Choice of Weapons

Like neighbors gathering for a housewarming, the 15 foreign ministers of the North Atlantic alliance gathered in Bonn last week. West Germany's place in the alliance is now so well accepted that the world little noted that this was the first time such a NATO meeting had been held on German soil. Arriving at the airport, U.S. Secretary of State Dulles referred to it: "Two years ago a sovereign, democratic and peace-loving German state, arisen from the ashes of war, joined this organization. Now we meet on German soil to counsel together on how to advance further that common welfare."

Advance was not quite the word of the day: there were some more worried by retreat. The continental nations were irritated by the British decision to withdraw some 13,000 troops from Europe within a year and to put their chief reliance in nuclear weapons. France's Foreign Minister Christian Pineau argued heatedly that unless conventional forces were maintained, NATO would have to use nuclear weapons in even a minor defensive action, and thus might touch off an atomic holocaust. Norway and 'The Netherlands were also worried about having nothing but nuclear eggs in the basket. Aware of European fears of a chain reaction to Britain's troop reductions. Dulles brought assurance from President Eisenhower that the U.S. has "no intentions whatsoever" of reducing U.S. troop strength in Europe.

In one important respect, the NATO members showed that the spirit of NATO is not to be judged simply by declining arms budgets. In recent weeks Soviet Russia has threatened Turkey, Norway, The Netherlands, Denmark, Britain. Greece, Spain, Iceland and most recently West Germany with atomic retaliation if they allow NATO to base atomic weapons on their territories. One by one, the ministers of the threatened countries scornfully declared their rejection of the Soviet threats. Said Norway's Foreign Minister Halvard Lange proudly: "If the Russian intent was to weaken the faith of the Norwegian public in NATO, the effect has been exactly the opposite."

Normally such a firm line would have been heard from the host, too. But it is election year for Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, and the opposition Social Democrats have been shrilly demanding that Germany refuse to arm itself with atomic weapons lest it bring atomic devastation on itself. Added to their outcries was the opposition to nuclear weapons expressed by 18 of Germany's most eminent scientists, and by aging Nobel Prizewinner Dr. Albert Schweitzer. Adenauer decided that it was politically wiser to backtrack temporarily, assured the Russians that Germany did not have any atomic weapons and had not asked for any.

But for the record. German Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano added West Germany's signature to the NATO Council's final communique: "It is the availability of the most modern weapons of defense which will discourage attempts to launch any . . . attack on the alliance."

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