Summer Puzzle

To most students, as they sat in an open car heading west or a metropolitan office or a Paris cafe, the summer's quota of world news sounded as if it had been coded and the key thrown away. No historian with an obscurantist bent could have dreamed up three months of events that inspired more confusion among the populace than did the months of July, August, and September in 1949, the fourth year of cold war. The headlines asked many questions, which, treated calmly, would have been difficult to answer; dealt with emotionally, as most of the questions were, they could not be answered at all.

"Who is lying, Hiss or Chambers?" This question was asked of a jury in New York's Federal Courthouse and of a nation outside. But the quiz game became really perplexing when the defense brought in testimony on a book theft from the Columbia Library over 20 years ago, and when the prosecution started asking about the color of wall-paper. The jury, confused, but air-conditioned, fiddled with a Woodstock typewriter and then gave up; they were 8 to 4 for conviction, and they were as angry and upset as most others. One juryman, who had been in the majority, told reporters, "We pounded hell out of those four. . . . I felt like wringing their necks.

Thirteen floors below the Hiss trial, 11 Communists made life no easier for those seeking answers. Did or did not the hedging testimony of the Party leaders mean that they were advocating revolution? And was the Smith Act constitutional? Tough questions, and they seemed tougher still in a court of law surrounded by pickets and counter-pickets.

In the Senate, the answer to one question was supposed to be down in black and white, in the Atlantic Pact. But there was violent disagreement on what the fancy script meant. The question was: "Does the treaty commit us to arm and aid Europe's armies?" (An old question in a new context). Senator Taft, respected for his brains, answered, "Yes." Senator Dulles, respected for his brains, answered, "No." The rest of the Senators, some respected, some not, weren't agreed either, but they voted for the Pact. An arms bill may pass the Senate, but what the original treaty meant remained a question.

Another summer enigma revolved around the Kremlin's new foe, Tito of Yugoslavia. Was Tito really Russia's foe or was this war of words well rehearsed? Should this country put a Communist dictatorship on the dole, and if so, for which reason: because Tito spat at Stalin or because Tito needed help?

Who is committed to what, who advocated what, and who lied? These questions will still be questions this autumn. And to the curious, these events, all stemming from trouble with Russia, will continue to be insoluble until the emotions cool.

In the Paris cafe or the office building or even in the open car (with the radio up high) no student could throttle his biases. If it is at all possible to study these new questions reasonably, then this University community is the place. Away from the picketlines and with the headlines tucked inside a notebook, perhaps we shall be able to unscramble some of the questions raised this summer, when the heat was on.