Re a ee

_ spurned by the

_ of a conversation

Sir Anthony Eden’s book
“Full Circle’ has created
wide controversy. It has
been commented on in press
and on radio and TV. It also
throws some _ interesting
light on important events
which shook the world. We
publish here a review of his
book by George Mathews of
the British Daily Worker.
*

* xk
What a splendid theme Sir

Anthony Eden chose for his
memoirs!: ‘‘The lessons of the!

30s and their application to
the ’50s,” as he puts it in his
foreword.

: Full Circle” is the title of
his book, and nothing could
be more appropriate.

Tn the ’30s Hitler was rearm-
ed. In the ’50s his successors
are being rearmed.

In the ’30s the agreements
Made after the First World
War were torn up to permit
the resurgence of German mili-

tarism. In the ’50s the agree-

ments of the Second World
War were destrayed with the
same motive.

: In the ’30s the Soviet Un-
lon’s efforts for peace were
Municheers
and Hitler was hailed as the
divinely appointed “bulwark
against Bolshevism.” In the
30s Adenauer is given a sim-
ilar role, and declares that
“God has given a special task
to the German people” to “de-
fend the West” from the East.

Truly the wheel has come
full circle. Truly the “lessons
Of the ‘30s’ need to be learned
before it is too late. A book
Tamming home these lessons
would be invaluable.

But the Tories today are re-
peating the crimes of the ‘30s.
And Eden has set out to de-
fend and justify their policy.

He deals early in his book
with the war in Indo-China.
Here, in resisting the Ameri-

can pressure for intervention
. and preparing the way for the
1955 Summit Conference,

Eden played a generally posi-
tive role.

But, when we turn to Eur-
ope he is revealed as a willing
partner in the U.S. plans to

force through German rearm-
- ament at all costs.

“Mr. Dulles continued that
it might be necessary to work
for a French Government
which could take office solely
for the purpose of putting
through E.D.C.” remarks Eden
in 1953.
(E.D.C. was the “European De-
fence Community’’—the means
by which West Germany was
to be rearmed.)

Page after page describes
the prolonged, persistent and

powerful pressure exerted on

France by Britain and the U.S.
to agree to West German re-
armament. When E.D.C. was

ment, the Paris Agreements
were substituted.

They were originally defeat-
ed in the French National As-
sembly on Christmas Eve,
1954. Immediately the British
Foreign Office issued a state-
ment saying: “The rejection of
the Paris Agreements would
not mean that German rearma-
ment would not take place.
The issue is not whether the
German Federal Republic will
rearm, but how.”

From beginning to end of
his book Eden shows no sign

KONRAD ADENAUER

of recognizing the madness of
the policy he pursued. Blind-
ness is the kindest word to
apply to his attitude.

But, of course, others were
equally blind—and as a con-
sequence receive Eden’s praise.
Of Ernest Bevin as Labour
Foreign Secretary, Eden
writes: “I would publicly have
agreed with him more, if I had
not been anxious to embarrass
him less.”

Later he writes of the
Labour Government making
the atom bomb in secret, and
“ingeniously concealing the

large sums expended from
public and Parliamentary
gaze.”

They were right to make it,
he adds, and “they may have
been wise to conceal the fact
from their followers.”

This bipartisanship was tem-
porarily shattered by the over-
whelming Labour rank-and-file
protest against Suez.

And if madness is the word
to apply to Eden’s German
policy, what are we to say of
Suez?

Far from giving any new
information or argument which
would alter the general verdict
on Suez, Eden only confirms
that it was a calculated, plan-
ned, deliberate act of brutal
aggression, which is redeem-
ed of none of its horror by the
fact that it was foredoomed to
failure from the outset.

Eden sets all doubts at rest
as to whether there was col-
lusion between Britain, France
and Israel. He makes clear that
Britain envisaged the use of

defeated in the French Parlia-

beginning.

On September 6, more than
seven weeks before Israel mov-
ed, he sent a message to Presi-
dent Eisenhower, saying:

“I can assure you that we
are conscious of the burdens
and perils attending military
intervention . . . But if our
assessment is correct... our
duty is plain.” :

Of a conversation with the
French on October 16—nearly
a fortnight before hostilities
broke out—he says:

“We asked the French Min-

‘morals and habits of the rich

force against Egypt from the

JOHN FOSTER DULLES:

isters to do everything they
could to make clear to Israel
that an attack on Jordan would
have to be resisted by us...

“Tf Israel were to break out
against Egypt and not against
Jordan, this dilemma would
not arise. ‘

“For this reason, if there
were to be a breakout it was
better from our point of view
that it ‘should be against
Egypt.”

The Israelis obliged and the
pretext for British aggression

was there. And now, alongside
the attempted justification: of
the British action, come Eden’s
complaints against the U.S.
Every point previously made
about Indo-China is repeated—
but in reverse. Then, the
Americans - were going too
close to the brink. Now, they
are at fault for taking advan-
tage of the fact that Britain
had ‘gone over the brink.
Dulles was concerned only

to use the British difficulties to |’

strengthen the position of
American imperialism in the

¥

SIR ANTHONY EDEN

they plotted together to force through German rearmament . . .

Middle East. This was the re-
ward Eden received for his
subservience revealed through-
out the book, on Guatemala,
East-West trade, Europe and
the Far East.

Eden constantly refers to Sir
Winston Churchill as his guide
and mentor. Did Sir Winston
never give him the advice he
is said to have given to Sir
Edward Marsh during the war?

When the eminent Civil ser-
vant said of America: “I’m in
favour of kissing Uncle Sam

on both cheeks,” Sir Winston
replied: “But not on all four.”

Eden’s position during his
last days as Prime Minister, as
he describes it, is calculated to
win the readers’ sympathy. A
sick man, turned on by his
allies, defeated by forces whose
strength he did not compre-
hend, he was a pitable figure.

But we then realize that not
once has Eden expressed regret
or contrition for Suez.

We recall Port Said and note
that all Eden does is speak
about “wildly exaggerated
stories’ of the casualties, call-
ing in his defence Sir Edwin
Herbert, who reported that
650 ‘Egyptians died and 900
were detained in hospital.
“Only” 1,550 casualties!

A man who can commit such
a crime and feel no remorse for
it ean hardly expect sympathy

| himself.

But Eden’s book is not just
the, testament of a man who
could be callous and ruthless
and yet at the same time weak
and indecisive.

It is the record of the post-
war history of the British rul-
ing class—a class desperately
trying to hang on to its Em-
pire, blinded by anti-Commu-
nism, appeasing the United
States and Adenauer while pro-
testing that it had learnt the
lessons of the appeasement of
the ’30s, determined to main-
tain its position in the world
but lacking the means to do so.

Eden and his class tried to
hold back the tide of Social-
ism and the national libera-
tion movement, and were
swept aside. Eden went down
in ignominious defeat: .

That will be the fate of his’
successors — unless they face —

realities and embark on a
course of peaceful co-existence.

New film shakes Italy

The director of a film
which has shaken Italy by
its searing exposure of the

has received a Summons for

“obscene publications.”

He is Federico Filleni and
the film is “La Dolce Vita”
(“The Sweet Life”).

The police have confiscated
a still showing a woman sit-
ting on the bonnet of a car in
fishnet stockings: with partici-
pants in a seaside villa orgy in
the background.

The film, which painis an
unforgettable picture of - sex-
ual depravity and corruption
in high society, has aroused
the wrath of Catholic and
Right Wing circles, which have
clamoured for it to be suppres-
sed.

Challenged by the Right
Wing in Parliament, the Gov-
ernment of Signor Segni at

first refused to intervene, but

there have been threats to
force a drastic. cutting of the
film, which lasts for three
hours, on its general release.

Filleni, who is an existent-
ialist, has no constructive mes-
sage. to draw from his expos-
ure, and the film suffers from
a pessimistic fatalism, but it is
the very truth of his picture
that has enraged those who
want to suppress it or submit
it to- censorship. :

Filleni’s film ‘‘The Street’
is well known in Britain.

A poll taken among people
of all political opinions by the
Communist paper Unita shows
that the majority of Italians
interviewed are ‘against “La
Dolce Vita’? being banned, al-
though they differ as to
whether it has an education
value. f

The three questions Unita is
asking in its inquiry are: (1)
What pleases or displeases you
in the film? (2) Do you think

ANITA EKBERG

... stars in new film

the film in any way educative
and why? (3) What do you
think of the present campaign
to censor or ban it?

In this controversy a comic
interlude was provided when
representatives of the Italian
nobility, meeting at Florence,
condemned the film for
prompting audiences to form
opinions “harmful to the de-
corum of the Italian nobility.”

March 18, 1960—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 5

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