Working on the Levee

Before the seals had hardened on the Indo-Chinese surrender last week, the U.S. and Britain were at work trying to erect a new levee against the Red flood in Asia. Said President Eisenhower: "The United States is actively pursuing discussions with other free nations with a view to the rapid organization of a collective defense in Southeast Asia in order to prevent further direct or indirect Communist aggression in that general area."

While U.S. military men talked about plans for a new main line of defense in Thailand, U.S. diplomats were conferring in a dozen capitals on the terms of the long-contemplated Southeast Asia Treaty Organization. Britain, meanwhile, began consultations with the Colombo powers (India, Indonesia, Burma, Pakistan and Ceylon) in the dubious hope of inducing them to join the SEATO conferees.

Details of the treaty would probably be worked out well in advance of the conference. In general, the treaty, as the U.S. would like to have it, would guarantee a united regional defense against further Communist penetration of Southeast Asia. Its guarantees would probably include the protection of Laos, Cambodia and South Viet Nam, although these countries, with their freedom restricted by the Geneva agreement, might not be able to join SEATO. Probable signatories: the U.S., Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, the Philippines, possibly Burma and Ceylon. Likely conference site: Baguio, the Philippines' mountainside summer capital. Probable date of the conference: early September. The meeting will be brief, allowing enough time for the foreign ministers to hurry to New York for another fight against Communist infiltration, at the convening of the ninth General Assembly of the United Nations, where Red China is expected to make a major bid for U.N. membership.

Obviously glum about the defeat in Indo-China, John Foster Dulles looked into the future and thought that he saw a silver lining in SEATO. Said he: "If the free nations which have a stake in this area will now work together to avail of present opportunities in the light of past experience, then the loss of the present may lead to the gain of the future."

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