For some time now the going has been rough. The crest of one crisis is hardly followed by the trough of false resolution when the next billow comes surging along to pitch us sharply once more. And in such turbulent waters it is, of course, hard for those up on the bridge to spend much time or energy giving us below reassurance about crew, compasses, routings, or destination. A nice but vague, flow of words, sounding suspiciously pre-recorded, and that is all.

But now and then one comes down from the bridge, relieved of duties up there, and from him there are impressions to be had. Such is the case with Mr. Dean Acheson, and the impressions are far from encouraging.

Surfeited with the unprecedented horrors of World War II, the moral consciousness of the Western world has become jaded. There was a time-in the mid-1930's—when it protested Mussolini's practice of forcing castor oil down the throats of political prisoners and then parading them in public while stalwart Fascists watched the spectacle with sadistic glee. During his Ethiopian campaign, Mussolini's use of irritant gases to give brave but ill-shod and illequipped Ethiopian tribesmen “the hot foot” was also condemned by a moral conscience that had not yet learned to accept the organized cruelty of World War II—the terror bombings of both British and German cities, and the unexampled savagery of the German invasion of Russia, widely heralded by Nazi propaganda as a great anti-Communist “crusade.“