Cloud of Difficulties

On an Air Force Constellation named the Dewdrop, Secretary Dulles arrived last week in Manila for the eight-power conference that would try to work out a Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). Although he is the most extensively traveled U.S. Secretary of State in history, Dulles had not been in the Philippines since 1950. He emerged from the plane smiling but somewhat disheveled, to receive a 19-gun salute. This, he said, would be "one of the most important international conferences of our time."

The meeting was important, no doubt, and the importance was enhanced by recent free-world defeats in Indo-China, Geneva and Paris (which Dulles did not allude to). But SEATO was beset by a cloud of its own difficulties and handicaps.

Matters of Definition. The two non-Communist powers of Asia with the largest armies--Formosa and South Korea--were not represented. Nor was Japan, which is potentially the strongest non-Communist power in Asia. Only two powers from the Asian mainland came to Manila: Thailand and Pakistan,-and Pakistan came only to observe. Four of the "Colombo powers"--India, Ceylon, Burma, Indonesia--stayed away.

Immediately, Dulles discovered that his draft of the pact, which was too strong for those who stayed away, was too weak for some who came. The American draft contained no provision for automatic action in case of aggression, as NATO does, but provides for emergency consultation and measures by each nation within its constitutional bounds. Dulles explained that, for SEATO, he could not persuade Congress to ratify a NATO-style treaty.

The U.S. wanted the threat defined as "Communist aggression" because it did not want to find itself pledged to stop some other kind of aggression (e.g., an India-Pakistan scrap). The British wanted to take out "Communist" on the grounds that unless this were done, none of the neutralist powers could ever be persuaded to join the alliance.

Thailand and the Philippines found themselves in a dispute over internal "liberation" movements. Since Thailand now finds herself threatened by the same kind of "inside job" as Indo-China was, she wanted guarantees against subversion. The Philippines wished to avoid any definition that would require her to help a colonial power quell a genuine nationalist movement. The U.S. wanted to protect the southern tier of Asian states--Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Viet Nam. The Philippines wanted to defend only treaty signers and challenged the right of France to sign for the three independent states of Indo-China.

Special Arrangement. In response to unremitting Philippine pleas for more U.S. assurances, Secretary Dulles reminded their leaders that they were the beneficiaries of special protection, such as the U.S. provides for Formosa. "The United States-Philippine defense treaty," said Dulles, "is an important link in the defense system of the free world in Asia. It should be so strong as to be unbreakable. I have been told that concern has been expressed that the United States might not come to the aid of your country in event of aggression. I wish to state in most emphatic terms that the United States will honor fully its commitments under the mutual-defense treaty. If the Philippines were attacked, the United States would act immediately."

This was fine as a special arrangement and a special warning to Communism, but it had little to offer to SEATO--unless the U.S. were willing to make similar guarantees for the other SEATO nations, which it was not. At best, the SEATO conference represented a determination by some nations in a world area to do some thing about Communist encroachment. The danger was that the conference might end up exposing with precision how little would be done, not how much.

*The other six: Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, the U.S., Britain, France.

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