Word: bevinism
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...memoirs like any good, grey 19th Century British empire-builder. Churchill was still the world's greatest orator,* but a statesman's words, unlike a poet's, need power to give them weight; Churchill, testy and grim, was not in power. Bull-necked Ernest Bevin had rushed into 1946 snorting to U.N. and to the world a great commoner's bold concept of democracy. But Bevin was sick, and he, too, as the year went on, was content to see the bold words fly where the real power was. Bernard M. Baruch's long, thin...
Before the year was out, however, the Russian flood was contained. On the dam that held it many men had labored- Bevin and Bidault, General Lucius Clay in Germany, Mark Clark in Austria, The Netherlands' Eelco van Kleffens and Belgium's Paul-Henri Spaak in U.N., Mac-Arthur in Japan, Chiang Kai-shek in China, and, eminently, Senator Arthur Vandenberg in the U.S. But the dam's chief builder was James F. Byrnes of Spartanburg, S.C., who became the firm and patient voice of the U.S. in the councils of the world...
...Russians had out-bargained him on the atomic-control agreement. Before Byrnes left for the January U.N. meeting in London, President Truman reminded him that Vanden-berg's support was necessary to make Byrnes's policy stick with the Senate and the country. At the London meeting Bevin still carried the ball for the West and Vandenberg was still dissatisfied with Byrnes. In his report to the Senate on the U.N. meeting, Vandenberg lavished praise on Bevin, Bidault and others, pointedly omitted any reference to Byrnes. Vandenberg then called on the U.S. vigorously to "sustain its own purposes...
When a diplomat once asked Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin what his foreign policy really was, Bevin replied: "To go down to Victoria Station, get a railway ticket and go where the hell I like without a passport or anything else...
This week Bevin's ideal will be partially fulfilled. An agreement will be signed in London abolishing visa requirements for French and British citizens who cross the English Channel for short visits in France or Britain. Formal negotiations with The Netherlands and Belgium will probably come next...