THE TABLET February 1st. 1958. VOL. 211, No. 6141

TH E TABLET

Published as as Newspaper

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

FEBRUARY 1st, 1958

NINEPENCE

Egypt, Syria and Jordan: The Deceptive Lull Critical Years for School-Building: By the Bishop of Salford Marshal Tito s Future: A Traveller’s Conversations. By J. E. Alexander Lost Irish in the U.S.A.: The Church in the Deep South. By Sir Shane Leslie Greek Enigmas: The Splendour has Passed Away. By Joseph M inihan The Two Pacifisms: The Old Case and the New. By Christopher Hollis

The Holiness of Newman: Pere Bouyer’s Study. By C. Stephen Dessain

Critics’ Columns : Notebook : Book Reviews : Letters : Chess

SUMMIT

jy iR . MACMILLAN, from the other side of the world,

has now expressed himself as categorically in favour of talks with the Russian leaders ; and if this seems to have come somewhat reluctantly, in response to widespread public feeling, that underlines the danger that the talks may be entered on with insufficient preparation, and with the Russians feeling that they have got the American and British political leaders at a disadvantage because those leaders, unlike the Russians, have a highly vocal press and public behind them, demanding results, or the appearance of results. The first British reactions, like the American reactions, were highly official, giving the impression that the talks were not wanted at all, and that the two Governments had no other plans in view except to press forward with their own nuclear preparations. This impression was not j u s t ; the door was always kept a j a r ; but the Governments concerned have only themselves to criticise for the impression their answers made. They were answers made in a way which has enabled the Russians to pose as the human beings of flesh and blood who are trying to cut through a great deal of frustrating bureaucratic machinery. But the Russians on their side are continually striking the wrong note even in terms of their own propaganda and to the world.

M. Khrushchev makes the impression that he is convinced that now is the time, while Russia has a lead in long-range rockets, to hold a conference. But he is not going the best way about securing his object when he cannot refrain from boasting of the destructive power he wields. So boasting, he strengthens the hands of those Americans who say that this is no time for summit talks ; that the Russians would arrive in an arrogant and overbearing mood, well expressed by M. Khrushchev’s convivial remark that foreign diplomats

AGENDA can sleep soundly in Moscow, because Moscow is not in rocket range, while other capitals are.

If British and American statesmen insist that there must be adequate preparation before a summit meeting, that some sort of success to which both sides can point must be prearranged, it is precisely to avoid the meeting going to M. Khrushchev’s head. The worst conclusion he could draw would be that his long-range rockets had compelled the West to parley, and that he could use his latent threats to call a halt to NATO, and to forward the great Russian aim of diminishing and eliminating the ring of bases which Stalin’s intransigence and bad faith compelled the West, at vast expense, to construct.

Most of this expense fell on the Americans ; but they had the satisfaction, till very recently, of concluding that a policy of containment had contained the threat which Stalin had convinced them they had to take seriously. Policies energetically pursued create their own organisation and vested interests, find men who devote themselves to thinking and acting in a certain way, and when something on the scale of the Pentagon is brought into existence, there comes to be an immense mobilised professional view. Such a view easily carries greater weight with Presidents than the unorganised and more general opinion which may nevertheless reflect a better appreciation of the situation as a whole.

President Eisenhower and Mr. Dulles arc under a constant pressure to regard American-Russian relations as primarily a question for the military, and they arc now behaving as though they had suffered a military reverse with the launching of the Russian sputnik, and must redouble their efforts. Obviously they are right to err, if at all, by doing too much rather than too little in the way of preparedness, for they can afford to ; and at the moment it fits in well enough with the argument