Foul Winds

For 2 1/2 hours last week, India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru urged Nikita Khrushchev to halt his new program of nuclear tests. But Nehru emerged from the meeting with lines of discouragement etched on his face. "Once again the foul winds of war are blowing," he told a gathering of Indian students and diplomats. "There are atomic tests, and the world grows fearful."

During his stay in Moscow, Prime Minister Nehru found little cause for optimism, posed dourly with Khrushchev and Mikhail Suslov, Secretary of the Communist Party Central Committee, beneath a statue of Lenin. But at heart, the power struggle between the U.S. and Russia over West Berlin remained basically the same. The U.S. was still completely committed to the city's freedom and to guaranteeing access to it at all times. Russia, exploiting the fear of war, was pursuing a policy by which it hoped to drive the U.S. and the West out of Berlin by weakening the free world's resolve. Thus Nehru's "foul winds" would reach gale proportions only if Khrushchev failed to understand U.S. determination--and there were some Moscow observers who were afraid that he had not seen the storm warnings.

As Khrushchev continued to stage nuclear tests in the atmosphere, President Kennedy responded by announcing that the U.S. would resume its own tests underground. "We must now take those steps which prudent men find essential," he declared. "We have no other choice in fulfillment of the responsibilities of the United States Government to its own citizens and to the security of other free nations." Directed by AEC Chairman Glenn T. Seaborg, underground tests in Nevada were scheduled to start within a few days.

With the test program on his mind, President Kennedy met with white-haired John McCone, AEC chairman under Dwight Eisenhower, a longtime advocate of testing and the man who foresightedly had ordered the tunnels to be dug into Nevada mountains just in case the ban broke down. Now chairman of a Los Angeles steel corporation, McCone was invited to the White House to speak his mind --and, for an hour and a quarter, he did just that. McCone approved Kennedy's decision to resume testing, urged the President not to declare himself against atmospheric tests, since "outer-space tests may be necessary in the future."

Ominous Interview. Next day came news of a fourth Russian test, but that event seemed to pale alongside the implications of an extraordinary interview with Khrushchev by New York Timesman C. L. Sulzberger. The setting was peaceful--lemon soft drinks were on the table, Khrushchev politely pulled a ruffled yellow curtain to shade Sulzberger's eyes from the sun, cracked jokes that touched off "merry animation" among the Russians. But Sulzberger came away with the overwhelming impression that an overconfident Khrushchev still doubts that the U.S. and the West will fight to maintain freedom in Berlin or elsewhere.

Khrushchev brushed aside as mere "propaganda" Kennedy's request for a Russian-U.S. ban on fallout-producing atmospheric tests. At week's end, the U.S.S.R. formally rejected the Western proposal to restrict testing to underground efforts. Khrushchev called for negotiations with the U.S., said the talks would be "fruitful" only if President Kennedy came to the conference table prepared "to reach agreement on the conclusion of a German peace treaty, on giving West Berlin the status of a free city, and especially on the more important problem of disarmament." In other words, the talks would be "fruitful" if the U.S. did all the conceding.

Fight for Rights. Against this brazen Russian approach, any show of weakness by the U.S. would be disastrous. President Kennedy continued his crucial attempts to convince Khrushchev once and for all that the U.S. will indeed fight to preserve the rights of the free world in West Berlin. The Pentagon's plans to beef up U.S. defenses in Europe and at home were well publicized. Joined by Great Britain and France, the U.S. warned the Russians to keep hands off Western flights into Berlin, implied that any interference by Russian planes would be met by force.

Kennedy has not ruled out an eventual summit meeting with Khrushchev, but not before preliminary, behind -the -scenes talks have pounded home the point that the U.S. will use arms to honor its commitments in West Berlin. On the specifics of dealing with the Russians, the Kennedy Administration has compiled fully 54 separate proposals for Berlin, covering a wide assortment of contingencies. To make sure he got a variety of ideas, Kennedy requested memoranda on Berlin from many New Frontiersmen, including U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, Adviser Dean Acheson, Ambassador to Yugoslavia George Kennan, and State Under Secretary Chester Bowles.

Stand or Surrender. A man who knows the uses of power gave a stern lecture to the West last week. "Western appeasement," warned France's Charles de Gaulle, "can only divide the West as it faces ambitious imperialism. Withdrawal makes the aggressor more excited, makes him redouble his pressure. The Western powers can best serve peace by standing firm."

In truth, there was nothing else for the West to do but stand firm. There was no room for negotiation on the central point that the West must fight to keep West Berlin if that beleaguered city is threatened by either the Russians or the Communist East Germans. Said President Kennedy last week: "There is no question about Berlin. We'll fight."

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