Rotundly encased in a black coat, striped pants, and glowing good humor, Winston Churchill beckoned toward the Laborite side of the House of Commons. "We have all," he boomed, "watched with attention, mitigated by occasional fatigue, the twirls, twitchings and convulsions which are taking place on the Front Bench opposite."
The Laborites had just come from a private meeting of their own, one of the stormiest in years. Rebel Aneurin Bevan, who is louder about his anti-Americanism than his antiCommunism, was now making no secret of his campaign to wrest the party from Moderate Clement Attlee. The Bevan wing demanded a tough vote of censure against Churchill, against the U.S. bombing raids on the Yalu River power plants (TIME, July 7) and against the U.S. conduct of the Korean war. Attlee, concerned for Anglo-American solidarity, adamantly refused to join the movement. He favored only a mild motion censuring Churchill for having failed to get advance notice of the raids. In the angry party showdown, Attlee won, 101 to 52—but some 60 non-Bevanite Laborites abstained rather than support Attlee's leadership.
A Big Snayfooo. When it came time to press Labor's gentle censure, Socialist Philip Noel-Baker was so meek & mild that Churchill rumbled: "I can hardly see a point of difference between us except that he has to do his best to move a vote of censure." The Laborite move was really an attempt to censure the U.S., said Churchill. He read from Secretary of State Dean Acheson's closed-door explanation to members of the House: "It is only as the result of what in the U.S. is known as a 'snafu'"—Churchill rolled the unfamiliar word around for a while and it came out snayfooo* —"that you were not consulted about it."
The P.M. had recovered from the bad-case of personal pique over Washington's failure to warn him of the Yalu bombings. "I do not remember any occasion when a more candid and manly course has been taken by a prominent public man," he said of Acheson's explanation.
You Don't Have to Like Him. "Due consideration should be given ... to the monumental patience, breaking all previous human records, which has been displayed by the American Government and people in discharging their duty to the U.N.," Churchill said. "I defy anyone to show any other historical example which can equal it ... But do not let us blind ourselves to the terrible cost that is being paid for their patience by the people of the U.S. I think we ought to admire them for the restraint which they have practiced instead of trying to find fault with them on every occasion . . ."
There was, he conceded, a difference between Americans and Britons on the matter of Communist China. "There are many Americans who think that China is more important than Europe. It certainly would be a great misfortune if that line of thought were to prevail ... At all costs, avoid being sprawled about in China. That is and has always been our basic policy." He had been among the first to suggest diplomatic recognition of Communist China, Churchill recalled. But ". . . if you recognize anyone, it does not mean that you like them. We all, for instance, recognize the right honorable gentleman, the member for Ebbw Vale."