into a modern
industrial state in a single gen.
Grafton.
I In the meantime, we, whost
position is fundamentally decent
and honorable and generous
have so mismanaged ourselve,
of late that we must now try
to prove that we love peace as
much as the Russians and are
as concerned with the problems
of economic development anc
national independence as they
are. 1t is fantastic but true. To.
day the peoples of the proud
poor, new nations can find little
in official United States policy
which seems addressed to then