Toward the Summit

In a shuffle of letters to Western chiefs of government and cocktail-party comments to Western diplomats, the Kremlin has been working hard to spread the notion that a parley at the summit is inevitable--on the Kremlin's terms. Newsmen in Europe and Washington have helped the notion along by reporting surges of what was called "world opinion" in favor of a parley to "end" the cold war. When the U.S., anxious not to repeat the letdown of 1955's spirit of Geneva, insisted that points at issue be explored at the foreign minister or ambassadorial level before any summit meeting, the Kremlin set about making mileage with the appeasement-minded by charging that the U.S. "attitude on peace" was "negative."

But one day last week the U.S.S.R.'s Bulganin, in his third letter to President Eisenhower in two months, went more than a step too far. In a too-obvious attempt to discredit Secretary of State Dulles, Bulganin suggested bypassing a meeting of foreign ministers in the preparations for the summit because of the "biased position" of some foreign ministers. Said Bulganin: "It is hardly necessary to explain why we would like to avoid this." At once U.S. Congressmen and editorial writers began to rally around Dulles with a rare show of strength that fortified the whole U.S. position.

Down with Rapacki. From the floor of the Senate, Dulles got more praise than he has heard in months. New Hampshire's Republican Styles Bridges, bitter critic of Dulles on foreign aid, called him "the most principled and resolved statesman of the West." Montana Democrat Mike Mansfield, who needled Dulles unmercifully during last year's great debate on the Eisenhower Doctrine, now reminded the Kremlin that Dulles is "the Secretary of State of the United States of America." At his weekly press conference the President, questioned on Bulganin's crack about biased foreign ministers, got a laugh when he cracked right back that the Kremlin "must have been talking about Foreign Minister Gromyko."

The White House disposed of Bulganin's latest letter with a request for "further clarification." The State Department, addressing itself to the much-discussed let's-neutralize-Central-Europe proposals of Poland's Foreign Minister Adam Rapacki--since endorsed by the Kremlin as a suitable topic for the summit--warned all U.S. diplomatic missions overseas that such a plan is "extremely dangerous." Added the President at his press conference, in a definitive statement of policy on such neutralize-Europe agreements:"

"Free nations, of which we are only one--and though we may be the strongest, we are simply another equal among equals --cannot make decisions respecting other free nations unilaterally or bilaterally with the Soviets. There has got to be an agreement in which the affected countries must be participants . . . We have established the NATO association realizing that the defense of the free world must work by cooperation when confronted by a monolith of force and power so great as the strength of the Communist area . . . We must not make a unilateral proposal that we go out, or that we demilitarize all Central Europe."

Moscow Reacts. In sum, the basic U.S. position for the start of any negotiations was just about as President Eisenhower had outlined it in his letter to Bulganin three weeks before (TIME, Jan. 20) : 1).reunification of Germany by free elections --promised by Russia at the 1955 summit conference, 2) permission for the Red satellites to have freedom to choose their own governments, 3) suspension of nuclear-weapons tests along with foolproof suspension of the production of nuclear weapons, 4) outer space for peaceful purposes. And as for the roots of the struggle, Dulles even contributed to a debate started by the British left-wing New Statesman by reminding soft-liners everywhere that, but for the use of force and violence, "Communist parties could not exercise power anywhere in the world."

All this did not mean that there would be no summit conference; in fact some Washington reporters were assuming that a conference was a foregone conclusion. What it did mean was that the U.S. was stating its minimum terms for approaching such a conference. Moscow responded in two interesting ways: 1) by sending to Washington a smiling new ambassador, Mikhail Alekseyvich Menshikov, 55, who lost no time in paying a friendly call on Secretary Dulles, and 2) at week's end by a terse broadcast on Radio Moscow: "We can but admit that the idea of adequate preparations for a summit conference advanced by U.S. leaders is correct."

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