Analysis of the News in the Sunday Times

Arthur Krock, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Times Washington bureau chief and political columnist, analyzed Truman's first year in office and the expectations moving forward. Up to now, Krock wrote, Truman mostly had to deal with Democratic factionalism. His relations with Congress would grow even more difficult if, as some politicians predicted, the Republicans took control in the election at the end of the year. Some political observers expected Truman not to stand for reelection in 1948, however Krock felt that the president had shown great confidence that he would be able to resolve the issues he currently faced. Krock was considered the dean of Washington correspondents. He was very much part of the city's social scene. Politically he was an Old Guard conservative of the Coolidge/Hoover school. FDR called him a "Tory crockpot."

James B. Reston who won the first of his two Pulitzers in 1945 for his coverage of the Dumbarton Oaks Conference where the United Nations was formed, wrote on the bigger issues facing US foreign policy in the stalemate over the the peace accords. Clearly the US did not want to see the Soviet Union in Libya. Clearly we wanted Trieste to be a free city rather than a Yugoslavian one and we wanted the Dodecanese Islands transferred to Greece. But did we want a strong Italy? What was our policy toward France, at that time ruled by an uneasy coalition of democratic Socialists and Communists? Did we want to smash the industrial might of the Ruhr and the Rhineland or see it used for the benefit of all Europe? What was our stand on the intricate struggle for power going on in the Middle East? Reston felt that administration had been dealing in a piecemeal fashion with so many critical problems at home and abroad that it had not developed an overall European policy. Furthermore the veto system built into the peace process could paralyze any settlement. His hope was that the four powers would realize it was in their mutual best interests to avoid the kind of errors that were made after the first World War that contributed to the eventual outbreak of the Second World War. Reston, who had returned to The Times in 1945 after wartime duty, would become one of the most influential journalists of the next four decades.

The Times managing editor, Edwin L. James, wrote on the transfer of responsibility from the League of Nations to the United Nations. As a young reporter stationed in Paris at the end of the First World War, he had covered the Treaty of Versailles and the creation of the League of Nations. In his article he addressed the difficulties that the UN was having in finding a suitable permanent home in New York City. Some of the blame went to the organization itself and some to the city, but James wrote that the delegates felt that the national government, which had invited the UN to the US in the first place, had not paid much attention to their needs The Hunter College arrangement had not worked out well. The delegations had problems finding office space and did not feel particularly feel welcome on campus. James hoped that the new home being created for the General Assembly at the former site of the World's Fair and Lake Success would prove better. Otherwise, the Assembly might vote to move to another city or even out of the US. James felt it was important to keep the UN in the US to keep the nation engaged in the organization. After playing a major role in the creation of the League of Nations, the US had then played a major role in its subsequent ineffectiveness and eventual death.

The foreign bureaus also offered reports. The domestic news bureaus analyzed regional news. Recent changes in price controls and the issue of the effect of immigration quotas on efforts to provide sanctuary to refugees were also subjects of articles.