The First Step

Baghdad is 600 miles from the Soviet city of Baku--about as far as Washington, D.C. is from Chicago. For centuries Russian imperialism groped without success for the power lodgment in the Middle East that the Soviet Union hopefully sees itself about to win. The Western powers had agreed to a summit meeting with Russia about the Middle East; and the radios of Cairo, Damascus and Baghdad all saluted this as a great Soviet breakthrough. "The Arabs are not Marxists," said Nikita Khrushchev last week. "But we hail them. National liberation is the first step."

This is how Nikita Khrushchev saluted his fellow Communists at a Polish embassy reception in Moscow last week: "It is a good time we all live in. The ice has broken, as it does during spring flood; everything is in turmoil. Everything moves ahead in its historical development. Vain are the efforts to stem the liberation struggle."

The next time Nasser sees Khrushchev, he might well ask him: If national liberation is the first step, what is the second?

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