These are the British

by Drew Middleton

The questions and criticisms that the American encounters are a good sign. They testify to the average Briton's understanding of the interdependence of the two countries. As long as the alliance flourishes there will be and should be such exchanges. They are a source of satisfaction, not offense.

Moreover, the questions are necessary. There is a dearth of serious news about the United States in the popular British press, although the remotest village will be informed of Miss Monroe's chest measurements. The Times of London, the Manchester Guardian, and the Daily Telegraph do an excellent job of reporting the United States within the limitations imposed by the paper shortage. The popular press, however, is something else.

There are, I believe, three factors that contribute to British questionings and criticisms about United States policies and statesmanship. These are:

(1) McCarthyism, by which the British mean the political attitude in the United States which begins at a perceptible trend toward ideological conformity and, at its worst, imitates totalitarian measures;

(2) the United States's leadership of the free world, which has been transferred from Britain in the last fifteen years. Doubts on this score are fed by statements of American leaders, often belligerent and uninformed, which raise the question of whether the United States administration understands either its enemies or its friends;

(3) the trade competition between Britain and the United States and the trade barriers to British imports raised by the United States.

It is difficult to say which of these is the most important factor in forming British attitudes toward the United States. For a variety of reasons McCarthyism was certainly the most important in the first five years of this decade.

Not many Britons understand the emotional involvement of a large proportion of Americans in the Far East and its problems. Nor was the impact of the Korean War upon the United States fully appreciated in the United Kingdom. Finally, the British, although they stoutly opposed communism, were never so deeply concerned with communist infiltration in government. Perhaps they should have been. The point here is that for a number of reasons they were not.

Consequently, neither those who report and edit the news in Britain (with a few exceptions) nor their readers were prepared for McCarthyism. A good many otherwise well-informed people were shocked when at the height of the McCarthy period Professor D.W. Brogan, one of the most stimulating and knowledgeable British authorities on America, pointed out that there had in fact been a considerable amount of subversion in the United States government and that there was ample proof of Soviet espionage.

The gradual reduction of the Senator's importance and power pleased the British. This was not because he had been a good deal less than friendly in his comments about them—they are not markedly sensitive to foreign criticism. The reason was that many Britons saw in the methods of Senator McCarthy and some of his associates a threat to the heritage of individual liberty and equal justice under the law and, ultimately, to the democratic government that is the common ground on which the alliance is based.