France First
It was right in every way that General Eisenhower should begin his exploratory visit to Europe in France. Of all the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation France at present occupies the key position in European defence ; the attitude of France will be the decisive factor in the complex of information and impressions which General Eisenhower will take back with him to Washington for the next stage in the determination of American action ; and, in return, the application to France of all his general statements on European defence is the most important application. Much of General Eisenhower's renutation rests on his ability always to say the right thing in the right way, and his various statements of the past week have been of the utmost significance. Before he left Washington last Saturday he said that mutual confidence between the nations and persons concerned was of more importance than directives and treaties. That was no platitude. In the Franco- American context, and even in the Franco-British context, it went right to the root of the matter, for unless complete confidence in. the French will to resist all aggression is built up among the nations concerned (and• fully shared by the French people themselves) European defence has not even an effective starting-point. On the. same occasion General Eisenhower said that it was essential that the nations taking part in defence planning must support it "whole- heartedly and up to the hilt "—a sentiment which all observers of the French Government's hard fight to get the defence budget past the Assembly and the Council of the Republic will recognise as necessary as well as wise And when, in Paris on Sunday, the Supreme Commander said "I begin my new task fully conscious that no foreign aid alone can defend Europe" he might have beets deliberately closing the last way of escape for doubters. There la no point whatever in people whose plain duty, is simply to defend themselves pretending that that duty is weakened by the fact that a Mr. Hoover or a Senator Taft makes an isolationist speech. The policy of the United States Government is not the policy of thew gentlemen. And the more fully the Governments of Europe succeed in persuading General Eisenhowei of their own determination, the further will American policy, move away from the isolationist extreme.
