THE TABLET August 16th, 1958 VOL. 2 \ 2, No. 6169

TH E TABLET

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER‘& REVIEW

Published as a N ew ^apei

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 184 0

AUGUST 16th, 1958

N1NEPENCE

The Holy Places: W hat th e United N a tio ns said in 1947.

Reconstructing a Republic: G eneral de G au lle ’s Proposals. By F ra n k M acm illan .

Catholic Higher Education: A Survey in the D ublin R eview . By N icolete Gray.

South African Commentary: W isdom from Jam es Morris. By P e te r Paul F eeny, O.P.

Critics*’ Columns : Notebook : Book Reviews : Letters : Chess IlllllllllllllllMMUmMMHMIHI—UlIJmilUM^— — MBW W— — — — Will — — — ■ II ■ Mil I —

THE DOLLAR DEAD

P R E S ID E N T EISENHOWER’S speech lo the General

Assembly of the United Nations marks a considerable advance on the Eisenhower Doctrine of some eighteen months ago. The Americans have learned a good deal in th a t period, but they are still to all appearances very much over-estimating what dollars alone can do. In the Middle East, among the educated leaders, independence is what is most prized, in which to build unity and so strength, and then to proceed upon courses in which they cannot expect the countenance of America or Britain. The Americans should understand that the more help they give to make the Arabs strong, the nearer they bring the day when they will be confronted with the whole question of Israel.

The Russians have been much more skilful. They have not tried to attach conditions to their practical and moral support, and have persuaded the Egyptians and Syrians that they really only want to see them fully independent, keeping in the background any further thoughts they may have about the next stage in the evolution of the Middle East.

Of the Russians’ two great advantages over the West, there is not very much to be done about Israel. The Russians have no past responsibility and are not concerned actively to thwart the great Arab aim. We have to bear the brunt, and pay the price of past policies. But our own interest should be turned from a liability to an advantage. America and Britain and Europe are very much more important to the economy of the Middle East than Russia, which is in no position to take the oil.

British and American public men and leader-writers, starting with those of The Times, should as a first step resolve never to let the adjective “ vital ” trip so lightly off their pens in relation to Middle Eastern oil, as they used to let it over the Suez Canal. Their policies should all the time be directed towards making the adjective ever wider of the mark. The Americans have been administering plans for a large-scale storage of Middle Eastern oil on their Eastern seaboard, and here they should be helped by the main European users.

The new generation of politicians in the Middle East are inexperienced and ambitious men, to whom it must be made quite clear that they have not got a stranglehold over Europe, for if they think they have they or their supplanters will be continually tempted to try to use it. The truth is that the Middle East is all the time losing its importance as the gateway between East and West, which it really was in the age of steam, but is not in the age of jet aircraft and ships propelled by atomic power. Only a little way ahead lies the time when the Arab world, so fa r from being deeply resentful at the presence and interest of the great industrial countries, will be much more anxious not to be neglected and left to one side. We wish we could think Mr. Selwyn Lloyd in New York is preoccupied by these large perspectives. The Summit not Excluded

In his latest answer to Mr. Macmillan M. Khrushchev explains that the meeting of the General Assembly need not exclude a small meeting of the Heads of four or five leading Powers, and that he would still like such a meeting. If so, no doubt the British Government’s attitude remains what it was, ready enough to meet and talk, though without any particular expectations.

It has never been very sensible to dislike a summit conference because it would give M. Khrushchev a platform and limelight as he arraigns the Western imperialists and proclaims that the Soviet Union stands for peace on earth among all men of goodwill. He is always in possession of a platform, and of limelight galore, by virtue of his position at the apex of the Soviet Union, and every speech and letter is displayed in the newspapers and reported on the radio of the world. The chief thing the Western Powers have to insist upon in any meeting is th a t the Russians do not control the agenda, so that they only discuss the Middle East and not Eastern Europe, only talk about the part of the world where Britain and America are concerned with other people’s countries and not that where the Soviet Union is much more directly and aggressively present.

It is a positive advantage th a t the Assembly has been invoked to discuss the Lebanon and Jordan, so that no