The Doctrine & Beyond

The minute hand on the gold-numeraled clock on his desk showed eight minutes after 10 a.m. as the President picked up his black pen and wrote across the document that lay before him: "Approved. Dwight D. Eisenhower." Earlier in the week, the Senate had passed by 72 votes (42 Republicans, 30 Democrats) to 19 votes (16 Democrats, three Republicans*) the Eisenhower Doctrine, which offers U.S. military and economic help to free nations to keep Communism out of the Middle East (see box). Now Ike looked up and said to Press Secretary Jim Hagerty, "The ninth, isn't it?" and wrote the date beneath the doctrine.

"This occasion marks an important forward step," Ike said later in a formal statement. "The unity of national purpose which it reflects will increase the Administration's capabilities to contribute to reducing the Communist danger in the Middle East and to strengthening the general stability of the area."

Shifting Pressure. Even as the U.S. enacted the doctrine, the U.S. and the U.N. were pressing the step-by-step, inch-by-inch progress toward easement of the Middle East's internal problems. One day Israel got out of Gaza and the Aqaba Gulf positions, and the blue-helmeted soldiers of the U.N. Emergency Force moved in. Another day Syria agreed to start repairing oil pipelines sabotaged during the British-French-Israeli attack on Egypt, through which Iraqi oil can be pumped to Mediterranean ports en route to Europe. Even Nasser's Egypt, still dickering on complexities like who pays what Suez Canal tolls to whom, was ready to allow removal of the last blockships and the waterway could be cleared within the month (see FOREIGN NEWS). This week the President will send former House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman James P. Richards to the Middle East to explain the doctrine to Middle Eastern leaders.

It took only one Egyptian stall last week for Secretary of State Dulles to point to Egypt's "tendency to drag its feet." The U.S. was shifting its pressure from Israel to the dictator by the Nile.

Conspicuous Stage. The outlook was brighter, and the Western principals of the Middle East drama underscored Ike's deliberate low-pressure calmness by going about other duties. The U.N. General Assembly felt able to adjourn; Secretary of State Dulles felt able to take off for faraway Australia for a meeting of the SEATO Council; U.S. eyes were even swinging over to darkest Africa, where the old British colonial Gold Coast begat the new nation of Ghana to the blare of a New Orleans jazz band and appropriate quotations and paraphrases of Burke, e.g., "We are on a conspicuous stage, and the world marks our demeanor."

But in another sense, the U.S. had only just begun its quest for Middle Eastern stability, and the Eisenhower Doctrine was primarily the shield. "I was definitely pleased," the President said, hailing the passage of the doctrine. Then he added: "I merely would point this out: that from the beginning, the Secretary of State and I have insisted that the mere solution of one or two preliminary phases of the problems did not solve the underlying causes."

* Indiana's Jenner, Nevada's Malone, Wisconsin's McCarthy.

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