NEW COURSE FOR NATO

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27962, 8 May 1956, Page 13

NEW COURSE FOR NATO

Soviet Economic Challenge TN.Z. Press Association— Copyright) (Rec. 9.30 p.m.) WASHINGTON, May 6. The views of nations outside the North Atlantic community are expected to be sought by the three men appointed by the NATO Council today to study ways of meeting the soviet Union’s new economic drive in the underdeveloped areas of the world. United States officials said that the three Foreign Ministers named for the study—Mr Lester Pearson (Canada), Mr Halvand Lange (Norway), and Mr Gaetano Martino (Italy)—would probably survey opinions from the ’Middle East and Asia as well as from the nations of the NATO Alliance itself. The three-man committee has already been nicknamed “The Three Wise Men.” The views of the underdeveloped areas, which the United States is anxious to see receive greater support in the face of the Soviet campaigns of political penetration and economic enticement. are regarded as particularly important as NATO begins to chart its new course in the economic and political fields.

Officials in Washington identify the main problems facing the three chosen Ministers as:—

The need to create more unity in Western Europe and to heal longstanding feuds which at present obstruct agreement on many aspects of foreign policy, especially foreign aid. The need to gain the sympathy and co-operation of neutral nations in Asia and the Middle East for the proposed broadening of NATOs role.

Officials agreed that the groundwork for action to meet the change in Soviet tactics would have to be prepared carefully to offset the distaste which many neutral nations have shown for the military aspects of the North Atlantic Treaty. A Paris message says that the delegates to the Atlantic Council meetting dispersed with mixed feelings about the results of their two-day conference.

Some had doubts whether the WeJ as giving the right reaction to Mos )w's friendship gestures. In private, officials frankly admitte lat in its seven-year history a NAT(

council meeting had never been so ill-prepared. A major action was the setting up of the committee of the Foreign Ministers of Canada, Norway, and Italy. They will “advise the council on ways and means to improve and extend co-operation in non-military fields and to develop greater unity within the Atlantic community.” This followed Ministerial concert about the threat to Western influence in the recent Soviet switch from military to economic and political pressure to win friends in the West and in neutral nations. Though there was full support for the proposal, many delegates hold strong doubts about whether this group will succeed where other similar missions in the past have failed. From France came the most grandiose proposal—a world economic development agency, under the United Nations, to co-ordinate assistance to poorer nations. It was passed to the NATO permanent council for further study, but most conference sources agreed that it was already dead. The two days of debate disclosed two distinct trends in thinking on how the West should react to the policies of the new collective leadership in the Kremlin. Led by France and Britain, the majority group favoured a cautious testing of Soviet intentions to see if Moscow would follow up words with deeds. However, a smaller section, which includes Greece. Turkey, and Italy, expressed apprehensions about this attitude. This group argued that NATO is basically a military alliance and they thought that too warm a reaction to Russia’s new line could undermine Western resistance to communism.