We Need Not Fail
Potpourri
$2.50
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN
IN 139 pages Sumner Welles has lucidly compressed all of the essential background to the Palestine crisis. He concludes that partition must and can be reinstated as “the definitive expression of a U.N. decision” and be backed by “an adequate force established by the United Nations.” There is no insuperable difficulty, Mr. Welles believes, about recruiting such a force from the regular armies of small nations with no direct interest in Palestine. America’s about-face on partition was a step “devoid of vision” and “seldom matched for ineptness.”
It encouraged aggression and — as shown by the bitter remarks of U.N. delegates — severely damaged U.S. moral prestige. It struck a blow at the authority of the U.N. by supporting the view (at odds with previous U.S. statements) that the Security Council is not empowered by the Charter to enforce a settlement. If that view prevails — and Welles insists that it misreads the Charter
— the structure of collective security will be shattered. Simply and unemotionally written, We Need Not Fail has a tremendous cogency.