At Least They're Speaking

THAW! cried U.S. headlines. OPERATION CHARM! purred the Paris press. The big news, of course, was that Charles de Gaulle last week was on speaking terms with his allies.

In Paris to attend a meeting of the South-East Asia Treaty Organization, Secretary of State Dean Rusk chatted "cordially" with France's President for about 35 minutes, counting time out for translation. Britain's Foreign Secretary Lord Home and France's Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville, who have been snubbing one another ever since Britain was excluded from the Common Market last January, also exchanged civilities. What's more, at an Elysee Palace reception for SEATO delegates from eight countries, le grand Charles affably declared: "Security means cooperation."

Subs, Please. Was this progress? Skeptics noted that France's government seemed more inclined to talk cooperation than to practice it. After indicating that they might honor a 15-month-old agreement to accept U.S.-controlled warheads for its German-based F-100 fighter-bombers, the French brusquely denied that they had any present plans "concerning the use of these planes within NATO." Nothing daunted, U.S. officials in Paris leaked wishful reports that France's nuclear force de frappe is badly behind schedule and beset with ever-mounting technical and financial problems. De Gaulle, it was hinted, was about ready to return to the NATO fold.

Not so, retorted a high-ranking French official. France, he insisted, will have its first 50 Mirage IV A-bombers in service by December 1965, on schedule; expects to have its own H-bomb "well before" 1970; and is actually ahead of schedule with its missile-launching submarine, now due in 1968. Thus De Gaulle had no reason to back away from his declared aim of nuclear independence. As the Gaullist Paris-Presse pointed out, "it is his partners who have greatly changed their tone" since the general rejected the U.S. offer of NATO-committed Polaris missiles last January.

The U.S. was still pushing its long-term plan for a surface Polaris fleet manned by mixed crews. However, Britain has little enthusiasm for the idea, while West Germany and Italy, which were both enthusiastic at first, have now indicated that they would rather sink their money in multimanned Polaris submarines. What the U.S. did win last week was substantial agreement from its allies--excluding France--on the general outline of a more limited scheme, the inter-allied, NATO-controlled strike force that Washington hopes to create in the near future.

Just a Gimmick? After a NATO session in Paris and conferences in London attended by Rusk. Defense Secretary McNamara and other top policymakers, the U.S. announced that it would present next month's NATO meeting in Ottawa with detailed plans for a nuclear command and planning structure to integrate the new inter-allied force. It would include Britain's V-bombers and, in 1968, its Polaris fleet, as well as three Polaris submarines that the U.S. has committed to NATO, and other Allied aircraft and missiles.

Some Allied planners dismissed the U.S. proposals as mere "gimmickry." But after all it was Western Europe that had been clamoring for a greater role in nuclear weapons policy. Now Washington had produced a plan that would go a long way toward meeting this demand. Most European countries seemed anxious to cooperate. Paris remained stiffly aloof, suggesting only that in the event of war, its own deterrent might be "coordinated" with a NATO nuclear force. If any U.S. officials really believed, as they said last week, that the French had shown a more "positive" attitude toward the Western Alliance, they gravely misjudged the aims of Charles de Gaulle. Snapped a German diplomat: "Of course the crisis isn't over. And it won't be as long as De Gaulle is around."

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