Churchill Goes to Washington

"I do not want to attach any exaggerated hope or importance to my visit to Washington," Winston Churchill had told his people. But it was hard to exaggerate the importance that the Prime Minister himself obviously attached to the trip.

He sat day & night with cabinet ministers, military chiefs, economists and atomic experts summoned to 10 Downing Street to brief him on "the whole field" of Anglo-American and world problems. Then, one day this week, Winston Churchill bundled his greatcoat about him and sailed on the Queen Mary for his first visit to the U.S. since 1949. With him, their briefcases bulging, were 35 ministers and advisers, including Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden; Lord Ismay, Secretary for Commonwealth Relations; Lord Cherwell, boss of Britain's atomic energy program; two of the three British chiefs of staff.

The party settled comfortably in the Queen's most luxurious suites on M deck. For the P.M., in Cabin No. 80 (once occupied by Molotov), were a special seven-foot bed, 24 extra-size ashtrays to catch cigar ashes, a supply of brandy, and a personal radiophone for "scrambler" calls from shore. The departure was held up for 24 hours while a crew repaired damage suffered on the Queen's easterly crossing--"the worst crossing," said her skipper, "that I have made in 37 years."

A different Churchill, whose carriage, manner and speech had begun to show his age (77), was voyaging to a different Washington. The warm personal camaraderie which bound together Churchill and

Franklin Roosevelt did not prevail in his relations with Harry Truman. Between the U.S. and Britain there was still great unity of purpose, but there were many misgivings in details. Many Americans were irritated at British recognition of Red China, tired of doling out money to the British, impatient at her refusal to plunge wholeheartedly into the unifying of Europe. Many Britons were convinced that they had been reduced to the state of a junior partner or a poor relation; they were worried about a lack of clear U.S. policy in the Middle and Far East, about their lack of voice in atomic-energy affairs, about increasing U.S. toughness toward Russia.

Some of the major subjects to be taken up in Washington:

ECONOMIC AID. Churchill is determined not to ask for a fresh U.S. loan. But from military and economic funds already appropriated he is anxious to get some dollars. And he wants 1,500,000 tons of U.S. steel to keep Britain's economy-straining rearmament program going.

NORTH ATLANTIC ALLIANCE. The British, particularly Old School Diplomat Eden, want to streamline NATO's cumbersome, committe-laden machinery. They prefer small, intimate sessions, with a few men holding strong powers of decision.

ATLANTIC COMMAND. Churchill is still dead set against giving NATO's Atlantic sea command to an American, will insist on none at all unless the U.S. gives the job to a British admiral.

MIDDLE EAST. Churchill hopes to clarify "the optical problem" between the U.S. and Britain--the different angles from which the two nations look at the Arabs. He hopes for renewed U.S. assurance of support for the British refusal to give ground to Egypt. The U.S. in turn hopes to convince Britain that it should try once more to negotiate an oil settlement with Iranian Premier Mossadegh, instead of waiting for Mossadegh to fall.

ATOMIC ENERGY. Using the argument that the British provide the U.S. with important atomic bases, Churchill hopes to resume the wartime exchange of atomic information, which has practically come to a stop since the Fuchs spy case.

COLD WAR. Churchill is reportedly itching to propose either a Big Four meeting or a "parley at the summit" between himself and Premier Stalin. Eden has steadfastly argued against the idea, knowing it would sit poorly in Washington, and would be regarded in Moscow as a sign of weakness.

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