FLEUR COWLES, wife of Gardner Cowles, the publisher, came to her editing after a highly successful decade in advertising. She was one of the first American women to enter the liberated countries at the war’s end, and her work as special consultant to the Famine Emergency Committee furthered her interest in Europe’s response to American ideas. Two years ago she traveled extensively in South America gathering source material for her book, Bloody Precedent, a comparative study of two Argentine dictatorships. Recently she and her husband made a tour of the Orient, where they were appalled at the misunderstanding of American democracy. Her article contains the gist of the remarks she made to the Overseas Press Club on her return.