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Policy. The foreign policy of unarmed countries follows an exact pattern: assorted appeasements, big talk, empty threats, copious quotations from international law, appeals to reason. To this natural policy Welles has made a more practical addition: a search for friends. He is obsessed with the gigantic destiny of this Hemisphere; is sure in his soul that in this time of crisis, in a terrible century, when the seas shrink and the Hemisphere grows, the U.S. must find its own vast place in world affairs. Thus he has worked with furious suavity to grapple the 20 Latin American nations to the U.S. with hooks of steel, loops of gold, the ever more important interchange of ideas and responsibilities. He is now close to a major triumph.
Working persistently, learning patience and the wiles of politics from old Cordell Hull, who is rich in guile, Welles has carefully sketched in the background for the practical operation of the Hemisphere in a friendly alliance, unified of purpose. He admits that many of the problems seem insoluble today; he does not admit they will always be insoluble. Before him he has the example of Mr. Hull, who worked with single mind and infinite patience for 25 years to get his reciprocal-trade principle accepted by the world, saw it overthrown five years later by Adolf Hitler, yet has never for a moment thought of quitting.
South America today is a far different continent from even a year ago, when Hitler's agents regarded it as the world's softest touch. Within another year (estimates vary), the Hemisphere may be immunized against the Nazi infection. For this, Welles should get the major credit, but it is much more likely that he will merely appear, smiling wryly, in the background some day, while the President and others hang medals on one another for saving the Hemisphere.
The saving of the Far East is another matter. In the Orient the U.S. is not an unarmed nation; its naval muscles command from Japan a respect which Hitler does not grant the U.S. military muscles. Toward Japan Welles has had a clear policy of distrust. But again he has been an "appeaser," because he has consistently favored trading with Japan until the U.S. is ready for any consequences. Last week he had come to the bottom of the diplomatic barrel. There were almost no diplomatic moves left unmade. The problem of the Japanese would sooner or later be turned over to the Navy and its Commander in Chief.
Welles regards all extremes as ridiculous. To him the problem of post-war peace is primarily diplomatic: arrange means whereby trade will flow freely throughout the world, establish by negotiation an international diplomacy based on the Good Neighbor policy, insure the domination of the world by the Western Hemisphere, and the quiet but definite domination of the Western Hemisphere by the U.S.