THE WORLD IS ONE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 230, 19 November 1943, Page 4

THE WORLD IS ONE

Wendell Willkie Discovers That Distance No Longer Matters

HEN Wendell Willkie returned from his world tour, the New Statesman said that his flight, performed in a few weeks by routes until recently unexplored, was "the symbol, not only of world unity but of a new kind of world." Other commentators saw no more in it than an attempt by Mr. Willkie to steal some of the limelight from Mr. Roosevelt. It does not concern us much in New Zealand whether Mr. Willkie set off with White House in his mind or with a brave new world occupying his waking thoughts to the exclusion of everything personal. If White House was his goal, he made an extraordinary circuit to reach it. If he was looking for a new world, he went to the right places to talk about it. A glance at his route on this page’ shows that his plane was only once or twice away from dry land. It was not a question of getting.round the world, but of getting to the places where things are happening or are likely to happen in the air age. He went away, he explains in. his introduction to One World* to see what was happening outside the walls of "military and other censorships," and discovered that "nothing outside is exactly what it seems to those within." The journey (with visits and talks), occupied 49 days, .carried him 31,000 miles, and brought him back convinced that *distance no longer matters. "The net impression was not one of distance from other peoples, but of closeness to them. If I had ever had any doubts that the world has become small and completely inter-dependent, this trip would have dispelled them altogether." "ers Pa * EGYPT- ; IS first important stop was at Cairo, where "some Europeans were packing cars for flight southward and eastward," and he recalled the President’s warning that Egypt might well be in German hands before he could reach it. But the city was full of rumours and alarms. The streets were filled with officers and soldiers coming and going. A very tight censorship made the American reporters in Cairo doubt and feel sceptical of all British reports from the front. In a half-hour at Shepheard’s. Hotel, you could pick up a dozen different versions of what was taking place in the desert not much mcre than a hundred miles away. There was one way only of discovering the truth, and he took it. He accepted an invitation from General Montgomery to see the front for himself. Almost before we were out of our cars. General Montgomery launched into a detailed description of a battle which was in its last phases, and which for the first time in months had stopped Rommel dead. No real news of this battle had reached Cairo, or had been given to the Press. The General repeated the details for us step by step, telling us exactly what had happened and why he felt it was a major victory, even though his forces had not advanced any great distance. It had been a testing of strength on a heavy scale. Had the British lost, Rommel would have been in Cairo in a few days. % % * UT that was not the end of his ‘Alamein story. It was one thing to stop Rommel and another to convince

the correspondents, So Montgomery called the reporters together, and asked Willkie to say what he knew. It was the first good news from the British side that these newspapermen had had in a long time. They had been fooled many times, and were wary. The battle line, to their eyes, had hardly sagged, Rommel was still_only a few miles from the Nile, while the road to Tripoli, from where we were, seemed long and a little fanciful, and the road to Cairo painfully short. I saw on the faces of many of the reporters that afternoon a polite sort of scepticism, They had grown accustomed to generals who predict. They had had no experience with generals who perform. bo * * EFORE he leaves Egypt, we have one vivid flash of things past and things to come: "The great mass of the people, cutside of the roaming tribes, are impoverished, own no property, are hideously ruled by the practices of ancient priestcraft, and are living™in conditions of squalor. The urge and the strength to create do not come, as a rule, from those who have too much or from those who have nothing. In the Middle East there is little in between. Yet, strange as it may seem, one senses a ferment in these lands, a groping of the.longinert masses, a growing disregard of restrictive religious rites and practices. In every city I found a group-usually a small group-of restless, energetic, intellectual young people who knew the techniques of the mass movement that had brought about the revolution in Russia and talked about them, They knew also the history of our own democratic development. In their talk with me they seemed to be weighing in their minds the course through which their own intense, almost fanatical, aspiration should be achieved. Likewise, I found in this part of the world, as I found in Russia, in China, everywhere, a growing

spirit of fervid nationalism, a disturbing thing to one who believes that the only hope of the world lies in the opposite trend.’ : * ik * SYRIA EXT there is a picture of General de Gaulle, at that time in Syria: I was met at the airport at Beirut, received by an elaborately uniformed colour guard and band, and whisked several miles to the house where the General was living-a great white structure, surrcunded by elaborate and formal gardens, where guards ‘saluted at every turn. We talked for hours in the General’s private room, where every corner, every wall, held busts, statues, and pictures of Napoleon. The conversation continued. through. an elaborate dinner, and went on late into the night, as we sat out on a beautiful starlit lawn. Frequently the General, in describing his struggle of the moment with the British as to whether he or they should dominate Syria and the Lebanon, would declere dramatically, "I cannot sacrifice or compromise my principles." "Like Joan’ of Arc,’ his aide added. When I referred to my great interest in the Fighting French movement, he corrected me sharply. "The Fighting French are not a movement. The Fighting French are France itself. We are the residuary legatee’ of all of France and its possessions. % * * PALESTINE ROM Beirut he went on to Jerusalem, where Lowell C. Pinkerton, American Consul-General (well known in Wellington), arranged an interview with representative Arabs and Jews. All told their stories, and by the end of the day he felt a "great temptation _ (continued on next. page) —

(continued from previous page) to conclude that the only solution of this tangled problem must be as drastic as Solomon’s. Then he went to call on a little old lady of 82, Henrietta Szold, who almost convinced him that there is mo necessary antagonism between the hopes of the Jews and the rights of the Arabs. It is probably ‘inrealistic to believe that such a complex question as the Arab-Jewish ene, founded in ancient history and religion, and involved as it is with high international policy and politics, can be solved by goodwill and simple honesty. But as I sat there that late afternoon with the sun shining through the windows, lighting up that intelligent, sensitive face, I, at least for the moment, wondered if she in her mature, selfless wisdom might not know more than all the ambitious politicians. % * bod TURKEY ROM Palestine he flew to Turkey, where he gained the impression that the industrial revolution is not the monopoly of any one nation or of any one race. "The combustion engine has awakened millions of people in the Middle East-awakened and disturbed them. To the Turks it has brought new skills and new hungers. Now that they want the modern world, and have begun to learn how to handle its tools, it is going to be very hard to stop them." The Turks, he was convinced, wanted to keep out of the: war, but would fight savagely if they were attacked. Meanwhile, their neutrality is "honestly administered." They refused, for example, to allow me to come to their country in the United States Army plane which took me around the world, and I had to change at Cairo into a PanAmerican Airways plane to fly up the eastern coast of the Mediterranean and over the bleak and bumpy Taurus Mountains to Ankara, At the airfield where we landed, we saw the three carefully-guarded Libérator bombers which the Turks had interred after American fiyers had been forced down on their return from raids on the oil fields at Ploesti in Romania.

RUSSIA HE chapter on Russia is much the longest in the book, as it ought to be, but not much of the information in it is new. There are interesting discussions with factory workers and managers, in which .Mr. Willkie tries to get admissions that there is no such thing as Communism in the factories, and the men themselves do their best to convey the impression that Stalin knows what he is doing-that "Stalinist Socialism" must precede full Communism, and is a preparation for it. But the most interesting of all the meetings in Russia is that with Stalin himself. The full picture runs to four pages, but here are some personal glimpses: Stalin, I should judge, is about five-feet-four or five, and gives the appearance of slight stockiness. 1 was surprised to find how short he is; but his head, his moustache, and his eyes

are big. His face, in repose, is a hard face, and he looked ‘tired in September-not sick, as is so often reported, but desperately tired. He had a right to be. He talks quietly, readily, and at times with a simple, moving eloquence. When he described to me Russia’s desperate situation as to fuel, transportation, military equipment, and manpower, he was genuinely dramatic. On the personal side, Stalin is a simple man, with no affectations or poses. He does not seek to impress by any artificial mannerisms. His sense of humour is a robust one, and he laughs readily at unsubtle jokes and repartee. Once I was telling him of the Soviet schools and libraries I had seen-how good they seemed to me. And I added, "But if you continue to educate the Russian people, Mr. Stalin, the first thing you know you'll educate yourself out of a job." He threw back his head and laughed and laughed. Nothing I said to him, or heard anyone else say to him, through two long evenings, seemed to amuse him as much. Strange as it may seem, Stalin dresses in light pastel shades. His well-known tunic is of finely-woven material, and is apt to be a soft green or a delicate pink; his trousers a light-tannish yellow or blue. His boots are black and highly-polished. Ordinary social pleasantries bother him a little. As I was leaving him after my first talk, I expressed appreciation of the time he had given me, the honour he conferred in talking so candidly. A little embarrassed, he said: "Mr. Willkie, you know I grew up a Georgian peasant. I am unschooled in pretty talk. All I can say is I like you very much," * * ok CHINA [N Chungking .the most interesting object is again qa man: The Generalissimo, both as a man and as a leader, is bigger even than his legendary reputation. He is a_ strangely quiet, softspoken man. When he is not in military uniform, he wears Chinese dress, and this accentuates the impression he makes of a schclar-almost a clercial scholar-rather than a political leader. He is obviously a trained listener, used to the task of picking other men’s brains. He nods his head when he agrees with you, with continuous soft little ya-yas; it is a subtle form of compliment, ‘and one that @isarms the man he is talking to, and wins him in.some degree, to Chiang’s side. But Mr. Willkie is not won over completely: No one can stay in Chungking even for a short time without realising that the young Republic, despite its youth, has already developed a sort of ‘‘old-school tie" of its own, which automatically keeps some men in high positions. The chief wearers of this ‘old-school tie’ are the comrades-in-arms of the Generalissimo during the years when he was fighting war lords, and it is China’s gain that none of these is yet-an old man. * ok * THE WORLD UT when all is said, Mr. Willkie’s real topic is conveyed by his titheOne World. This he discusses in his last eight pages, and as he is no longer moving among men here, but among big ideas, he is not readily quotable. But the key note is in this paragraph: At the end of the last war, not a ‘single plane had flown across the Atlantic. To-day that ocean is a mere ribbon, with aeroplanes making regular scheduled flights. The Pacific is only a slightly wider ribbon in the ocean of the air, and Europe and Asia are at our very doorstep. x America must choose one of three courses after this war: narrow nationalism, which inevitably means the ultimate loss of our own liberty; international imperialism, which means the sacrifice of some other nation’s liberty; or the creation of a world in which there shall be an equality of opportunity for every race and every nation. Bo Bo * ALL that need be added is that more than two million copies of this book had been sold before it reached Ne Zealand. Mr. Roosevelt has _ bigge audiences for his fireside talks, but listening is one thing and reading another, ‘

*ONE WORLD. By Wendell L. Willkie. comet & Co., through Whitcombe & ombs.