France's defeat in 1940 was one of those events that ‘shook the world.” Its swiftness and completeness amazed even the Germans. But the mere fact of the defeat is, in long range terms, perhaps less important than the factors that caused it and the reactions that followed it.

At the outset, it should be remarked that this whole subject, involving as it does the field of socio-psycho-politics, is still wide open, at least so far as France is concerned. Except for tendentious tracts, some technical military monographs, and the expected autobiographic apologias, there is little to go on. French scholars have not done much objective research on the causes and consequences of the tragedy of 1940.

Both our idealists and our realists conceive patterns which are too logical for the tortuous course of human history. They both persist in confronting us with two horns of a dilemma and beg us to choose between them. All idealistic schemes of world peace insist that we must either achieve world government or resign ourselves to an inevitable war; we must find some way of reaching an understanding with the Russians or face the consequences of a world war. Our realists are convinced that neither world government nor a pragmatic understanding with the Russians is an attainable goal. They are therefore tempted to grasp the second horn of the dilemma. They accept the fact of an inevitable war. From the idea of an inevitable war it is only a short logical step to the concept of a preventive war. For if we must inevitably fight the Russians, why should we not have the right to choose the most opportune time for joining the issue?

Between 1944 and 1948, six European countries experienced Communist seizures of power. Three were enemies and three friends and allies of Soviet Russia during the war; four were Slav countries; five were predominantly peasant with some remnants of feudalism; with the exception of industrial Czechoslovakia, their prewar record in democratic government was far from exemplary. In all of them, however, the Communists were successful.

What were the components of Communist success and democratic defeat? The case of Czechoslovakia shows clearly that the active interest and impressive display of Soviet power in contrast to the West's hesitant policy not only formed the background but were the chief bases for Communist successes in Eastern Europe. Careful, professional infiltration of democratic institutions and the wishful thinking of the democrats did the rest.

Superficial observers of relations between the United States and the other American republics customarily deplore the decline of amity which has assertedly taken place since World War II and lay the blame to deficiencies in our diplomacy. Infrequently does one analyze the factors contributing to the high degree of cooperation that existed during the war itself. Only by such an analysis, it is submitted, can present practices of American policy be seen in their proper perspective. Answers in concrete terms should be suggested to the following specific questions: What did the United States seek from the other American republics? What techniques were employed to reach its objectives? To what extent were those objectives attained? Answers to these questions will help to clarify the place of Latin America in postwar United States policy.

There have been repeated generalizations that support of the United Nations is a cornerstone of United States foreign policy. On February 22, 1950, the President, in a major address dealing with foreign policy, indicated that the United Nations was the proper forum in which to seek an international agreement for the control of atomic weapons. In so doing he reaffirmed a previous statement of policy of “unfaltering support to the United Nations and related agencies,” the first of the “four points” of his inaugural address of January 1949. The President in this fashion sought to reassure the public that he had confidence in the United Nations and that he proposed to utilize its machinery to the full in the conduct of United States foreign relations.

Back in 1927 Vilhjalmur Stefansson wrote a little book entitled The Standardization of Error. In this essay he shows first of all that errors which fill social needs become standardized and, he suggests, it might be construed as antisocial to try to destroy them by raising points of fact. To this end, there is an advantage to knowledge by definition in contrast to knowledge by observation. This, as the writer points out, gives to arithmetic its finality. Two and two is by definition four. In the social sciences also, we have many ‘facts’ that are so by definition and so become immutable.