Calling the Bluff

"Recklessness" was Secretary of State Christian Herter's word as he went down the latest list of Soviet provocations with President Eisenhower at the summer White House in Newport, R.I. last week. "Recklessly irresponsible," he said publicly at his midweek press conference. The U.S. and its allies shared a growing concern: Was Nikita Khrushchev deluded by 1960 U.S. electioneering talk into thinking that he could stretch his risks until a new Administration takes over next January? Britain's Prime Minister Harold Macmillan shot off a letter telling Khrushchev, "I simply do not understand what your purpose is," warned him against the danger of war by "miscalculation" or "mischance." President Eisenhower, mild and conciliatory since the summit collapse and his own troubles in Japan, signaled for a tough turn in U.S. policy.

The President himself called for a meeting of the United Nations' 82-member Disarmament Commission to counter last month's flagrant Soviet walkout from disarmament talks. But the chief tough talker was Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, who sharply answered the Soviet threat to provide rocket protection for Communism in Castro's Cuba. "Do not touch us," snapped Lodge. "Do not touch those with whom we are tied. Do not seek to extend Communist imperialism." And when Soviet First Deputy Foreign Minister Vasily V. Kuznetsov flew in to ask the U.N.'s condemnation of "provocative . . . aggressive" flights of U.S. planes near the Soviet periphery, Lodge glanced up at the six visiting wives and widows of the crewmen of the downed RB-47E (TIME, July 25) and damned the Soviet show as "a pretty revolting piece of hypocrisy." Most important, Lodge called the Soviets on their threat to airlift Red troops into the chaotic Congo in defiance of U.N. attempts to bring about order (see FOREIGN NEWS). "With other United Nations members," said Lodge, "we will do whatever may be necessary to prevent the intrusion of any military forces not requested by the United Nations." The firm rejoinder--for the moment, at least --took the steam out of Soviet bluster about unilateral troop lifts.

Secretary Herter believes that Khrushchev is bluffing. Other State Department experts believe that Khrushchev is of no mind to risk the dangers of nuclear war but is using cheap talk to show Communists the world over that nobody can be more militant than Nikita. One sign of a bluff called came last week as the U.N. Security Council prepared to vote on a resolution calling for Belgian troops to withdraw "speedily" from the Congo. Russia's Vasily Kuznetsov grinned sheepishly and stopped protesting that the Congolese wanted military help only from the peace-loving Soviets. As open laughter sounded in the hall, the Soviet delegate cast his vote for the West-backed resolution, dropped his own resolution calling for withdrawal within three days.

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