Meeting In Bermuda

At the Mid-Ocean Club overlooking Bermuda's blue-green waters, President Dwight Eisenhower and Britain's Prime Minister Harold Macmillan planned to eat together, drink together, perhaps golf together for four days. These old friends of World War II days (when Macmillan was British Resident Minister at Ike's Algiers headquarters) had no formal agenda but much on their minds. Their main problem was to reestablish, between two nations, the working relationship that was shaken by Britain's decision to throw in with France and Israel on Suez.

The differences were real, and some of them remain. Neither in Sir Anthony Eden's resignation nor in Macmillan's assumption of office has there been any British acknowledgment of regret for its Suez invasion: it is generally regarded in Britain as a failure, but not a mistake. Selwyn Lloyd, Eden's Foreign Secretary, is still on the job, six months after Suez. The mood of the British press last week, as Nasser threw up new difficulties after Israel's withdrawal from his territory, was to crow at the U.S.: "I told you so." London papers, which used to save their sharpest digs for Dulles, have in recent weeks shifted their fire to Eisenhower (see cartoons). Once the most popular of U.S. leaders in British eyes, Eisenhower has been increasingly depicted as naive, credulous, lacking in decisiveness, and far sicker than he appears.

Some Britons recognize that part of the present difficulty of dealing with Nasser stems from problems created by their bungled attack. At this point, most were happy to leave the problem on Ike's doorstep, and even perhaps ready to grant that Britain currently is in no position to assert its own will in the Middle East. Suffering from the effects at home of the blocked canal and fearing the loss of most of its influence in the area--a defeat underlined last week by the agreement ending the 35-year-old relationship with Jordan and abandonment of its bases and installations there--Britain can only urge that the U.S. do what the British would like to see done, i.e., boycott the reopened Suez canal if Nasser makes any difficulty about tolls or free passage for ships of all nations.

Macmillan has other topics he is anxious to discuss with Ike. He would like the U.S. to join the Baghdad Pact, at least as a member of the military committee. (The U.S. will probably refuse, on the ground that to do so would alienate other Arab countries which the U.S. is trying to influence through the more amorphous Eisenhower Doctrine.) Macmillan may seek support for some modification of U.N. procedure so that the great powers will not be so much at the mercy of the Afro-Asian bloc in the General Assembly. He is prepared to discuss Britain's intention to reduce her European defense forces, and he will probably bring up relaxation of the trade embargo with Communist China.

But it's not so much the specifics that matter as finding a way for two old friends to talk together and work together again because they want to and because they must.

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