The Washington Post, by Herbert Elliston

Arnold Toynbee in his recent volume Civilization on Trial says that Western civilization has been "living on spiritual capital. Practice, unsupported by belief, is a wasting asset, as we have suddenly discovered, to our dismay, in this generation." This is a passage that John Foster Dulles quoted in his address to the World Council of Churches meeting at Amsterdam. Out of the conference came a declaration which represents a great and worldwide effort to put enough belief into practice to restore vitality to religion. After ten years as a provisional body, the World Council, with 450 delegates representing 150 churches in 40 countries, has formally declared itself a permanent organization. There are big gaps even in this formidable nucleus of churches. The Roman Catholic Church, whose fold embraces the greatest number of Christians of any church, was not present, nor were the Russian Orthodox Church and the Southern Baptist Convention of the United States. But, if the new body falls a long way short of a reunion of Christendom, a historic event occurred, nevertheless, at Amsterdam. It "will go on working daily," as Mr. Dulles said, "to mobilize Christian power to break down the walls of division."

Clearly the fact that a pseudo-religion is on the march is the major event that has awakened the churches. Communism has flourished in a soil compounded of many elements. But one of them is undoubtedly the undermining of religous faith by the deepening and extension of schism and the deadening influence of mere ritual without works. This has diverted men to the worship of such false gods as nationalism, communism and fascism. It may be argued that extreme sectarianism has developed as a result of a series of rebellions against the elevation of form above content. If unity in diversity could have been maintained, the total effect would have been beneficial, but with splinteration has gone dissension and a pride in theological dogma which fly in the face of Holy Writ. If the fatherhood of God is the fundamental belief of most of mankind, surely the corollary—the brotherhood of man—cannot be denied. The great gulf fixed between the two conceptions in the hearts and minds of most of the God-worshipping world is an abomination in the sight of God.

In this respect philosophy, which, according to Betrand Russell, is something intermediate between theology and science, is coming to the support of religious belief, though organized religion fails to take advantage of it. The part is being rejected for the whole, and the only reality is the reality of relations—in the arts and sciences no less than in life itself. In other words, particularism of any kind has ceased to be acceptable on philosophical, let alone on religious, grounds. The time is thus overdue, in terms of the modern enlightenment no less than in those of the great challenge, when the whole armor ,of the church should be put to the task of restoring God in our daily life, lest Satan take possession of the vacuum. We hail the Amsterdam decision, and hope that it in turn will not degenerate into words signifying nothing.

(Courtesy of The Washington Post.)

The focus of diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia has suddenly switched from the assertion of American rights in Berlin to the assertion of American rights in America. On this issue there can be only one stand. In elementary self-respect the United States must insist on observance of its rights on the part of'foreign officials and on reparation and puhisbment in case of transgression. Such an answer should have been returned to the egregious Ambassador Panyushkin when he called it the State Department on Saturday and for an hour and 40 minutes harangued Undersecretary Lovett on nonexistent Soviet rights to the custody and control of Mme. Kosenkina. It is now incontrovertibly clear that the Russian school teacher wants neither Soviet custody nor Soviet control. She demonstrated this by throwing herself out of a window in the Consulate General in New York City where she was confined, and she is entitled under international law to the American protection which she has been given and which Mr. Lovett has reaffirmed.

What the Ambassador is contesting are two American rights: first, the right of the United States to afford asylum, if it wishes, to foreigners on American soil who ask for American protection; and, secondly, the jurisdiction of the United States over foreign nationals in the United States. The basic issue is American sovereignty in America itself. It is a fantastic state of affairs that this should be called in question, and the challenge must be met without hesitation and with the utmost firmness. It is as if the United States has a semicolonial status in the eyes of the Soviet Union. Whatever the Soviet thinks is its own business, but when it acts in America on such an assumption, a swift and sharp correction is required. There is no sort of extraterritoriality on American soil for Soviet citizens.

It is our conclusion that for sheer brass the Ambassador deserves a medal, and has put himself in a position where he can no longer be considered persona grata. He has been persona non grata to a lot of Americans, we fancy, since last Tuesday, when he called a press conference, and made scathing and gratuitous remarks about a member of the American Congress, Representative Mundt. Mr. Mundt even though he is horning in on the case, had nothing to do with it, and neither has the spy hearing.

The United States has been very patient in finding out the facts on the Kosenkina case. But not the slightest cooperation has been had from the New York Consulate General. There is only one blank that still has to be filled in, and Consul General Lomakin has the key. It is the letter that Mme. Kosenkina wrote to the Consul General from Reed Farm. N. Y. Molotov says she was chloroformed and taken to Reed Farm by a "White guard gangster organization." Last Saturday, at an extraordinary press conference, Mr. Lomakin read parts of Mme. Kosenkina’s letter, and made it appear that it was an appeal to rescue her from the "clutches" of the "White Russians." Mme. Kosenkina retorts from her hospital bed that the letter was a renunciation of her Soviet citizenship. The truth could be established by production of the letter. This would prove whether or not Mme. Kosenkina was taken to Reed Farm under duress, as Molotov and his representatives in America allege. If this can be proved, then charges should be preferred against the abductors.

It is already known that in a dime novel exploit Lomakin and his minions in the Consulate General snatched Mme. Kosenkina from Reed Farm. In taking the law into his own hands Lomakin is equally chargeable with a violation of American law, and there is nothing in the rights of foreign officials to prevent the responsible Soviet parties from being haled before the courts for kidnapping. There is no immunity for consuls and consulates from visit and search and prosecution even under Soviet interpretation of international law. After Lomakin and his underlings have been brought to trial, and the case disposed of in court, they should be given their marching orders, and the Consulate General closed down—until reciprocity in consular arrangements is forthcoming in the Soviet Union.

It is time that the United States assumed the initiative in this matter, instead of allowing the Soviet to cover up its wrongdoing by intimidation. Already we have suffered ourselves to receive a protest by Molotov, reiterating the blatant untruths of his representatives in America, and subjecting ourselves to the indignity of making a conciliatory response. It is as if the Soviet Union were injured. The demonstrable fact is that the United States has been injured, and its institutions held in contumely. Our own honor requires action, "face" with other countries demands it, and the very excesses of Molotov's note shows that he expects it.

The precedents arc ample for prompt action against foreign officials who abuse American hospitality and interfere in America's domestic affairs. In 1793 the Citizen Genet, coming here as the first representative of the French Republic, was blacklisted for dubious behavior, though the government of the day allowed him to stay in America in a private capacity because the advent of a rival revolutionary party in Paris would have insured his dispatch on the guillotine. In 1888 the British Ambassador, Lord Sackville, was handed his passports. His offense was merely an act of imprudence arising from the receipt of a fraudulent letter in election year asking his advice on the way to cast a ballot. Even the Ambassador’s answer was indirect, but Lord Sackville had to go, nevertheless. In mid-1941 the United States closed down all the Axis consulates in America because they were sources of Axis propaganda. The United States was not then at war, but this abuse of American institutions was beyond American stomaching. Lomakin’s offense, compounded by the Ambassador, was much worse than any of these precedents.

It is as certain as certain can be that the Soviet Union would put the worst construction on American hesitation. It knows that Lomakin and Panyushkin have blundered. That is the reason that Molotov tried to beat the State Department to the diplomatic draw with his ridiculous and highhanded demarche—an effort, if ever there was one, at bullying. If this Government docs not regain the initiative, Moscow will think that America is simply pusillanimous. The reaction on the negotiations about negotiations over Germany in Moscow is likely, in consequence, to be disastrous. It will be thought that the United States is afraid, and it is fear and weakness on which Soviet diplomacy capitalize. Timing is all important in relations with Moscow, and nothing is worse than to be paralyzed when action is necessary, and bold when prudence is indicated.

(Courtesy of The Washington Post.)