British Initiative At N.A.T.O. Talks Urged

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28450, 3 December 1957, Page 13

British Initiative At N.A.T.O. Talks Urged

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.)

(Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, December 2. President Eisenhower’s illness and the possibility that he will not attend the N.A.T.O. summit meeting in Paris on December 16 have turned the speculations of British newspapers and political writers to the future course of Western leadership. Running through the commentaries of the last few days have been suggestions, some of them put much more strongly than others, that however unwilling Britain might be to take the advantage of the President’s incapacity, the opportunity has been presented for her to reassert her authority in the Anglo-American alliance. There has also been a lot of criticism in some quarters of the Republicans for forcing Mr Eisenhower into the Presidency at a time when they knew there was a definite possibility he might be unable to last out the term. As a consequence of this political move, it looked as though the President might be absent from the most vital talks among the Western Powers.

Stemming from all this, however, is the feeling that if Mr Eisenhower is not there, it is up to Mr Macmillan to step in and fill the breach in the leadership.

It is not denied that Mr Eisenhower’s personal presence in Paris would do much to assure the success of the talks, but even if he is still able to attend (here is no reason, according to diplomatic thought in London, why Mr Macmillan should not make apparent his determination no longer to take what one commentator terms a comparative back seat to American leadership. Approach to Russia

Strongly in the forefront of much editorial comment is a reflection of the growing public desire for some new sort of diplomatic approach to Russia. A suggestion of something of this nature made by an American diplomat and expert on Russian affairs, Mr George Kennan, in the 8.8.C.’s widely-respected Reith lectures, has had an appreciative reception in London and has been followed Qp approvingly by the newspapers. Let Mr Macmillan initiate a new approach to Russia, they say, one which will provide a better basis for the maintenance of peace than the present nuclear arms race.

There is no doubt that an uneasy feeling has been growing in Britain, the United States and V’estern Europe that Britain and America, both Governments and people, have become too obsessed with Russian achievements in the field of nuclear weapons and missile production and with the need for the West at least to equal these efforts instead of considering a more political approach to the problem of improving East-West relations or reducing the danger of war.

This suggestion that the West did not seem to be giving to political thinking the same amount of effort it was putting into strengthening its defences was touched on by Mr Bevan when he raised in the House of Commons the question of whether American planes which took off from British bases should have H-bombs on board. The ensuing debate and the implications of Mr Selwyn Lloyd's statement on the subject have since become part and parcel of the demand for a “new approach” in spite of the

fact that Mr Lloyd told Mr Bevan he thought the time was not ripe for such a move. There has been a welter of argument on the advisability or otherwise of planes carrying the H-bomb on patrol, but the chief complaint centres on the fact that the Government did not tell the Commons and the public about it. The consensus of opinion seems to be that under present circumstances, with the atomic weapons and rockets race going on, the alternative to having American H-bomb-carrying aircraft in the air would be far more disturbing. Diplomatic sources suggest that instead it would be better for Mr Macmillan to take the first step towards some sort of political understanding which might render relationships between the West and East less explosive and at the same time regain for Britain the initiative she so long has apparently been lacking.