Parting Thoughts

"Winston soothes France,"said an eight-column banner in London's Daily Express. The Prime Minister's two-day visit to Paris last week was plainly designed to allay French fears before he set sail on the Queen Mary this week for his first official trip to the U.S. since the war. He wanted to assure his political next-door neighbor, French Premier Rene Pleven, that he would make no deals with the Americans which left France out in the cold. And he made it plain that Britain's refusal to join a Western Europe economic or military federation did not mean that it was opposed to either, or that it would not cooperate with them if they were created.

The communique issued before he left France was vague, but Churchill mollified the French and General Eisenhower (with whom he lunched) by promising to associate Britain "as closely as possible" with the European army. Such an army, he said, is the "right means" of bringing German manpower into the West's defense system. British troops on the Continent will be "linked" but not merged with the European army whenever it is formed.

His visit improved Franco-British relations, if only because it testified to a desire to improve them. They were not very bad before his visit, nor very good after his departure. Commented Time & Tide: "Relations between Britain and France are a long, lasting love affair between two aging, sophisticated, Proustian characters. If ever the qualities of unexpectedness, tension and edginess go out of them, they will have lost also their wonder and probably their necessity."

Back home at week's end, in his first radio address since his election, Churchill sought to disabuse his own countrymen of any romantic illusions they might have about his U.S. trip. Said he: "You must not expect the Americans to solve our domestic problems for us. [No one] is going to keep the British lion as a pet." Nor should the Tories themselves be expected to turn on prosperity overnight. "Unpleasant" measures will be needed to deal with "stern and grim facts." The Conservatives, said Winston Churchill, will need "at least three years before anyone can judge fairly whether we have made things better or worse."

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