Success Story

The continued moral bankruptcy of the American people in international affairs was nowhere more amply demonstrated than in last Saturday's session of the Economic and Security Council at Lake Success, New York. Headed by the United States, the Council voted, ten to five, to defeat a proposal to suspend negotiations with the Provisional International Civil Aviation Organization on the grounds that France's Spain was a member of the organization. This latest move of the Security Council represents not only a direct violation of the Un. N. General Assembly agreement which specifically states that the U. N. should have absolutely no dealings with Spain, but is the latest tragic instance of American appeasement of the world's greatest surviving admittedly Fascist power.

American opposition to the exclusion of Spain is a partial result of pressure from U. S. airlines eager for Spanish airfields with which to tap the lucrative European air market. As has been too often the case in our domestic history, the realities of profit and loss statements have now been substituted for moral value in our present foreign policy. Only in those instances where the prospect of capital gain has not been a factor has our policy towards Franco been uncompromising. Such a case arose at Lake Success last week when the United States joined with the other nations at the conference in refusing permission for Spain to participate in international control of narcotics. John G. Winant, American representative to the meetings, who voted to exclude Spain on the narcotics question and to include her in the Aviation Organization, lamely explained his anomalous stand by stating that "the situation with regard to Picao (Provisional International Aviation Organization) is quite different."

In the face of the almost certain presence in Spain of German SS leaders, laboratories, and military equipment, America continues to do business with Franco. Aside from the reprehensibility of dealing with a nation which for almost ten years has held a large and important section of its population in semi-slavery maintaining relations with the cradle of the new European Fascism is almost treason. And until such time as we face the Spanish situation fully and fearlessly, the United States cannot resume its discarded mantle of moral leadership of the world.