Word: unraveling
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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When Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler began signing agreements, diplomats guessed that there was more to the partnership than at first met the eye. They suspected the existence of secret clauses, annexes, even verbal understandings that were not made public. They were right. As events began to unravel, and perhaps as Dictator Stalin got unexpectedly grabby, he got a big slice of Poland. Not long thereafter the Eastern Baltic States (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and perhaps Finland) became an uncontested sphere of Red imperialism. All told, Herr Hitler had won Russian "friendship," but it looked as though, so far, Tovarish Stalin...
...ground swell of World War II had tilted transatlantic shipping from confusion to chaos. Foreigners off to the wars could still obtain sailing permits from the U. S. State Department (providing they owed no income tax), but U. S. citizens who wanted to get to Europe had to unravel cat's-cradles of red tape. First requirement : a revalidated passport, good for six months at the most. These Secretary of State Hull extended only after probing the applicant's business abroad, deciding whether it was "essential." Those approved were mostly newsmen, international bigwigs, Government agents...
Blaming all the unpleasant happenings of international life on the Versailles Treaty (TIME, Sept. 4, p. 19) certainly is much easier than trying to unravel and understand its complexities, but it simplifies history a little too much. It also seems rather foolish to keep harping on a treaty which is now practically nonexistent. Given his choice between the territory possessed by Germany in 1914 and the territory possessed by Germany now, Hitler would very probably choose the latter. Napoleon would have been Napoleon regardless of circumstances. The Versailles Treaty did not make Hitler, it merely gave him a pretext...
Strangest aspect of the world since it came under the spell of Adolf Hitler is its uncertainty: the whimsical nature of events as they unravel from the Führer's haunted mind. Even heads of governments nowconsult the writings of journalists like Pertinax, Augur, Tabouis, who are reputed to have secret sources of knowledge about things to come. But common men look for guidance where they have always found it: in the stars...
Only voluminous histories can retrace the steps of post-War diplomacy, unravel post-War complexities. But refreshing memories of events since the Armistice makes last week's war news seem less abrupt, the transition from post-War to pre-War less startling. Against the broad sweep of history, that period is brief-246 months, 1,063 weeks, 7,453 days, time for 20 wheat crops, for 20 classes to graduate...