The supranational ordering of atomic power is the indispensable precondition for survival, but it tells us nothing about the purpose for which we want to survive. And while this problem has been the object of protracted negotiations, the United States, as the leading nation of the non-Communist world, was called upon to act as though that problem were on the way to solution, as though mankind and, more particularly, Western civilization would survive, and to fashion out of its power and leadership a common purpose for the whole non-Communist world.

The United States was expected to use its predominant power on behalf of the purpose that would be not only its own but also one in which the non- Communist world could recognize its distinct character and in whose achievement it could experience a common destiny.

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.