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Harold Stassen, genuinely devoted to the idea of world security through world action, stiffly opposed the Latin recalcitrants and told them they were getting beyond themselves. The delegation's quiet Republican adviser, John Foster Dulles, saw that a free rein to Pan American regionalism would mean a free rein to Soviet regionalism, and therefore felt that the Latins were doing a grave disservice to all the western world. Ed Stettinius, unwilling or unable to club his Latin friends into line, sought a formula which would appease them without completely sacrificing the principle of world control.
Snapped a European foe of regionalism: "The trouble with you Americans is, you don't know your own power. You don't know how strong you are."
Toward the Mat. The conference still had many serious problems to meet and solve. But, so far, no problem in writing the charter had proven insoluble; a compromise had invariably been found.
Last week Russia's Molotov, having stayed longer than he originally intended, packed up and flew. Anthony Eden, tugged homeward by domestic politics and the pressing demands of victory, decided to leave San Francisco before the regional issue was settled. En route, he expected to pause in Washington for a talk with President Truman.*The U.S. and British Ambassadors to Moscow, Averell Harriman and Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, also left San Francisco. With them went the pervasive, far-from-settled Polish issue, still the sorest point of dispute between the Big Three. A commentary on the state of Big Power relations was Averell Harriman's state of mind when he headed back to Moscow. Harriman, usually a mild fellow, was ready to.go to the mat.
*This week the U.S. and British stiffly asked Yugoslavia's Communist Marshal Tito to withdraw his forces from the disputed port of Trieste, relinquish it to Allied control until the rival claims of Italy and Yugoslavia can be settled at the postwar peace table.
*Reports that Harry Truman was soon to have his first meeting with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin reached such a pitch that Eden's Foreign Office took notice, called the stories "unfounded rumors."