Problems at the Summit

The center of political power of the Western world was lodged this week in a bleak, jerry-built room across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower. The blue felt table around which sat 14 chiefs of Western governments/- was diplomatically round. But in reality, the man at the head of the table was unquestionably and inevitably the man who represented the U.S. From the minute President Eisenhower arrived.

Europeans had been inspecting him solicitously, cheered by every sign of vigor in his broad-armed wave or generous grin, but quick to note any slowing in his speech or in his gait. Around the table this week, NATO's chiefs of government watched Dwight Eisenhower and the nation he represented with the same commingling of doubt and uncertain hope.

With 40 television cameras peering into their faces. 900 newsmen watching their every move, the leaders labored under a burden of expectations that was of their own making. Conceived hastily as a dramatic device for restoring Western morale in the face of Sputnik, the meeting had been called before anyone had concluded just what it could be dramatic about. "Unless the NATO summit meeting conference achieves something great, it will be a failure,'' declared West Germany's Trierischer Volksfreund, saying what most chiefs of government recognized. But calculated leakage of exactly what each nation would propose had robbed the conference in advance of much of its potential dramatic impact. The U.S. delegation arrived in Paris with a draft of the final communique already prepared.

No Eagerness. In the tumble of vague plans and great expectations that had been thrown into the summit hopper, there was one clear and urgent need--the U.S. need for IRBM bases in Europe to counter Russia's missile potential, its threat to the U.S. and to U.S. retaliatory power. But many of the NATO allies were far from eager to accept the U.S. offer of missiles for bases. Defense Secretary Neil McElroy, in a quick swing through Europe's capitals, and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, in a series of preconference meetings in Paris, had quickly learned that.

West Germany's Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, fearful of domestic repercussions, hoped to avoid any immediate consideration of missile bases on German soil, and told Dulles so. French Foreign Minister Christian Pineau proposed an implied bargain: France would grant IRBM bases if the U.S. would back France in Algeria and support French ambitions to join Britain and the U.S. as NATO's third nuclear power. In Rome the semiofficial news agency Italia reported that "the Italian government does not consider granting of missile bases to NATO a necessary consequence of the international responsibilities Italy has already assumed."

Close to the Nerve. Russia's goateed Premier Nikolai Bulganin plunged into this already troubled atmosphere with purposeful skill. In separate notes to NATO nations Bulganin warned that the placement of U.S. missiles in Europe would "seriously" increase "the danger of a new war." In each the Russian Premier carefully jabbed at the recipient's most-exposed nerve. Examples:

WEST GERMANY, whose population is particularly sensitive to the threat of atomic destruction, was warned that by accepting missile bases it would court destruction of such flourishing cities as "Hamburg, Munich and Duesseldorf." put off all hope for reunification of Germany.

BRITAIN, whose Labor Party is in a state of self-induced panic over SAC bases in England, was rebuked for permitting "round-the-clock flights over the British Isles by British-based U.S. bombers carrying atom and hydrogen bombs."

THE NETHERLANDS was reminded that atomic war held special peril for the Dutch because "a great part of The Netherlands' territory lies below sea level."

TURKEY, which has shown unalloyed enthusiasm at the prospect of harboring U.S. missiles, was told: "A retaliatory blow will be struck first and foremost against a country where these bases are situated."

Bulganin's transparent intent was to sabotage the Paris conference. But the fears on which he played were not something he had invented. They were fears that have long haunted Western Europe, and they had been fanned into new life in recent weeks by many thinkers and speakers, including former U.S. Ambassador to Moscow George Kennan. In a series of lectures over the governmentcontrolled British Broadcasting Corp.. Kennan scoffed at any idea that "poor old Europe" could survive another war. argued vigorously that establishment of U.S. nuclear bases in Western Europe would ensure that "there can, in future, be no minor difficulty in Europe that does not at once develop into a major one," offered his own remedies for the situation (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS).

Sneaking Doubts. For more than a century after its birth, the U.S. had regarded with suspicion all "entangling alliances" and dreaded the prospect of becoming involved in "Europe's wars." Now, as in all the postwar years, the U.S. felt an urgent need for "interdependence" with Europe. "IRBM plus NATO equals ICBM." said Paris-Presse in a burst of oversimplification. "This equation is the reason for Ike's visit."

But now it was Europe that had begun to have sneaking doubts about entangling alliances and to dream, even if only faintly and intermittently, of the possibility of sitting out a U.S.-Russian war. IRBM bases would make the countries granting them subject to atomic reprisals--and perhaps for the sake of defending not Europe but the U.S. Even in West Germany, as staunch an ally as the U.S. has in continental Europe, a public-opinion poll last week indicated that 73% of the urban population was either "somewhat" or "totally" opposed to IRBM bases in Germany.

Higher & Higher. Europe wanted reassurance that the U.S.. despite its vulnerability to Russian nuclear assault--whether by aircraft in the present or ICBM in the near future--would really risk its cities to save Europe if not itself threatened. But if NATO means anything, Europe's safety still depends on the U.S., and will for a long time to come. Without the U.S.'s retaliatory power, Europe would not long be safe on a continent alone with Russia, and Europe knew it. Britain had already made clear its willingness to accept enough IRBMs to stock four bases (three to be manned by the British and one by U.S. troops). In time, similar agreements could probably be worked out with enough other NATO members to offset the Soviet ICBM threat.

To win these agreements would demand all the skill of U.S. diplomacy, all the force of leadership the U.S. could summon, both at the summit conference and thereafter. "Our relations with Europe," said one foreign policy expert last week, "are now entering the acute phase. Europe's bargaining position is very high now and will get higher before it declines."

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