Together & Stronger
Just 15 days out of the hospital afterhis operation for cancer, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles flewnorth from his Key West convalescence this week to confer withPresident Eisenhower in Augusta, Ga. Dulles was doggedly determined tofly to this week's meeting of the NATO Council in Paris to help repairthe damaged Atlantic alliance and reshape it for the long days ahead.Together in Augusta* the President and Dulles set the strategy: therewould be no international slugging match on the rights and wrongs ofSuez; there would be a new U.S. move, mulled over by the StateDepartment all summer, to work toward a stronger political and economicbase for NATO.
"Recent events have created some strain between members of the NATO,"said Dulles after the conference, "and the coming council meetingaffords an opportunity to rebuild a unity and strength. The need forthis has been tragically demonstrated by Soviet action in EasternEurope, particularly in Hungary. There is compelling reason to make theNATO within the area of its particular concern a stronger and moreeffective body. Thereby it can more surely achieve the treaty'sproclaimed goal of safeguarding the freedom, common heritage andcivilization of the North Atlantic peoples." As for the specificdangers of the Middle Eastern crisis, Dulles spoke just as hopefullyand carefully: "Certainly anyone must indeed be far gone in pessimismif he thinks the dangers of war are as great today as a month ago."
Even as the President and Dulles conferred, the Atlantic alliance wasshowing a healthier glow. To help the glow the President last week:
¶ Activated an emergency U.S. plan to send 675,000 bbls. of WesternHemisphere oil to Europe every day , in response to theBritish-French decision to withdraw troops from Suez.
¶ Proclaimed hisfaith in NATO as "a basic and indispensable element of American defensealliance against the continuing Soviet Communist threat."
¶ AssuredU.S. support for Britain's Moslem allies of the Baghdad Pact—Iraq,Iran, Turkey and Pakistan—in the event of any foreign attack.
¶ Warned pro-Communist Syria, an opponent of the Baghdad Pact, that theU.S. viewed its imports of Russian arms and equipment with graveconcern.
Beyond these specifics, both London and Paris seemed to understand thatthe U.S. intends to interest and involve itself in the Middle East tohelp get a long-range settlement; and the U.S. was fully conscious ofthe continuing British and French economic connections with the area.Thus the road was made clear for new moves towards a strongerNATO—based on a new reality.
* Where a semi-vacationing Ike kept in touch with Washingtonthrough a two-place switchboard, a bank of chattering Teletypes, aroomful of closely guarded cryptographic equipment for coding anddecoding, and a daily courier plane. He also played 18 holes of golf aday.
Next:Time for Streamlining
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