Though we have been on the winning side of the two major wars of this century, American diplomacy has not been equally clear-cut in its results. Dealing as it does with the imponderables of history, it is in the nature of diplomacy to be blurred both in its successes and failures. Yet the frustration that we have known cannot be dismissed merely on the ground that one must allow for a margin of error and hope for the best.

American policy between the wars was a fiasco of monumental proportions. That the failure was one of omission rather than commission in no way exonerates us from a measure of responsibility for the outbreak of the second World War. We reaped the consequences of our own folly. Mr. Buehrig is professor of government at Indiana University.