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Show j iistmas This Year Finds illd Still Without Peace 5 N dines uLd?' By BAUKIIAGE hillbij Nw Analyst and Commentator. sWjiNGTON. I've been looking over old Christmas SLas, 1945! "p tjssage I sent you that Christmas came from amidst the rubble 1JEr!-jn of shattered Nuernberg where I experienced the saddest Reason of my memory. It was spent with the ugly symbols t, inhumanity to man" all about me, the bitter negation of our lrf 'teachings, iolital tfijB t3 uniform, the uniform of rafe sbatant correspondent but rni. f I felt unhappy in hrtM it, though I had r 1 dreamed of wear-wtrf, wear-wtrf, i l ing what we called li "olive drab" in ltifjy 1918,' once again. ?cufir My "assimilated :ir i rank" was unde-served. unde-served. Young fc men had fought, i survived or fallen, if !; finishing a job that i I I and my genera- 1 tion in high-necked y-'i "blouses" and I wrapped leggings 4--Xqe bad only started. ,35? On that day, 1945, I wrote: ift u s homesick as any orj '" ,n 11 ,oney out- Jgaji- the threat of battle taaiim. I pictured my own y wit, my wife and the jd, 3iliout the happy tree, my IB eld packages nnopcaed 1Dm; empty hands reaching pult them vainly ever the 4 tjf loo wide to span." Piere I looked that cold, rilsaw, not war, but soma- i.jre tragically eloquent tjcramped souls in pinched Irrying amidst the wreck S tity which had seen the j n of art and handicraft in T:i canvas and parchment d enriched the world for ")4J what is NuernbergT J i trial of Nail war crlm- Q it my Christmas, 1945! ,a,, 1948! jjjjjcond one in seven years geif? could really talk about oci earth' without shamed (breast eyes." That's what I or this column then and I rea j m thft armies struggled who oniiink of the message to phrds from the angel's ) lromising peaoe on earth IrOmtm of good will." i "fwas, indeed, much to be -for and much to be hope-Ion hope-Ion Christmas, 1948. lame Christmas, 1947! Jrar away from fields whit-) whit-) snow. No bright red of berry. Instead, the burn-us burn-us and beyond it the feath-jf feath-jf the Royal palms, 'iy started not with the J jhoes over the frozen snow i whioh "checked mid-vein, sg race of liie-blood to the -)..g face." but with the soft 'Viler against the prow of our ng which lulled me to lazy rafMice. 'PVped along the river and 'jjialet. High above coursed edit graceful, never-lighting, ar "frigate" birds. To see "Jfar inland, said my nature-.npanion, nature-.npanion, meant a rough Jliese tireless creatures, it 'refer to hunt in the ocean :e white caps are breaking fr. leeps a fish-hawk. In close Jan eagle, who prefers a pil- lal to one he must work for. niawk darts ahead, holding Jer in his bill. The eagle "Idown but the kingfisher "l turns sharply. The big inust make a wide circle .lean change its direction. ;raight course he gains but fin at each turn. toes on until finally the "1 disgusted, gives up the I land the kingfisher fades, xtW in mouth, to a tiny spot j sky. The men-of-war 'jiack, high above us, even inJ distance, with their sev- j eight-foot wing spread, .3 poetry of motion! They S are gone and my eyes drop to the rushes. A tranquil water turkey! Wt slow down and pull in toward the shore, close to an isjand swamp, Its edges laced thick with mangroves, man-groves, those mysterious plants whose grim brown fingers clutch deep into the water as if they sought some invisible and ghoulish enemy in the depth of the water. Low tide leaves them skeleton bare. The sun and part of the sky is overcast but the rest is robins egg blue and the water about it is tinted lilac. Trout begin to bite. And the snook! We are very busy for a while. Then the fish begin to elude me so I take up the camera. A stubborn stub-born crane lures us on but always manages to hide behind the mangroves man-groves out of focus. One more cast! A fine, fat trout and it's time to go in. We push ba?k through the twilight. twi-light. Into the truck and we bounce back to a gay little tree with the familiar decorations on its branches branches which never knew the kiss of a snowfiake, although the spot where I cut the pine tree the day before, a sandy flat, shone as white in the sunlight as a snowbank In Maine. (A photograph could fool you.) People Await Peace on Earth My thoughts weren't on the news that Christmas a year ago, but as I look back ever what David Wills (who was broadcasting in my place) said, I read this line: "The collapse of the London conference of foreign ministers is a tangible result of the mistrust mis-trust pervading the world," broadcast Wills, "for the conference con-ference adjourned without having hav-ing taken these essential and decisive steps along the road of peace for which the people of the earth are waiting in anguish." an-guish." The aftermath of that collapse Is still with us and the path which the nations have trod since has led us to an "uncertain" peace at best. On Christmas eve a year ago the pope, delivering his annual message mes-sage from the Vatican, spoke of a Europe "shivering and feverish from economic difficulties and social so-cial chaos." He talked about "the lie." The "deliberate lie," he said sadly had become an established weapon of international relations. The lie of "garbled word or fact," part and parcel of the modern technique tech-nique in the art of forming public opinion or controlling it and of making mak-ing it serve the political ends of those bent on winning at any cost the battle of ideologies. That was a not-too-happy Christmas Christ-mas for all the world (despite my selfish pleasures and perhaps yours, too) but. if the past year has not greatly changed that, picture, it has changed it a little for the better. I has given us some satisfaction satisfac-tion to know that one idealistic concept has materialized. We have successfully prevented the spread or the powers against which the Christian world has been struggling. The Marshall plan, so far, has been a success. Between last Christmas and this we saw Russia's cold war offensive stopped. Stopped at the Adriatic, stopped along the Seine, stopped in the low countries. Within that time the theory of an economic campaign moved from an idea to a blueprint, to the active and effective European cooperation administration, an efficient effi-cient business organization headed by an efficient businessman, Paul Hoffman. That is America's Christmas gift to humanity. j . mrat mv :-m ; v -;Ut :LJ yr i ll iV-i1 v ,v , ir. ,. vlix. 1 . ...a.. W.- WlMi.al Aii.li! nimiao tfaimiafin wh CW V- of the world's architects for peace, President Truman and jS of State Marshall, were the chief figures In the launching yWementation of the Marshall plan to aid Europe and curtail i 'HUm. It was America's Christmas gift to the world In 1948. |
