The Hard Line (Contd.)

While the U.S. was enjoying its peaceful, prosperous summer, two facts came clear about Communist diplomacy 1957. These were that 1) the Russians, pouring arms into Syria and ships into the Mediterranean, were back at their old oft-frustrated game of trying to get a foothold in the Middle East; and 2) they wanted no part of effective disarmament, a point proved when they turned down the West's latest and most moderate disarmament proposals--and instead brandished their first test-model intercontinental ballistic missile.

Last week Secretary of State Dulles got up before the opening general debate of the U.N. General Assembly (see FOREIGN NEWS) to tell where the U.S. stands on the twin issues.

Syria. Dulles put the current diplomatic point and counterpoint about Syria into proper perspective by recalling Russia's failures in persistent attempts to dominate the strategic, oil-rich Middle East and eastern Mediterranean. In 1940 the Communists went after a spheres-of-influence deal with Ally Adolf Hitler that would give them control "in the general direction of the Persian Gulf"; in 1945-46 the Communists prolonged their wartime occupation of Azerbaijan in northern Iran, were forced out by U.N. pressure; between 1946 and 1949 the Communists sparked the Greek civil war, saw it fizzle out; in 1955 they sent tanks and MIGs to Egypt's volatile Gamal Abdel Nasser, saw them smashed in the Suez crisis. Now there was Syria. "There," said Dulles, "Soviet-bloc arms were exultantly received and political power has increasingly been taken over by those who depend upon Moscow. True patriots have been driven from positions of power by arrests or intimidation. One consequence of this is that Turkey now faces military danger from the major buildup of Soviet arms in Syria on its southern border, a buildup concerted with Soviet military power on Turkey's northern border."

In this situation Dulles' central concern was that Syria's Soviet-armed leaders, "perhaps unwittingly," might be led by "an abnormal sense of power" into attacking their Arab neighbors. Dulles warned the Syrians--"This is risky business"--and he quoted the action passage of the Eisenhower Doctrine. "The U.S. is prepared to use armed forces to assist any nation or group of nations requesting assistance against armed aggression from any country controlled by international Communism."

Disarmament. Dulles restated the major package proposals of the U.S. and its allies in the six-month-long disarmament talks in London. These were 1) rule out surprise attacks by setting up air and ground inspection, 2) stop production of fissionable materials for weapons and gradually convert nuclear stockpiles to atoms for peace, 3) suspend nuclear tests for two years, 4) no war experiments to be conducted in space, 5) begin the reduction of conventional arms. Under such a disarmament system, said Dulles, "bad faith would be so vulnerable to detection that it would not become a profitable tactic even for those so inclined." But the Russians had rejected these proposals, reiterating only that the West ought to stop nuclear tests without waiting for foolproof controls. Asked Dulles: Why?

"We seek," the Secretary said, "by experiments now carefully controlled, to find out how to eliminate the hazardous radioactive material now incident to the explosion of thermonuclear weapons. Also we seek to make nuclear weapons into discriminating weapons, suitable for defense against attacking troops, submarines and bombers, and for interception of intercontinental missiles. The Soviet Union seems not to want the character of nuclear weapons thus to be refined and changed. It seems to like it that nuclear weapons can be stigmatized as 'horror' weapons.

"Does it perhaps calculate that under these conditions governments subject to moral and religious influences will not be apt to use them? And would the Soviet government, which is itself not subject to moral and religious restraints, thereby gain a special freedom of action and initiative as regards such weapons? And does the Soviet Union not want nuclear weapons to be refined into effective defensive weapons which could repel an aggressive attack by those who control the most manpower? . . .

"Humanity faces a tragic future if the war threat is not brought under control. Any government that summarily rejects these disarmament proposals would accept a frightful responsibility before all the world."

But the next speaker was Russia's Andrei Gromyko, and his answer once again was nyet.

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