ABSTRACT
Edmund Wilson's vision of an international community resting on collective security and a League of Nations to punish transgressors had become the dictum of the day. Waiter Lippmann, having shed his clinging Wilsonianism after Ethiopia and Munich, did not share the idealists' faith that the great powers would submit to the wishes of a numerical majority. Deliberately rejecting the idealists' belief in world law and international parliaments, Lippmann grounded his policy in national interest and alliances. The Americans professed to be shocked by such a cynical notion, conveniently ignoring their own privileged zone in Latin America and the Pacific. But to Lippmann it seemed clear that the Soviets could not be denied dominant influence in an area they deemed vital to their security. Lippmann never had any trouble separating his personal affection for a man from the man's qualifications for public office.
