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Anything but delighted were British newsmen in Washington, who cabled stern stories back home. Shooting at the speech's most vulnerable spot, the London Timesman wrote: "Not by a single word did she show any awareness that the rights of innocent passage and free landing . . . must and would be reciprocally agreed as between sovereign nations." Henry Wallace answered his detractor: "I am sure the vast bulk of the Republicans do not want to stir up animosity against either our Russian or English Allies. . . ." In Detroit, Poet Carl Sandburg interrupted a Lincoln Day speech: "I'm sorry for anybody who talks of 'globaloney'. . . ." Eleanor Roosevelt could not resist. Said she: "Well, are we going to have a peaceful world or aren't we. All nations should have free access to the world's travel lanes."
Biggest blockbuster to land near Congresswoman Luce came from Britain's acrid, American-born Lady Astor (who six months ago bluntly stated her own view of Britain's self-interest as opposed to Russia): "I was horrified . . . appalled . . . shocked. . . . Clare Luce's 'globaloney' is too smart for me. It's like a very stylish and ridiculous hat. . . . Mrs. Luce does not know what the war is about. . . . People who start out to be sensational usually don't last long."
Commenting on both speech and reactions, Scripps-Howard Columnist William Philip Simms said: "It was a pity that it had to be left to a pretty woman to make the most-needed he-man speech on foreign policy that has been heard from either floor of the House since the war began. . . . Representative Luce is so famed for pulchritude, chic, wit and wisecracking that these got the headlines instead of the sound doctrines expounded and the grave warnings sounded. 'Glamorous' was the word her listeners thought of: not 'How damn true.' " Assistant Secretary of State Adolf A. Berle Jr. informed the House Foreign Affairs Committee that a committee of Army, Navy and CAB bigwigs had been studying the problem for months. Said he: American interests are being safeguarded.
British reactions at week's end: that the U.S., far from being impotent, was likely to be an all-too-formidable commercial air adversary for Britain when the fighting stops. It had not been a good week for the Brotherhood of Man. Perhaps Clare Luce had started a much-needed process of clearing the atmosphere. Her subject was more important than the speech or its reverberations: it is the key to the whole postwar world. This was just the start of the debate.