Principles and Heresies

ISOLATIONISM?

IT SOMETIMES HAPPENS that a series of actions, brought about by differing forces and differing motivations, reflect when taken together an underlying drift of events, an underlying motivation independent of the surface reasons for these actions. So, in the past few weeks President Nixon, presumably for reasons associated with the internal American economic situation, suspended the convertibility of the dollar and imposed a 10 per cent import surcharge, while a little later an alliance of liberal-to-radical senators— motivated primarily by opposition to the war in Indochina—and conservative senators—motivated primarily by the UN expulsion of Free China—combined to defeat the foreign-aid bill.

FS

About the Author

Frank S. Meyer

Frank S. Meyer was a senior editor of National Review.

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ISOLATIONISM?

IT SOMETIMES HAPPENS that a series of actions, brought about by differing forces and differing motivations, reflect when taken together an underlying drift of events, an underlying motivation independent of the surface reasons for these actions. So, in the past few weeks President Nixon, presumably for reasons associated with the internal American economic situation, suspended the convertibility of the dollar and imposed a 10 per cent import surcharge, while a little later an alliance of liberal-to-radical senators— motivated primarily by opposition to the war in Indochina—and conservative senators—motivated primarily by the UN expulsion of Free China—combined to defeat the foreign-aid bill.