Old Flexible

From the moment the NATO Prime Ministers met for a post-Sputnik conference in Paris last December, it became part of Western European belief that their deliberations constituted a famous victory over John Foster Dulles by the forces of reason. At Paris, so the legend went, the farsighted statesmen of Europe finally overrode Dulles' pathologic distrust of Communists, began to push him, kicking and protesting, toward the one thing that might relieve world tensions--a summit conference with the Russians.

But last week, as 15 NATO foreign ministers wound up a three-day meeting in Copenhagen's Christiansborg Palace, strange new sounds filled the air of Western Europe, and echoed in the big segment of the U.S. press that was cool or hostile to Dulles in his summit-conference position. Secretary Dulles, declared one European statesman, "is a much-maligned man. If only everyone could hear him in a closed session." "You know," echoed a member of one of the smaller NATO delegations, "Mr. Dulles did not once give us a lecture, did not once tell us about morality, did not once urge us to leave our fates in the hands of the Almighty. It seems possible, in fact, that he is learning to get along with his allies as equal--well, almost equal--partners."

Vindication. Wrote the New York Times's Drew Middleton: "Dulles' prestige among governments allied with the U.S. is probably higher now than at any time since he first became Secretary of State. This stubborn, proud man has, in a comparatively short span of six months, seen both his stubbornness and his pride vindicated." At the Paris conference, recalled London's conservative Daily Telegraph, "Mr. Dulles stood out from his other ministerial colleagues like a gnarled tree stump, incongruously recalling the hard winds of winter among a bed of spring flowers all heralding the soft days of sunshine ahead. But the sun failed to shine. When the ministers met this week in Copenhagen, therefore, it was the gnarled tree stump that seemed congruous and seasonal, with the spring flowers looking and sounding sadly out of place."

The Cold North Wind. The fact was, as the Daily Telegraph suggested, that there had been no essential change in the man whom Britain's left-wing Cartoonist David Low once labeled "Old Inflexible." The change that Europeans saw in him was more correctly a change in themselves. At the time of the Paris conference, European public opinion demanded a summit meeting--at least half-convinced that the Russians sincerely wanted a general settlement. But in the weeks preceding Copenhagen, the Russians 1) stalled over the ground rules for summit talks, 2) announced that they no longer felt bound by their Geneva Conference pledge to work toward German reunification, 3) vetoed the U.S.'s Arctic inspection plan.

Under the impact of these icy blasts from Moscow, many a European statesman began to express private doubts that a meeting would accomplish anything. At Copenhagen, Norway's Halvard Lange, once an all-out summiteer, now urged "extreme caution before we agree with the Russians on summit talks." West Germany's Heinrich von Brentano, speaking for Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who at Paris had startled the world by urging a fresh approach to the Russians, flatly declared: "We should not alter our position unless the Russians have a substantial offer to make."

Fresh from the Mint. Dulles resisted any temptation to preen. "There he sat," said one British diplomat, "listening to men put on record what he and everyone else who knows anything about the Soviets have known since 1920. But he never gave the slightest indication of boredom. He looked as though every word he heard had been freshly minted."

By the end of the conference, Dulles, of all the NATO ministers, sounded the least pessimistic about summit prospects, had all the appearances of being Old Mr. Flexible himself and was virtually being warned by his colleagues not to display too much eagerness to rush into talks on Moscow's terms. On the record, Dulles was still declaring the U.S. willingness to meet with the Russians if there should be any prospect of settling anything.

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