Internecine Strife

Last Thursday a Senator who is an authority on such matters accused President Truman of wavering and inconsistency on Korean policy. Coming from Robert Taft, the charge was doubly ironic. The Administration's policy of limiting the Korean war has been consistent from the beginning; Taft's record for the same period is a shameful mixture of zig-zag reasoning and equivocation. When ex-President Hoover announced his "Western Gibraltar" policy last January, Republican Policy Chairman Taft was quick to join him under the bed. Taft opposed the appointment of General Eisenhower; he also backed the Wherry "manifesto" against sending troops to Europe because the presence of American soldiers might incite the Russians. This started the first Great Debate which sputtered on for two months; then as the Wherry resolution neared a vote, it was withdrawn by Wherry himself. When Hoover's speeches stopped making the headlines, Taft's support petered out.

But immediately after the removal of General MacArthur, the GOP's Congressional leadership switched arguments. Wherry and Martin blasted Truman for injecting politics into military policy; when MacArthur parades drew crowds in the millions, Republicans pushed the General onto their own platform. Taft, who two months before had been afraid of inciting the Russians, now accused Truman of flirting with appeasement. In February the Ohioan had opposed the bombing of Manchuria; now he called for an aggressive war on China. when our Joint Chiefs of Staff backed up Truman, Taft branded the military men as political stooges, although he admitted he was no authority on military affairs. Meanwhile both Taft and Wherry continue to attack the Administration for its "wavering and inconsistency."

Such frantic attempts to make political capital out of serious problems of foreign policy only indicate the extent of the bankruptcy in Republican leadership. In seeking to embarrass the Administration, the G.O.P. points up its own inadequacy.