Echoes Around the World

Around the world, memories, fears and misgivings greeted the U.S. landing in Lebanon. The memories stirred in all nations that had ever been occupied (a good portion of the world's population), and raised doubts even among those Latin American, Asian and African nations that usually side with the West. The fear came from those who believed that U.S. involvement would increase the danger of war in the Middle East--a fear which the Russians set out to increase. The misgivings came from those who thought the West was backing the wrong forces in the Middle East in the wrong way.

Predictable was the Soviet bloc's denunciation of the U.S. move ("shameful aggression"): the Reds were delighted to change the subject from Hungary. Also predictable was the tiresome volley of "I told you so's" that poured forth from Israel, Britain and France, from those who believed that the West's troubles would be over by now had the Suez invaders been allowed "another 48 hours" in November 1956 to topple Nasser. To allies of the West, such as Turkey and Iran, one undeniable gain of the week's events was the fact that this time the U.S. and Britain were acting in concert in the Middle East. Cracked one Englishman who had been against Suez: "At least, the U.S. has now been found drunk in the same ditch with us."

Not all of the reaction was predictable, and some of it hurt. In Canada, Toronto's Globe and Mail asked: "What is the difference--leaving aside the bloodshed and brutality in Budapest--between what the Russians did in Hungary and what the U.S. has done in Lebanon? The comparison will outrage most Americans, but most of the world's population will draw it." Unfortunately, much of the world's population did. Other reactions:

Britain: Laborites in the House of Commons cried "shame" at word of the U.S. landings, but Party Leader Hugh Gaitskell rejected the demands of leftist Laborites for a Commons vote on the issue of British support. Two days later, when Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan announced the dispatch of British paratroopers to Jordan, Labor again demanded a vote, and left itself wide open for a shrewd riposte by Macmillan: "If it is not right to vote against America, why is it right to vote against Britain?" The censure of British intervention was defeated, 314-251.

This time Britain as a nation did not divide, as it had done at Suez, between those who puffed out their chests in pride and those who lowered their eyes in shame. Many who thought Anthony Eden's war on Nasser a senseless, immoral act regarded last week's moves, even if dangerous, as legal and justified. At week's end the British also landed a 400-man Royal Marine commando at Tobruk, Libya, near Egypt's western border.

In West Germany, under political pressure from Socialists who compared the U.S. landing with Hungary, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's government chided the U.S. for failing to notify NATO beforehand, as NATO partners had informally agreed to do after Suez.

France dispatched a carrier, a cruiser and three destroyers to the Lebanon coast for a quick show of support to the U.S., but did not go ashore, where the Lebanese people have unhappy memories of French rule.

India and Indonesia both formally demanded that the U.S. withdraw its marines. So did Premier Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana (a visitor in Canada last week) who has an Egyptian bride and recently visited Egypt, but is determined not to let Nasser dominate Africa. India's Nehru, so slow to condemn Soviet intervention in Budapest, but now disturbed by Communist gains in India, mildly condemned the U.S. The fall of Iraq, diminishing the Baghdad Pact, hurts Pakistan, and therefore pleases India.

In the Philippines, commented the Manila Chronicle, reflecting the opinion of other former colonies who are U.S. allies: "The Arabs desire to weld their countries together and limit both Western and Communist encroachments in the area." The Parliament of Arab Morocco, where the U.S. has air bases, "forcibly denounced" the intervention. But Premier Abdullah Khalil of the Sudan, who is under constant pressure as Nasser's southern neighbor, expressed his "overwhelming joy," described the landings as "the turning point towards stability." And in Turkey the relief at the U.S. action was so unrestrained that Turkey's Baghdad Pact partners, Iran and Pakistan, had to appeal for caution. Turkish Foreign Minister Fatin Rustu Zorlu wanted to march into Iraq, where some 100,000 Turks live.

In Israel the public's first reaction to the Iraqi coup--"When do we march?"--gave way to relief after the Lebanon landing. Austria, which got its independence by promising to be neutral, protested the flight of Mideast-bound troops over its territory.

Most criticisms around the world questioned the wisdom or the good of the U.S. action. But had the U.S. done nothing, abandoning its friends, a different chorus would have been heard.

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