Feelers From White House PREPARATIONS FOR EAST-WEST TALKS?

Press, Volume C, Issue 29468, 21 March 1961, Page 14

Feelers From White House PREPARATIONS FOR EAST-WEST TALKS?

[By ANTHOWT DORSitT of tM "Keonomtaf (From th« ••Econor.iUt" IntoUißOnco Unit)

London, March I.—The diplomatic season is opening uncertainly. An incessant probing of intentions is being conducted between East and West and between the Western countries themselves. President Kennedy's Ambas-sador-at-Large, Mr Averell Harriman, has been briefly in London, where he cut short his talks with Mr Macmillan and other Ministers to attend the King of Morocco's funeral. He is now expected to continue to Paris, Bonn, and Rome before returning to London by March 12. Mr Harriman is saying very little in public, but the impression is growing that his mission is to prepare not only for highlevel western meetings, such as Mr Macmillan’s approaching visit to Washington, but for even more important confrontations in the near future. The American Ambassador in Moscow. Mr Llewellyn Thompson, has been assisting in the presidential assessment of Mr Khrushchev’s policy in Washington. The first impression of the Kennedy Administration was that Mr Khrushchev was attempting to pressure it into an early summit meeting; the release of the RB-47 airmen and hints that Mr Khrushchev might attend the resumed session of the United Nations General Assembly suggested that an encounter was on the Soviet list of priorities. Now that the Soviet line has hardened, particularly over the Congo. United States officials are not so sure. Kennedy's Immunity Even so. it is still evident that the Soviet press and radio have been forbidden to attack President Kennedy personally, just as, in the hey-day of the KhrushchevEisenhower relationship, Soviet strictures against United States pqlicy were directed lower down in the Administration. Now it is Mr Adlai Stevenson whom Moscow holds responsible for the American attitude in the Security Council. This seems to mean that Mr Khrushchev has a meeting in view, and, for the present, he finds it convenient to continue the pretence that in President Kennedy he will find another Franklin Roosevelt of Yalta. It is the renewed Soviet attempt to nullify the United Nations as a peace-keeping authority that is particularly disturbing American and British officials. By trying to discredit Mr Hammarskjold in Afro-Asian eyes over the Congo, the Soviet Union plainly intends to ensure that by 1963, when Mr Hammarskjold’s term of office as Secretaiy-General expires, his post will not be entrusted to a single individual again. Hence the reappearance, in Mr Khrushchev’s letter to Mr Nehru, of the Soviet, plan to divide the United Nations secretariat between three representatives, drawn from the

East, the West and the neutrals. This has had no support from Mr Nehru but Mr Khrushchev has, in fact, served notice that he will hamstring Mr Hammarskjold if he can; should this vendetta mean that the United Nations' work is disrupted for the next two years, the Secretary-General’s position may become appreciably weaker than it is at present. Spiking U.N.'s Gans Either way, by vetoing powers for Mr Hammarskjold or giving his job to an unworkable committee, the Soviet intention seems to be to prevent the United Nations from intervening in any future internal crisis—in Africa, Asia, or Latin America—even to the extent that it has done in keeping the Greet Powers out of the Congo. This is a warning of the Soviet determination to exploit such crises to the full, and certainly in all ways short of outright military action. Such a policy is entirely within the meaning of competitive co-existence, as the Russians use the phrase, even if it is not what the West expects as a background to disarmament talks or the relaxing of existing tensions along the periphery of the Communist block.

What is disturbing to Western officials is the likelihood that Mr Khrushchev’s competitive activities will inevitably reflect the pressure that his Chinese allies, among others, mean to exert. There is no danger of Soviet military action in either the Congo or Cuba, where the Russian supply lines would be impossibly over-extended and vulnerable. But would Mr Khrushchev be so inhibited from using the Red Army as a political factor if the next major crisis were to be in Persia? It is still uncertain exactly what price Mr Khrushchev had to pay for the eventual agreement with the Chinese in the marathon Moscow talks at the end of last year.

In these uncertainties. President Kennedy seems to have found it expedient to test governmental opinion, and the political climate generally in western Europe, in an effort to settle Issues there before looking for any dramatic confrontation with the Soviet leadership. The Western position in any summit context would be markedly improved if some, at least, of the present European preoccupations could be brought nearer to a solution. General de Gaulle hopes to get an Algerian political settlement under way, with the help of President Bourguiba of Tunisia, in the coming weeks. If an agreement becomes possible in the course of the year, France may be more disposed to entertain the idea of a summit meeting—about which General de Gaulle had serious reservations in 195960—although it may be that Morocco’s political instability will still keep North Africa on the boil. NA.T.O. Reassessment

At the same time, Mr Macmillan continues to look for ways to bridge the gulf between Britain and the European Economic Community; as British officials never tire of saying, the prolonged economic division of Europe would have political consequences that the Kennedy Administration could find disturbing. N.A.T.O. is already in the throes of a strategic reassessment, including discussions on the control and deployment of nuclear arms, that may not be over In time for the next ministerial conference in Oslo in May; President Kennedy’s participation at the Oslo talks may. indeed, be essential to work things out

These are all problems in which United States influence can count for much. Mr Harriman’s mission is to see exactly where the critical points are, in the European view, and what is expected of United States policy in the coming months. It will be on these European decisions that the strength and coherence of the Western Alliance will depend for some time to come. The vigour of the alliance will, in turn, have a major influence on the course of the East-West negotiation that is shaping up.