"Fool Statements"

With the deep tan and the glazed eye of a man just back from Shangrila, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas last week flew into San Francisco after a summer of hiking through the Himalayas and plumped for U.S. recognition of Communist China. Recognition would be a "real political victory" for the West, said Douglas. It would help split Communist China, and Communist Russia and would take advantage of the struggle between the Chinese drive for nationalism and Russia's drive to solidify the Far East--"the greatest source of friction between any two nations in the world today."

It was a tired old proposition that the Korean war had effectively exploded as far as mine-run liberals were concerned. When the Douglas statement hit the Senate teletypes, Idaho's Republican Herman Welker gleefully asked unanimous consent to read it into the record. Texas' Tom Connally, chief custodian of the Administration's foreign relations on Capitol Hill, shouted an angry objection to what Shangri-Lawyer Douglas had to say.

"We do not intend to recognize Red China," roared Connally. "Justice Douglas is not Secretary of State. Douglas is not President of the United States. He never will be. I don't agree with Mr. Douglas. I think he ought to stay home instead of roaming all around the world and Asia making fool statements. We're really at war--in a sense--with Red China now."

Justice Douglas, who often sounds in word and print like a man gazing off over lost horizons, heard the angry senatorial echo in silence, then set out to continue his vacation in Seattle.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.