American Close-up

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 509, 25 March 1949, Page 5

American Close-up

NE of the reasons given last week by Sir Howard Kippenberger why New Zealanders should do more for their own defence was the possibility that America might return to isolationism. ‘Those who think it a remote possibility will perhaps ‘change their minds when they read The White House Papers of Harry L. Hopkins*, now at-last available without dollars. We all know that what ended isolationism was Japan’s descent on Pearl Harbour; but not many of us realised before this book appeared that if President Roosevelt had declared war earlier he might have been impeached. It is both alarming and depressing to discover how often he thought it necessary to modify what he had decided to say in a speech, and in how many cases he ended by saying almost nothing. Even when he allowed himself "solemn warnings" he usually found it expedient to bury them ‘ jin verbal wool in case the isolationists took panic and stampeded the others. All the way to Pearl Harbour he was "haunted by the _ ghost of Woodrow Wilson." He did in the end defy the ghost, but he never lost sight of it or turned his back on it. It is all such a painful story that only a strong and confident democracy would have let it appear so soon after the . principal events. But it is a fascinating story too. The technique of sneech-making; the private lives of Presidents and Prime Ministers; the new world’s thoughts about the old world; fear for Britain,, faith in Britain, admiration for Britain; meetings of great men, manoeuvrings of little men-you get it all, not as eloquently. presented as in the Churchill volumes, but with less artifice, and sometimes with more effect.

*The White House Papers of Harry L. Hopkins, Edited and annotated by Robert E. * Sherwood. Eyre and Spottiswoode, 25/-. ! f